View source for António Vieira

{{short description|17th-century Portuguese diplomat and missionary}}
{{other people|Antonio Vieira}}
{{Lead too short|date=January 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}
{{Infobox religious person
|honorific_prefix = The Reverend
|name             = António Vieira
|honorific_suffix = [[Society of Jesus|SJ]]
|image            = Padre António Vieira.jpg
|caption          = Vieira, {{circa|early 18th century}}
|birth_name       = 
|birth_date       = {{birth date|df=y|1608|2|6}}
|birth_place      = [[Lisbon]], [[Kingdom of Portugal]]
|death_date       = {{death date and age|df=y|1697|7|18|1608|2|6}}
|death_place      = [[Bahia]], [[Colonial Brazil|Portuguese Colony of Brazil]]
|occupation       = Diplomat, Philosopher, [[Jesuit]] Priest, Orator and Writer
|known_for        = Diplomacy as member of the [[Royal Council]] to [[John IV of Portugal|King John IV]]
|signature =
}}

'''António Vieira'''{{efn|{{IPA|pt-PT|ɐ̃ˈtɔni.u viˈɐjɾɐ, ɐ̃ˈtɔnju -|small=no|link=yes}}; contemporaneously also rendered as '''Vieyra'''; the modern [[Portuguese language|Brazilian Portuguese]] spelling is '''Antônio Vieira''', {{IPA|pt-BR|ɐ̃ˈtoni.u viˈejɾɐ, ɐ̃ˈtonju -|pron|small=no}}.}} {{post-nominals|post-noms=[[Society of Jesus|SJ]]}} (6 February 1608{{snd}}18 July 1697) was a Portuguese [[Jesuit]] [[Priesthood in the Catholic Church|priest]], [[diplomat]], [[orator]], [[preacher]], [[philosopher]], [[writer]], and member of the Royal Council to the [[King of Portugal]].

== Biography ==
[[File:Antonio Vieyra - History of Brazil, Volume 2 by Robert Southey - "forewarned the King of Portugal about dangers ".png|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.<ref>[http://revelarlx.cm-lisboa.pt/gca/?id=1156 RevelarLX] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210065756/http://revelarlx.cm-lisboa.pt/gca/?id=1156 |date=10 February 2012 }} based on CARDOSO, Maria Manuela Lopes – António Vieira: pioneiro e paradigma de Interculturalidade. Lisboa: Chaves Ferreira Publicações S.A., 2001. p. 37–57; DOMINGUES, Agostinho – O Padre António Vieira: um património a comunicar. Porto: Edição Artes Gráficas, Lda., 1997. p. 6–37; DOMINGUES, Mário – O drama e a glória do Padre António Vieira. 2ª edição. Lisboa: Livraria Romano Torres, 1961. p. 9–31.
MENDES, João, S.J. – Padre António Vieira. Lisboa: Editorial Verbo, imp. 1972. p. 9–23.</ref> In 1614 he accompanied his parents to the [[Colonial Brazil|colony of Brazil]], where his father had been posted as a registrar.<ref name="Costa">{{Cite web|url=http://upmagazine-tap.com/en/pt_artigos/padre-antonio-vieira-brazil/|title=Up Magazine – TAP Portugal " Padre António Vieira, Brazil|website=upmagazine-tap.com|access-date=12 September 2014|archive-date=9 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170709192153/http://upmagazine-tap.com/en/pt_artigos/padre-antonio-vieira-brazil/|url-status=dead}}</ref> He received his education at the [[Terreiro de Jesus|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.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Vieira, Antonio |volume=28 |pages=49–50 |first=Edgar |last=Prestage |author-link=Edgar Prestage}}</ref>

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 [[Guillaume Thomas François Raynal|Abbé Raynal]] to be "perhaps the most extraordinary discourse ever heard from a Christian pulpit.<ref name="EB1911"/><ref name="Reville">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15415d.htm|title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Antonio Vieira|website=newadvent.org}}</ref>
[[File:PadreAntonioVieira pregando.jpg|thumb|Fr. António Vieira, preaching]]
When the revolution of 1640 placed [[John IV of Portugal|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.<ref name="EB1911"/> His talents and aptitude for affairs impressed John IV so favorably that he appointed him tutor to the Infante Dom Pedro, royal preacher, and a member of the Royal Council.<ref name="Reville" />

Vieira did efficient work in the War and Navy Departments, revived commerce, urged the foundation of a national bank and the organization of the Brazilian Trade Company.<ref name="Reville" />

Vieira used the pulpit to propound measures for improving the general and particularly the economic condition of Portugal. His pen was as busy as his voice, and in four notable pamphlets he advocated the creation of companies of commerce, denounced as unchristian a society which discriminated against New Christians (Muslim and Jewish converts),<ref name="Costa" /> called for the reform of the procedure of the Inquisition and the admission of [[Jewish]] and foreign traders, with guarantees for their security from religious persecution. He argued to the king that Jewish merchants would benefit the kingdom, remedying its current "miserable state."<ref>J. Lúcio de Azevedo, ''História de António Vieira, Segundo Ediçao. Tomo Primero''. Lisbon: livraria Clássica Editora 1931, 88-92</ref>

He did not spare his own estate, for in his [[Sexagesimal]]sermon 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."<ref name="EB1911"/>

In 1647 Vieira began his career as a diplomat, in the course of which he visited England, France, the Netherlands and Italy. In his ''Papel Forte'' he urged the cession of [[Pernambuco]] to the Dutch as the price of peace, while his mission to Rome in 1650 was undertaken in the hope of arranging a marriage between the heir to the throne of Portugal and the only daughter of [[Philip IV of Spain|King Philip IV of Spain]]. His success, freedom of speech and reforming zeal had made him enemies on all sides, and only the intervention of the king prevented his expulsion from the [[Society of Jesus]], so that prudence counselled his return to Brazil.<ref name="EB1911"/>

In his youth he had vowed to consecrate his life to the conversion of the African slaves and [[Indigenous people of Brazil|native Indians of his adopted country]], and arriving in [[Maranhão]] early in 1653 he recommenced his apostolic labors, which had been interrupted during his stay of fourteen years in the Old World. Starting from [[Pará]], he penetrated to the banks of the [[Tocantins River|Tocantins]], making numerous converts to Christianity and European civilization among the most violent tribes; but after two years of unceasing labour, during which every difficulty was placed in his way by the colonial authorities, he saw that the Indians must be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the governors, to prevent their exploitation, and placed under the control of the members of a single religious society.<ref name="EB1911"/>

Accordingly, in June 1654 he set sail for Lisbon to plead the cause of the Indians, and in April 1655 he obtained from the king a series of decrees which placed the missions under the Society of Jesus, with himself as their superior, and prohibited the enslavement of the natives, except in certain specified cases. Returning with this charter of freedom, he organized the missions over a territory having a coast-line of 400 leagues, and a population of 200,000 souls, and in the next six years (1655–61) the indefatigable missionary set the crown on his work. In August 1659, he signed the [[Treaty of the Mapuá]] with various indigenous groups on the [[Marajó Archipelago]]. After a time, however, the colonists, attributing the shortage of slaves and the consequent diminution in their profits to the Jesuits, began actively to oppose Vieira, and they were joined by members of the secular clergy and the other Orders who were jealous of the monopoly enjoyed by the company in the government of the Indians.<ref name="EB1911"/>

Vieira was accused of want of patriotism and usurpation of jurisdiction, and in 1661, after a popular revolt, the authorities sent him with thirty-one other Jesuit missionaries back to Portugal. He found his friend King John IV dead and the court a prey to faction, but, dauntless as ever in the pursuit of his ambition, he resorted to his favorite arm of preaching, and on Epiphany Day, 1662, in the royal chapel, he replied to his persecutors in a famous rhetorical effort, and called for the execution of the royal decrees in favor of the Indians.<ref name="EB1911"/>

Circumstances were against him, however, and the [[Count of Castelo Melhor]], fearing his influence at court, had him exiled first to [[Porto]] and then to [[Coimbra]]; but in both these places he continued his work of preaching, and the reform of the [[Inquisition]] also occupied his attention. To silence him his enemies then denounced him to that tribunal, and he was cited to appear before the Holy Office at Coimbra to answer points smacking of [[heresy]] in his sermons, conversations and writings. He had believed in the prophecies of a 16th-century shoemaker poet, [[António Gonçalves de Bandarra|Bandarra]], dealing with the coming of a ruler who would inaugurate an epoch of unparalleled prosperity for the church and for Portugal, these new prosperous times were to be called the Quinto Império or "[[Fifth Empire]]" (also called "Sebastianism"). In Vieira's famous opus, '''Clavis Prophetarum''', he had endeavoured to prove the truth of his dreams from passages of Scripture. As he refused to submit, the Inquisitors kept him in prison in Coimbra from October 1665 to December 1667, and finally imposed a sentence which prohibited him from teaching, writing or preaching. <ref name="EB1911"/>

It was a heavy blow for the Jesuits, and though Vieira recovered his freedom and much of his prestige shortly afterwards on the accession of [[Peter II of Portugal|King Pedro II]], for example it is known that, in 1669, in Lisbon, [[Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany|Cosimo III]] [[House of Medici|de Médici]] had the opportunity to talk several times with Antònio Vieira and to attend his famous [[Mass (liturgy)|masses]].<ref>Radulet, Carmen M. (2003). [https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Portuguese_Brazilian_Studies/ejph/html/issue2/html/radulet_main.html "Cósimo III Medici and the Portuguese Restoration: A Voyage to Portugal in 1668-1669"]. ''e-Journal of Portuguese History''. [[University of Porto]] (Portugal); [[Brown University]] (USA). '''1''' (2).</ref><ref>Cabeleira, João (30 June 2021). [https://rime.cnr.it/index.php/rime/article/view/530 "Visão da paisagem seiscentista portuguesa através das vedute de Pier Maria Baldi e da Relazione ufficiale de Lorenzo Magalotti"]. ''RiMe. Rivista dell'Istituto di Storia dell'Europa Mediterranea (ISSN 2035-794X)'': 113–144. [[Doi (identifier)|doi]]:10.7410/1479. [[ISSN (identifier)|ISSN]] 2035-794X.</ref> 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.<ref name="EB1911"/>

At the request of the pope he drew up a report of two hundred pages on the [[Portuguese Inquisition|Inquisition in Portugal]], with the result that after a judicial inquiry [[Pope Innocent XI]] suspended it in Portugal for seven years (1674–81). Ultimately, Vieira returned to Portugal with a papal bull exempting him from the jurisdiction of the grand inquisitor, and in January 1681 he embarked for Brazil. He resided in Bahia and occupied himself in revising his sermons for publication, and in 1687 he became superior of the province. A false accusation of complicity in an assassination, and the intrigues of members of his own Company, clouded his last months, and on 18 July 1697 he died in [[Salvador, Bahia]].<ref name="EB1911"/>

==Legacy==
António Vieira is considered one of the literary greats of the Portuguese-speaking world.<ref name="Costa" /> The Padre António Vieira Chair in Portuguese Studies, at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica-Rio de Janeiro was created on 7 October 1994, to train teachers and researchers in the social sciences. Promoting academic exchanges between Brazil and Portugal, the Chair's main aim has been to deepen the cultural dialog that already exists between the two countries within the university context. The Chair is involved in the training of teachers in the areas of Portuguese Literature and Culture, Portuguese Language, and Lusophone Literatures.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Margato, Izabel. "The Padre António Vieira Chair:Teaching, Research and Cultural Action", Pontifícia Universidade Católica-Rio de Janeiro|url=https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Portuguese_Brazilian_Studies/ejph/html/issue7/pdf/imargato.pdf}}</ref>

In 1997 Portugal issued a commemorative coin to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of Father Vieira.<ref>{{Cite web|title=500 Escudos, Portugal|url=https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces13043.html|website=en.numista.com}}</ref>

Portugal issued a stamp in 2008, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Vieira's birth (1608). Brasil has issued already two Vieira stamps, in 1941<ref>[http://www.manresa-sj.org/stamps/1_Vieira.htm Antonio Vieira, SJ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131107143035/http://www.manresa-sj.org/stamps/1_Vieira.htm |date=7 November 2013 }} "Father Antonio Vieira, SJ", ''Jesuit Stamps''</ref> and 1997.

A [[Statue of António Vieira|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.

[[File:Antonio Vieyra - History of Brazil, Volume 2 by Robert Southey - "citing the phrase Milk and Honey".png|thumb|In the book 'History of Brazil, Volume 2 – 1817' By Robert Southey, Antonio Vieira compares Holland and Brazil to Milk and Honey.]]

== Works ==
[[File:pav historia futuro.jpg|thumb|The first page of "Historia do Futuro", first edition]]His works form perhaps the greatest monument of [[Portuguese language|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.<ref name="EB1911"/>

His principal works are:
*''Sermões'' (Sermons) (15 vols., Lisbon, 1679–1748); there are many subsequent editions, but none complete; translations exist in Spanish, Italian, German and French, which have gone through several editions [https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Vieira%2C+Ant%C3%B3nio%2C+1608-1697%22 Archive]
*''[[História do Futuro]]'' (History of the Future) (Lisbon, 1718; 2nd ed., ibid., 1755); this and the Quinto Império and this Clavis Prophetarum seem to be in essence one and the same book in different redactions
*''Cartas'' (Letters) (3 vols., Lisbon, 1735–46)
*''Notícias recônditas do modo de proceder a Inquisição de Portugal com os seus presos'' (News on how the Portuguese Inquisition proceeds with its prisoners) (Lisbon, 1821)
*''Arte de Furtar'' (The Art of Stealing) published under Vieira's name in many editions; is now known not to be a work by him

[[File:Sermoens do P. Antonio Vieyra da Companhia de Jesu, prègador de Sua Magestade, Septima Parte.jpg|thumb|Sermoens do P. Antonio Vieyra da Companhia de Jesu, prègador de Sua Magestade, Septima Parte]]

A badly edited edition of the works of Vieira in 27 volumes appeared in Lisbon, 1854–58. There are unpublished manuscripts of his in the [[British Museum]] in London, and in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. A bibliography of Vieira will be found in [[Sommervogel]], Bibliothèque de la compagnie de Jesus, viii. 653–85.<ref name="EB1911"/>

''The Complete Works of Father António Vieira'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.circuloleitores.pt/catalogo/1061674/padre-antonio-vieira|title=CÍRCULO de leitores|website=circuloleitores.pt}}</ref> 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<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://translate.google.pt/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=pt-PT&ie=UTF-8&u=http://expresso.sapo.pt/lancada-obra-integral-do-padre-antonio-vieira=f785286|title=Google Tradutor|website=translate.google.pt}}</ref> 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".<ref name="Costa" />

"The end for which men invented books was to preserve the memory of past things against the tyranny of time and against the forgetfulness of man, which is an even greater tyranny."<ref>{{Cite web|title=O fim para que os homens inventaram os livros ... – António Vieira – Frases|url=http://www.citador.pt/frases/o-fim-para-que-os-homens-inventaram-os-livros-foi-antonio-vieira-19068|website=Citador}}</ref>

"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."<ref name="History Of Brazil">{{Cite web|last=Southey|first=Robert|date=5 February 1817|title=History of Brazil|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5FIOAAAAQAAJ&q=milk&pg=PA697|publisher=Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown|via=Google Books}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Sermon of Saint Anthony to the Fish]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==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)

==External links==
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=wTpAAAAAcAAJ History of Brazil (Volume Two) Longman – 1817]
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=António Vieira}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4939}}
* [http://www.archiviopug.org Manuscripts versions of ''Clavis Prophetarum'' (XVIII) in the Historical Archive of the Pontifical Gregorian University]
* [http://www.unigre.it/archivioimg/Fondo_Curia_2009/Indice_Autori.htm António Vieira in the Historical Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University]
* [https://archive.org/details/episdiosdram02baiuoft Dramatic episodes of the Portuguese Inquisition, v. 1, the case of Father Antonio Vieira, page 205 onwards, author Antonio Baião]
{{History of Catholic theology}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vieira, Antonio}}
[[Category:1608 births]]
[[Category:1697 deaths]]
[[Category:Clergy from Lisbon]]
[[Category:Portuguese philosophers]]
[[Category:Portuguese diplomats]]
[[Category:Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries]]
[[Category:Sermon writers]]
[[Category:Portuguese colonization of the Americas]]
[[Category:17th-century Portuguese Jesuits]]
[[Category:17th-century philosophers]]
[[Category:Jesuit missionaries in Brazil]]
[[Category:Jesuit philosophers]]
[[Category:Baroque writers]]