[1] It conveys strongly and
positively the monotheistic idea. It means "The One," or, more strongly,
"The Only One."
[Footnote 1: Gomara, _Historia de las Indias_, p. 232 (ed. Paris, 1852).]
Nor must it be supposed that this monotheism was unconscious; that it was,
for example, a form of "henotheism," where the devotion of the adorer
filled his soul, merely to the forgetfulness of other deities; or that it
was simply the logical law of unity asserting itself, as was the case with
many of the apparently monotheistic utterances of the Greek and Roman
writers.
No; the evidence is such that we are obliged to acknowledge that the
religion of Peru was a consciously monotheistic cult, every whit as much
so as the Greek or Roman Catholic Churches of Christendom.
Those writers who have called the Inca religion a "sun worship" have been
led astray by superficial resemblances. One of the best early authorities,
Christoval de Molina, repeats with emphasis the statement, "They did not
recognize the Sun as their Creator, but as created by the Creator," and
this creator was "not born of woman, but was unchangeable and eternal."[1]
For conclusive testimony on this point, however, we may turn to an
_Informacion_ or Inquiry as to the ancient belief, instituted in 1571, by
order of the viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo.
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