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In the following, I will discuss Teresa’s two poems written for the feast of Jesus’s circumcision on the first day of January, commonly known as the Octave Day of Nativity. Today, this feast is somewhat buried in oblivion in the Roman Catholic Church, rededicated as “Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God” due to liturgical changes made in the 1960s. Previously, the circumcision of Jesus as well as his holy name were celebrated on the eighth day after Christmas, as Jewish boys are not only circumcised on the eighth day after birth in order to join God’s covenant with Abraham, but it is also the day of their name-giving, a custom referred to in the New Testament (Luke 2:21). Christianity transferred both the name-giving as well as the commandment itself to baptism, though meant as a spiritual circumcision of course.1 Since Patristic times, one of the most significant theological implications of the feast of Jesus’s circumcision was that the first shedding of Jesus’s blood proved that Christ was human.2 It was likened to his passion and seen as initiation of the redemptive process, culminating in the resurrection on the day after Shabbat – in a sense the eighth day of the week. Descriptions of Jesus’s circumcision were adapted in popular compilations, like Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea, or in the pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes Vitae Christi. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish translation of Ludolphus de Saxonia’s Vita Christi circulated (translated by Ambrosio de Montesino as “Vita Christi cartuxano romanzado”), which Teresa studied in preparation for the liturgical feasts.3 She found inspiration for some relevant themes concerning the feast of Jesus’s circumcision, such as pity for the innocent child who weeps out of pain of being tormented with a knife and who bears willingly the sin of all men at such an early age. Teresa imagined that her nephew Francisco, who was then a boy (she called him “Francisquito”), could sing the melody of the villancicos she composed for the feast of “el Nombre de Jesús” on the first of January.4 Her villancicos “Vertiendo está sangre”5 and “Sangre a la tierra” consist of three and five stanzas, respectively, and are complemented by a short refrain for the chorus. While some of Teresa’s coplas focus on education or instruction (e.g. on occasion of a veiling ceremony [e.g. “velación”]), and others can be characterized as lyrical encounters with God (e.g. the poem “Búscate en mi”), all of them emphasize cheerfulness and joy; this applies also to the two villancicos for the feast of circumcision, despite the paradoxical condition of love and pain to which Teresa paid particular attention. “Vertiendo está sangre” takes an intent look on the spilling of blood, asking why this had to happen to an innocent baby:

He is shedding blood, Dominguillo, eh! I don’t know why!	Vertiendo está sangre, ¡Dominguillo, eh! ¡Yo no sé por qué!
Why – I ask you – is he subject to the law, isn’t he innocent, and without malice? He yearns to love me, I don’t know why, exceedingly: Dominguillo, eh!	– ¿Por qué – te pregunto – hacen de él justicia, pues que es inocente, y no tiene malicia? Tuvo gran codicia, yo no sé por qué, de mucho amarmé: ¡Dominguillo, eh!
Then, just after being born, he had to suffer torment? – he shall certainly die, for doing away with evil. What a great shepherd he will be, by my faith! Dominguillo, eh!	Pues luego, en naciendo, ¿le han de atormentar? – Si, que está muriendo, por quitar el mal. ¡Oh qué gran zagal zerá, por mi fe! ¡Dominguillo, eh!
Have you not seen yet, that he is an innocent boy? I have been told by Brasil and Lorent.6 – It would be quite inappropriate not to love him! Dominguillo, eh!	¿Tú no has mirado, que es niño inocente? Ya me lo han contado Brasillo y Llorente. – ¡Gran inconveniente será no amarlé! ¡Dominguillo, eh!

Without going into detail concerning the formal aspects of villancicos, one immediately realizes the strophic structure with rhymed stanzas that include thematic variations of the head-section (‘cabeza’), a three-line chorus which impresses with the untranslatable “Dominguillo”. Its meaning – ‘weeble’ or ‘roly-poly’ – hints at the resurrection, the climax of Christ’s redemptive mission on earth. Thus the association with Jesus, though not directly mentioned by name, is unequivocal.7 But in early modern times, “dominguillo” signified a straw-doll puppet used at bull-feasts, dressed in the red color of Sundays (‘domingo’, in Spanish).8 Such a “dominguillo” was taken up by the horns of the enraged bulls and became a source of amusement for the spectators. One could speculate whether such an uncomfortable role for the redeemer reflects the historical situation of the conversos, who had no choice but to accept their fate and bear up against pain. In any event, by calling the little boy the future “great shepherd” – not only a reference to popular parables in the New Testament but also a quotation from the Letter to the Hebrews – the goal of salvation is envisioned in the context of the following benediction: “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20f.). But Teresa also introduces a slight change and accentuation in this reference: instead of “gran pastor” (the Spanish equivalent to the Latin text) she prefers to call the great shepherd “gran zagal”; “zagal” means not only shepherd but also boy, or shepherd boy, which is of course a clue that she had King David in mind. To be sure, Christian typology recognizes Christ in David, but David also figures prominently as Messianic prototype in Jewish eschatology.9 Hence, Teresa may not just hint at her own spiritual heritage by bridging two different ideas of redemption and fleshing out the Davidic profile of Christ. Naturally, a possible converso background of the audience should also be taken into account and the firm intention to engender intimate feelings of sympathy toward the Jewish roots of the Savior.

At any rate, a pervasive mystical-messianic hope can be realized in the second circumcision poem, “Sangre a la tierra”. Some codices call this by its apparently authentic title ‘Blood, that split to the earth’, which, according to Ángel Custodio Vega, is based on a visionary experience.10

This boy comes crying. Look, Gil, he is calling you.	Este niño viene llorando. Mirale, Gil, que te está llamando.
He came from heaven to earth to take away our war. He led off the fight without delay, his blood is flowing: Look, Gil, he is calling you.	Vino del cielo a la tierra para quitar nuestra guerra. Ya comienza la pelea, su sangre está derramando: mirale, Gil, que te está llamando.
His love is so great, it doesn’t take much to weep. His courage already grows, he is the one to lead: Look, Gil, he is calling you.	Fue tan grande el amorio, que no es mucho estar llorando. Que comienza a tener brio, habiendo de estar mandando: mirale, Gil, que te está llamando.
We are going to pay dearly, because he started so early to shed his blood: we should be weeping. Look, Gil, he is calling you.	Caro nos ha de costar, pues comienza tan temprano a su sangre derramar: habremos de estar llorando. Mirale, Gil, que te está llamando.
He would not need to come to die, He could remain in his nest, – Don’t you see, Gil, since he has come, that he resembles a roaring lion? Look, Gil, he is calling you.	No viniera él a morir, pues podia estarse en su nido. – ¿No ves, Gil, que si ha venido, es como león bramando? Mirale, Gil, que te está llamando.
Tell me, Pascual, what do you want from me, what do you shout out to me? – You should love him, because he loves you, and he trembles for you. Look, Gil, he is calling you.	Dime, Pascual: ¿Qué me quieres, que tantos gritos me das? – Que le ames, pues te quiere, y por ti está tiritando. Mirale, Gil, que te está llamando.

The aim of this carol is again directed to the assurance of salvation, but this time we are confronted with an unusual potpourri of biblical motives which center around the arrival of a messiah. The terminology includes military as well as wildlife imagery. The Christian and Jewish ways of visualizing the coming of the messiah match, for the most part, when they are rooted in biblical, often prophetic traditions and figures of speech. At first glance, this is also true for the “lion”, which reappears with the messianic implications of Jacob’s blessing (Genesis 49: 9) and the branch from Jesse (Isaiah 11:1) in the New Testament vision of the scroll and the lamb: “Do not weep! See, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed” (Revelation 5:5). Similar connotations are reflected in the Fourth Book of Ezra, a first century Jewish apocalypse: here again the “lion” is described as “the Messiah whom the Most High has kept until the end of days, who will arise from the posterity of David […]” (4 Ezra 12:32).11 But in New Testament times, the ways of Jewish and Christian eschatology were already parting, as indicated by the use of this specific lion metaphor, adapted by Teresa in her poem as the “roaring lion”. Whereas in the New Testament it is the devil who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour” (1 Peter 5:8)12, the Fourth Book of Ezra expects the messianic warrior king to be fearsome like a “roaring lion” (4 Ezra 11:37; cf. also 12:31). This messianic image formed an integral part of the ongoing Jewish tradition, in contrast to the Christian concept of the Messiah who fulfilled the role of the suffering servant (Isaiah 53) and will come again as judge of the world but not as war hero. In the early medieval Midrash Leqaḥ Tov the “roaring lion” was related explicitly to both the messianic prophecy of Jacob’s blessing and to the awful appearance: “A lion’s whelp is Judah” (Genesis 49: 9) who is not afraid of anything, and, “The lion hath roared, who will not fear? This is the King Messiah […] (Amos 3:8).”13 The same concept re-emerges in Sefer ha-Zohar, the ‘Book of Splendor’14, and, even more interesting, another famous motif of the Jewish messianic tradition turns up in the Kabbalistic context of the Zohar, namely that of the Messiah coming from a bird’s nest.15 The Zohar’s mystical interpretation of the biblical prohibition to catch a mother bird when picking up her eggs (Deuteronomy 22:6) likens the bird’s nest to the Messiah’s hidden place of residence in the heavenly paradise.16 There he sees Rachel weeping for her children (cf. Jeremiah 31:15; meaning God shares Israel’s pain in exile). The Messiah and all “the righteous ones there scream and weep” and the “Garden trembles”. Then the Messiah is summoned “to eliminate the wicked kingdom from the world”. At that time, God’s holy name – the letters of the Tetragramm – will be “restored”, meaning that the ten divine manifestations (sefirot) symbolized by God’s ineffable Name will be “re-united”. At first, however, “the whole world will be in great confusion”, Israel will be persecuted until “a scepter will arise from Israel” (Numbers 24:17), meaning, as the Zohar puts it, “King Messiah will arouse, emerging from the Garden of Eden.” And when he sees the image of the destructed temple within the bird’s nest, he is dressed in ten “garments of zeal”, adorned with the same crown that God Himself had been crowned with during Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Thereafter, some angels who weep constantly over the destruction of the Temple give him a purple robe, red from the blood of martyrs, in order to wreak vengeance. In the end, the Messiah will be revealed from the radiance of the bird’s nest in “the land of Galilee, where Israel’s exile had begun”.

By outlining this long messianic passage in the Zohar,17 I do not imply a Kabbalistic understanding of Teresa’s poems on Jesus’s circumcision. But certain messianic traditions taken up by Teresa, in particular the “roaring lion” and the “bird’s nest”, reflect a Jewish perspective with an emphasis on the exodus tradition that is remembered on Passover, the feast of freedom and prototype of redemption. One could add, however, that in the Zohar, the circumcision is an important issue;18 one passage reflects the rabbinic tradition of the people of Israel, who circumcised themselves before leaving Egypt:

“There were two bloods: one of circumcision and one of the Paschal Lamb. Of circumcision, [the divine quality of] Compassion; of the Paschal Lamb, [the divine quality of] Judgment.” Rabbi Yehudah said, “Not so! Rather, as I have learned: the blessed Holy One turned that blood into Compassion, as if it were white among colors […] even though it was red, it turned into Compassion, as it is written: ‘In your blood, live! [Ezekiel 16:6]’.”19

There is no need to enlarge upon the Kabbalistic symbolism concerning the blood of circumcision, which revolves around the unification of the male and female aspects within the divine world. My argument rests on the scenery evoked in Teresa’s poems by using metaphors that contemporary Jews would find in messianically charged passages of Kabbalistic literature, indicating suffering, exile, and the longing for a redeemer. Moreover, the issue of circumcision was a highly emotional one since the connection between blood and Jewish law was terribly overshadowed by the so-called “blood libels”, which occurred time and again (for example, the case of “el santo niño de La Guardia”, who was believed to be the victim of a ritual murder by Jews and conversos in 149120). On the other hand, numerous sermons on Christ’s circumcision during the Renaissance period have popularized the notion of Christ’s victory by his first holy shedding of blood which opened the gates to heaven. As Antonio Lollio, the secretary of Francesco Piccolomini, Cardenal of Sienna, preached in his “Oratio circumcisionis” in 1485: “For until this most holy day, which is not unjustly set at the head of the year, we were all exiles. […] [It is] this most sacred day of the circumcision, which we can call the gate that opens the way to paradise.”21