There's a passage in the book Conquistadors by Michael Wood where he describes a meeting between Hernan Cortes and Bernal De Las Casas. Casas asks Cortes by what law he took Montezuma prisoner and he responds with "Anyone who doesn't enter by the front gate is a thief and a robber". When Casas looks to him for more info, Cortes added: "Let your ears hear what your lips say". Then the room burst out laughing. I may be dumb but could somebody explain this situation to me?
"Anyone who doesn't enter by the front gate is a thief and a robber," is a reference to John 10:1-6 of the Bible:
-*Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.*^[1]
Cortés, who literally walked into Montezuma's world through the front gate,^[2] argues that he is like the Good Shepherd (Jesus), and the sheep in the sheepfold (the indigenous under Montezuma's rule) listened to his call (overthrow Montezuma). He is able to make such a lofty claim because he unseated Montezuma with the help of some indigenous tribes.^[3] What he fails to mention is that once he and the Tlaxcalans took Montezuma prisoner, those Aztecs in the city laid siege to the palace. Only after the death of Montezuma did Cortés and company attempt to escape under the cover of night, known as La Noche Triste (The Sad Night).^[4]
References to the Bible were signs of piety, civility (you had to have the knowledge of Latin), and justification. Cortés uses the biblical reference, then throws "let your ears hear what your lips say" at de las Casas because de las Casas is himself a man of God, a Dominican friar.^[5] Simply put, Cortés is saying that de las Casas should practice and listen to what he preaches. To use the Bible to justify actions against a friar's affront is the ultimate 16th century burn.