“Sons of God” and King’s Lineage

Deconstruction of the Limpieza de Sangre’s Ideology in the Unpublished Sermon of Diego Pérez de Valdivia (1580?)

Abstract

Diego Pérez de Valdivia (1525-1589), one of the most brilliant disciples of Juan de Ávila, biblical scholar and professor of Sacred Scriptures, has authored a sermon that is transcribed here for the first time and for which an interpretive proposal is offered. Many evidences suggest that this sermon could be pronounced during Pérez’s Catalan lifetime. The object of this essay is to demonstrate that one of the aspects which emerges in this sermon –the deconstruction of the limpieza de sangre’s paradigm (blood purity)–, was very crucial in the Diego Pérez de Valdivia’s preaching. About that, it is essential to show the relationship between the deconstruction of the blood purity and Pauline theology of “new birth”. I found the same relationship in Pérez’s master, Juan de Avila, whose sermons have been collated with those of Pérez de Valdivia. Besides, other aspect that emerges is about the possibility that Diego Pérez could address not only an undifferentiated audience but also a sector of undecided, whose roots in the Christian faith, whether recent or not, entrained a truly profound and structural deficit of religious education.