The Character of the Roman Emperor in the Auto de la destrucción de Jerusalén

Abstract

This article analyzes the Nahuatl version of the Auto de la destrucción de Jerusalén, a theater piece belonging to the period of the evangelization in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, based on the comparison with two works that are close in time: its counterpart in Spanish, present in the Códice de autos viejos, and La destruicion de Jerusalem, a prose text that develops the same motif as the other two works mentioned. We consider that it is possible to observe that the work of the Mexican evangelizing theater, without straying too far from the actions presented in the other pieces, transforms a work with anti-Semitic roots into a validation of the American conquest. The focus of the research will be on the figure of the Emperor Vespasian who functions, we propose, as an analog of the Emperor Charles V and not as an allegory of the native chiefs, an interpretation presented by the previous critic. The analogy between Vespasiano and Carlos V is built in the Nahuatl text from the relative cover-up of Vespasian's pagan condition —a characteristic highlighted in the two Castilian works— and from the emphasis that the New Spanish auto places on the territorial rights of the emperor.