Abstract
This study explores the linguistic and theological negotiations in early seventeenth-century Mexican confessionarios (confession manuals), focusing on how Spanish missionary priests and indigenous assistants translated complex Christian concepts of sin, penance, and divinity into Classical Nahuatl. Using a historical-hermeneutical and philological framework, we analyze how terms like tlahtlacolli (traditionally translated as "sin" but indigenously meaning "damage" or "disorder") and teotl (sacred force vs. monotheistic God) created a syncretic space where Mesoamerican cosmological concepts persisted beneath Christian dogmatic structures. By examining the Confessionario mayor y menor en lengua mexicana (1634) by Bartholomé de Alva and related period texts, this paper demonstrates that translation was not merely a tool of unilateral spiritual conquest but a dialectical site of cultural negotiation. The resulting syncretism reveals how Nahua penitents and bilingual friars co-constructed a hybrid religious vocabulary, reshaping both Christian theology and indigenous metaphysics in colonial New Spain.
