António Vieira (6 February 160818 July 1697) was a Portuguese Jesuit priest, diplomat, orator, preacher, philosopher, writer, and member of the Royal Council to the King of Portugal.

Biography

thumb|In the book 'History of Brazil, Volume 2 – 1817' By Robert Southey, Antonio Vieira advised the King of Portugal and later became a member of the Royal Council.

Padre António Vieira was born in Lisbon to Cristóvão Vieira Ravasco, the son of a mulatto woman, Maria de Azevedo. In 1614 he accompanied his parents to the colony of Brazil, where his father had been posted as a registrar. He received his education at the Jesuit college at Bahia. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1625, under Father Fernão Cardim, and two years later pronounced his first vows. At the age of eighteen he was teaching rhetoric, and a little later dogmatic theology, at the college of Olinda, besides writing the "annual letters" of the province.

In 1635 he was ordained to the priesthood. He soon began to distinguish himself as an orator, and the three patriotic sermons he delivered at Bahia (1638–40) are remarkable for their imaginative power and dignity of language. The Sermon for the Good Success of the Arms of Portugal Against Those of Holland was considered by the Abbé Raynal to be "perhaps the most extraordinary discourse ever heard from a Christian pulpit.

thumb|Fr. António Vieira, preaching

When the revolution of 1640 placed John IV on the throne of Portugal, Brazil gave him her allegiance, and Vieira was chosen to accompany the viceroy's son to Lisbon to congratulate the new king.

He did not spare his own estate, for in his Sexagesimalsermon he boldly attacked the current style of preaching, its subtleties, affectation, obscurity and abuse of metaphor, and declared the ideal of a sermon to be one which sent men away " not contented with the preacher, but discontented with themselves." However, it was soon determined that he should go to Rome to procure revision of the sentence, which still hung over him though the penalties had been removed. During a six years' residence in the Eternal City, Vieira won his greatest triumphs. Pope Clement X invited him to preach before the College of Cardinals, and he became confessor to Queen Christina of Sweden and a member of her literary academy.

In 1997 Portugal issued a commemorative coin to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of Father Vieira.

Portugal issued a stamp in 2008, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Vieira's birth (1608). Brasil has issued already two Vieira stamps, in 1941 and 1997.

A statue of Father António Vieira by the sculptor Marco Fidalgo, was unveiled on the Largo Trindade Coelho near the church of São Roque in 2017, on the initiative of the Holy House of Mercy of Lisbon, Portugal.

thumb|In the book 'History of Brazil, Volume 2 – 1817' By Robert Southey, Antonio Vieira compares Holland and Brazil to Milk and Honey.

Works

thumb|The first page of "Historia do Futuro", first editionHis works form perhaps the greatest monument of Portuguese prose. Two hundred discourses exist to prove his fecundity, while his versatility is shown by the fact that he could treat the same subject differently on half a dozen occasions. His letters, simple and conversational in style, have a deep historical and political interest, and form documents of the first value for the history of the period. annotated and updated, began publication in 2013, nearly four centuries after his birth. The 30 volumes of this publication comprise his complete letters, sermons, prophetic works, political writings, writings on Jews and Indians, as well as his poetry and theatrical works; it is the first complete and carefully edited publication of all of Vieira's many writings. One of the largest editorial projects of its kind, it was the result of international cooperation among various Luso-Brazilian research institutions and scientific, cultural and literary academies, under the aegis of the Rectory of the University of Lisbon. More than 20 thousand folios of manuscripts and printed pages attributed to Vieira were analyzed and compared, in dozens of libraries and archives in Portugal, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, England, Holland, Mexico and in the United States of America. About one quarter of The Complete Works are made of previously undiscovered and unreleased texts. The project, directed by José Eduardo Franco and Pedro Calafate, was developed by CLEPUL in partnership with Santa Casa da Misericórdia, and published by Círculo de Leitores, with the final volume to be released in 2014. Although this is a Portuguese edition, a selection of his works will be made available in 12 languages as part of the project.

Quotations

"We are what we do. What we don't do, doesn't exist. Therefore, we only exist on days when we do. On the days when we don't do, we simply endure".

"Holland, is the land which flows with milk, and Brazil is the land which flows with honey; and when the one is joined to the other, they become wholly and properly the Land of Promise, a land flowing with milk and honey."

See also

  • Sermon of Saint Anthony to the Fish

Notes

References

Publications

  • Robert Southey, History of Brazil (Volume Two, London, 1817)
  • Luiz Cabral, Vieira, biographie, caractère, éloquence, (Paris, 1900)
  • Luiz Cabral, Vieira pregador (two volumes, Porto, 1901)
  • History of Brazil (Volume Two) Longman – 1817
  • Manuscripts versions of Clavis Prophetarum (XVIII) in the Historical Archive of the Pontifical Gregorian University
  • António Vieira in the Historical Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University
  • Dramatic episodes of the Portuguese Inquisition, v. 1, the case of Father Antonio Vieira, page 205 onwards, author Antonio Baião