The Sacrifice of Isaac: A Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Play he members of the Catholic orders who lived in Mexico used different approaches to teach I the Nahua peoples about Christianity. In ad- dition to printing bilingual catechisms in Spanish and Nahuatl, they sponsored the composition of plays in Nahuatl on religious themes. Since these plays were notpublished but only circulated in handwritten man- uscripts, very few survive. The short play The Sacrifice of Isaac recounts the story from the Hebrew Bible of Abraham and Isaac, which addresses a topic of great interest to the Nahua peoples: human sacrifice. God the Father appears in the play to ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, but he later sends an angel to instruct Abraham to offer a lamb instead. Abraham, his first wife, and Isaac all embody obedience, a virtue prized both by the an- dient Hebrews and the Nahua peoples. Abraham's slave Hagar and her son Ishmael urge Isaac to disobey his father; both still worship the sun (not God), a sure clue to the audience that they are evil. Corresponding faithfully to the version in the Hebrew Bible, the play shows an obedient Isaac offering himself for sacrifice until the moment the angel instructs Abraham to free him and sacrifice a lamb instead. The lively quality of the Nahuatl lan- guage suggests that it was written sometime after the Spanish conquest, probably by a native speaker who converted to Christianity. Source: Excerpt from Marilyn Bkdahl Ravicz, Eary Colonial Raligious Drama in Mexico: From Tzompantli to Golgotha, The Catholic University of America Press, 1970, pp. 87-90 and 95-96. Reprinted with permission of The Catholic University of America Press. The Devil, Ishmael, and Hagar Trick Isaac aid. You are most truly a dweller in heaven and my protector! DEMON: Open your heart wide to my com- mand! Look now-his father and mother have invited many others to a banquet; they are relaxing and greatly enjoying themselves. Now is the time to give Isaac bad advice so that he might forget his father and his mother and go with you (A demon enters, dressed either as an angel or as an old man.) DEMON: What are you doing, young man? For I see your affliction is very great. ISHMAEL: Most certainly my affliction is great! But how is it that you know if I have pain? Who told you this? DEMON: Do you not see that I am a messenger from heaven? I was sent here from there in order to tell you what you are to do here on earth. ISHMAEL: Then I walt to hear your command. DEMON: Hear then why it is that you are troubled. Do I astound you? Truly it is because of the beloved child, Isaac! Because he is a person of a good life, and because he always has confidence in the commands of his father. So you contrive and wish with all your energy that he to amuse himself in some other place. And if he should obey you, they will certainly punish their son for this, however well they love him. ISHMAEL: I shall do just as you command. DEMON: Then, indeed, I am going to return to heaven. For I came only to console you and tell you what you must do... (Hagar the slave enters.) HAGAR: Now while the great lord Abraham once again entertains many for the sake of his son whom he so greatly loves, we are only servants. He values us but little. And you, my son, merit nothing, are worthy of nothing. Oh that I might not be obedient to his father and mother. Most assuredly I can tell you what you must do to accomplish this. ISHMAEL: Oh how you comfort me when I hear your advice. Nor do I merit your placate myself through you, and that you might calm all my torment upon earth! But so it is; your birth and its ones-who merit nothing and who are worthy of nothing! Know now, oh my mother, what I shall do: later, when they are all feasting, perhaps I shall be able to lead Isaac away with some decett, so that we might go to divert ourselves in some other quarter. With this action he will violate the precept of his father, who will reward are eternal tears. (Here mother and son both weep.) ISHMAEL: Oh you sun! You who are so high! Warm us even here with your great splendor as well as in every part of the world, and-in the way which you are able-prosper all the peoples of the earth! And to us, yes, even to us two poor not then love htm with all of his heart. HAGAR: What you are thinking is very good. Do it in that way. Abraham and Isaac on the Mountaln ABRAHAM: Now hear me, my beloved son! Truly this is what the almighty God has commanded me in order that His loving and divine precept might be fulfilled; and so that He might see whether we- ANGEL: Now know the following by the authority and word of God. For He has seen how much you love Him; that you fulfil His divine precept; that you do not infringe it; that you brought your cherished son-he whom you love so much-here to the peak of the mountain; and that you have come to offer him here as a burnt sacrifice to God the almighty Father. Now truly for all this, by His loving Will, I have come to tell you to desist, for your cherished son the inhabitants of the earth-Hove Him. and execute His Divine Will. For Heis the Lord of the living and of the dead. Now with great humflity, accept death! For assuredly He says this: "Truly I shall be able to ralse the dead back to life, I who am the Life Eternal." Then let His will be done in every part of the earth. (Here Abraham weeps. The Music of the "Misericordia" is heard.) ISAAC: Do not weep, my beloved and honored father! For truly I accept death with great happiness. May the precious will of God be done as He has commanded you.... Isaac does not have to die. ABRAHAM: May Hils adored will be done as He wishes it. Come here, oh my beloved son! Truly you have now been saved from death by His hand. (Here he [Abraham or Isaac] unties the cloth with which he was blindfolded, and loosens the ropes with which his hands were bound.) ANGEL: Abraham! Abraham! (Here an angel appears and seizes Abraham's hand so that he is unable to kill his son.) ABRAHAM: Who are you, you who speak ANGEL: Then understand this: as a substitute for your beloved son, you shall prepare a lamb as God wishes It. Go, for I shall accompany to me? you and leave you at your house.