Quetzacoatl
That old time religion:
I John 4:1-5
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are
from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By
this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from
God, 3 and
every spirit that
does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist,
which you heard was coming and now
is in the world already. 4 Little children,
you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.5 They
are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.
The ancient
Aztecs were a well ordered, prosperous and successful people. By the time
Cortez arrived they had conquered most of what we now know as Mexico (Mexica –
pronounced Me-shí-ka – in the original Aztec language). When Cortez and his men
were at the top of the pass between the mountains Popcatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl
on the way to the capital of the Mexica Empire, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City),
they looked down into the valley and in the middle of Lake Texcoco they saw the
city for the first time. They were utterly amazed at its grandeur and beauty.
Cortez said that it looked like a jewel shining brightly in the middle of the
lake and, after he had entered the city and saw its well-ordered canals, its
glorious temples and palaces and its industrious people he claimed that there
was not another city in all of Europe that could compare to it.
Cortez and his
men also found a highly organized religion being practiced by the Aztecs, one
that revolved around a variety of gods, the main ones being Tlaloc the rain
god, Huitzilpochtli the
war god, Quetzalcoatl the
god of wisdom and Coatlicue the Earth
mother god. You might call the Aztecs pantheistic New Agers. Of course, they
weren’t New Agers in their day since all the surrounding tribes held the same
or similar beliefs. But, as there is nothing new under the sun, if we happened
upon them in today’s world we would be inclined to think of them in that way
mainly because the word “Pagan” is out of style.
They were very close to the earth and their deities
reflected that. They depended on the fertility of the earth for sustenance so
they would sacrifice and pay homage to Tlaloc and Coatlicue, that he would
bless her with rain and she would bless the crops with fertility. They would do
the same for Quetzalcoatl to guide them in the planting and harvesting and
Huitzilpochtli to stir up the passions of the young men and give them victory
in battle.
Like the New Agers, the Aztecs were very ego-centric.
They believed it necessary to appease their gods in order to attain the
material blessings they needed and wanted from them. There was neither
salvation nor justice, only capricious gods to entertain in the hope of
attracting their attention and impressing them with sacrifice. And the
sacrifices were grand.
It was common practice for the Aztecs and other tribes
to capture prisoners of war in their battles. In fact, capturing the enemy was
more important than killing him for captured enemies were the primary source of
their sacrifices, and the more the better. It was reported by the priests who
traveled with the conquistadores that the sacrificial celebrations would
sometimes go on for days and the sacrifices would number in the hundreds and
sometimes even the thousands. The victim would be drugged, led up the steps of
the temple, stretched out on a stone and have his living heart pulled from his
chest.
I don’t think the Aztecs started out with human
sacrifice but devolved to that depraved state by worshiping the creature
instead of the Creator. I wonder where New Age beliefs will lead people as they
worship Gaya, Nature and the same gods by different names that the Aztecs
worshipped.
