The Bible and Cross-Cultural Indegenization in Valdivielso’s Sacramental Act of the Prodigal Son

Lee, Manhee (2024) “The Bible and Cross-Cultural Indegenization in Valdivielso’s Sacramental Act of the Prodigal Son”

https://doi.org/10.22927/snuibe.2024.35.2.1

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ABSTRACT

The period in which José de Valdivielso worked coincided with the era of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), when Europe was divided into Protestant and Catholic camps. This was a time when the doctrines promulgated by the Council of Trent had a practical impact on Spanish society, and the spirit of the time was the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The author adapted the ‘Parable of the Prodigal Son’ from the Bible and created a Catholic religious play called The Sacramental Act of the Prodigal Son. An attempt was made to localize the simple metaphor of human tragedy, conversion, and salvation after leaving God into the time and space of Spain during the Counter-Reformation in the 17th century. The author embodies in his work various discourses of the Counter-Reformation era that are not included in the original parable of the Bible. In particular, it utilizes the characteristics of the sacramental act genre to argue that the Eucharist is an important sacrament that determines salvation and that the legitimacy of the Catholic Church’s sacrament is against the claims of the Reformation camps on this issue. Above all, Valdivielso creatively incorporated the medieval origins of discourses such as ‘The Dance of Death’ and ‘Ars Moriendi’ into his work. Through this, the author is reminding 17th century Spanish audiences of the importance of ‘memento mori’, which reminds them of death in life.