A serene prophet’s empire: an essay on deciphering Father António Vieira’s thought

Abstract

António Vieira’s “Fifth Empire” has been the subject of numerous interpretations. However, these have remained restricted to the Portuguese world, and foreign influences exerted upon the Portuguese Jesuit have been neglected. Simultaneously, the more exuberant elements of Vieira´s thought, such as the thesis of King John IV’s resurrection, are usually dismissed as a simple curiosity caused by his spirit’s idiosyncrasy. This paper aims to reconstruct the logic of Vieira´s thought, based on unpublished sources whose origin may be traced to English and Dutch Protestant millenarianism. The author also intends to show that the Portuguese king’s resurrection theory falls within this same logic and results in a form of interpreting the Scriptures that was popular in the Protestant world. Finally, it is intended to demonstrate that Vieira´s contemporary Portuguese society was permeable to such influence and that Vieira’s case was not an isolated one.

https://doi.org/10.14195/1645-2259_16_8