Teologia e literatura do Padre Antônio Vieira: o Quinto Império em história do futuro

Abstract

Antônio Vieira belongs to the gallery of classics from different angles. The Portuguese language definitely marked us as an excellent writer. Perfect language, wonderful style with beautiful Baroque touches. The sermons continue to seduce us to this day by the splendor of the style. We can consider the prophetic corpus of Vieira’s works as follows: Esperança de Portugal (letter to the bishop of Japan), História do Futuro (unfinished) and the Clavis Prophetarum, subtitled De regno Christi in Terris consummato. Vieira was a great dreamer, a man of utopias. His heart did not fit in the present, it overflowed into the future. It is in his work History of the future or consummated kingdom of Christ on earth, where Vieira will talk about the Fifth Empire. Vieira’s theological thinking is based on the Holy Scriptures, especially on the prophecies of the prophet Daniel, Isaiah and Zacharias, on the appearances of Christ to King Dom Henriques, known as the miracle of Ourique, on the Portuguese discoveries and on the prophecies announced by the shoemaker Bandarra. Inspired by the words of what he considers to be the emperor of the Portuguese language, Fernando Pessoa will revisit the idea of the Fifth Empire in Vieira, to show Portugal and the Portuguese a more cultural and scientific perspective on his mission in the world. If Vieira showed us the location and nature of the Fifth Empire, Fernando Pessoa will consider that after the four world empires that collapsed, Portugal could carry out the creation of its own spiritual civilization, with a very simple objective, that of making peace around the world. Fernando Pessoa lists three essentials points: pantheistic transcendentalism, the engines of this society (spiritual freedom, science and wisdom), the Portuguese language