Translating the Newberry Library’s Nahuatl (Aztec) Sermonary, the First Sermons of the Americas

FAIN: FEL-273003-21

Benjamin Howard Leeming
Unaffiliated independent scholar

Translation into English of the Newberry Library’s collection of Nahuatl-language Christian sermons dating from the 1540s.

The Newberry Library’s Nahuatl (Aztec) Sermonary is a collection of the New World’s first sermons; it is also the last remaining unedited work associated with eminent sixteenth century Franciscan missionary, Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún is best known today as the editor of the Florentine Codex, often referred to as the first work of modern ethnography. However, Sahagún was also intimately involved in the production of Nahuatl doctrinal materials. Securely dated to the 1540s, the Newberry Sermonary provides the unique opportunity to observe the earliest surviving formulations of Christian doctrine in an Indigenous language of the Americas. The sermons are hybrid texts, Christian in theme, but written in Nahuatl by Nahua scholars trained by the friars at the Colegio de Santa Cruz. Through translation, readers will gain access to a lengthy documentary source of tremendous linguistic, cultural, and historical value.