Overview

This volume is the first English translation and annotation of the sermons of António Vieira, a major cultural figure in the Portuguese-speaking world. Born in Lisbon in 1608, Vieira was a Jesuit who lived and worked in both Europe and Brazil in the service of the church and the Portuguese crown. His sermons are among the most renowned pieces of baroque oratory in the Portuguese language. These carefully selected sermons offer insight into Vieira's visionary thought on social and spiritual matters. In the Sermon for the Success of Portuguese Arms against the Dutch, Vieira inveighs against God for His apparent abandonment of the Portuguese and begs for divine intervention. His Sermon of St. Anthony is an allegory that addresses the inequities that he witnessed in Brazil. The Sexagesima Sermon parodies literary clichés from his time while prescribing a more effective, if harsher, style of preaching. The Sermon of the Good Thief is a rebuke to the imperial officials who used their positions for personal enrichment, and a warning to kings against complicity with corruption. Vieira's Sermon XXVII addresses African slaves and their Brazilian masters, attempting to comfort the first group in their trials and to admonish the second for their brutality. Finally, the Sermon called Arm tells the story of the relic of Francis Xavier's arm sent from India to Italy in 1614, and pays tribute to the obedience of Vieira's Jesuit predecessor.

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9780190066666

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Antonio Vieira is a major religious, cultural, and political figure in the early modern world, little known outside the field of Iberian history. This outstanding translation of selected sermons will contribute to integrate his thought in the long-term complex analysis of colonialism, slavery, racism, and national assertion. * Francisco Bethencourt, author of Racisms from the Crusades to the Twentieth Century * The reader will find here six of Antonio Vieira's sermons, most available in English for the first time. Brilliantly translated and contextualized, the sermons reflect the ways a leading Jesuit grappled with the bewildering forces of globalization, commerce, slavery, and morality, forces the Jesuits themselves unleashed. How to find providential meaning in a Portuguese global empire built on the backs of both slaves and Jesuit missionaries? How to have providential certainty in a world bedeviled by greed, growing religious apathy, and geopolitical uncertainty? How to be a prophet in a new, yet weakened Braganza-led Israel? Out of hundreds of possible sermons, the authors have masterfully picked a handful to illuminate a complex, deeply contradictory world of faith and violence. * Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin * Missionary, diplomat, theologian, pulpit preacher, social critic, political strategist, and one of the finest writers of the Portuguese language, the Jesuit Antonio Vieira was a remarkable figure of the Baroque age whose life has remained relatively unknown to English-speaking readers. This excellent edition and translation of his sermons finally gives them access to Vieira's talents and thought, and helps to restore him to the prominence he deserves. * Stuart Schwartz, George Burton Adams Professor of History and Chair of the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, Yale University * The sermons Monica Leal da Silva and Liam Brockey have edited, translated, and introduced-a small fragment of Vieira's corpus of sermons, delivered over the course of several decades and originally published in twelve volumes between 1679 and 1699-consistently seduce and shock, affect, surprise, and edify, bringing more of the work of this renowned diplomat and orator into English for the first time... Da Silva and Brockey's edition would be perfect for an undergraduate history course on colonial Latin America or Brazil or religious history surveys of various temporal and spatial configurations. Who knows, it might offer some coveted lessons and needed inspiration to orators-preachers, teachers, and politicians-of our own day as well. * Richard Hoffmann Reinhardt, Reading Religion * This volume grants us direct access to the observations and judgments of a long-lived contemporary witness, and allows readers to formulate their own opinions about Vieira's rhetoric and style ... Now, four centuries on, thanks to an accurate, elegant and reader-centred translation, Vieira can speak to new audiences. * Patricia Odber De Baubeta, Bulletin of Spanish Studies *

Antonio Vieira is a major religious, cultural, and political figure in the early modern world, little known outside the field of Iberian history. This outstanding translation of selected sermons will contribute to integrate his thought in the long-term complex analysis of colonialism, slavery, racism, and national assertion. * Francisco Bethencourt, author of Racisms from the Crusades to the Twentieth Century * The reader will find here six of Antonio Vieira's sermons, most available in English for the first time. Brilliantly translated and contextualized, the sermons reflect the ways a leading Jesuit grappled with the bewildering forces of globalization, commerce, slavery, and morality, forces the Jesuits themselves unleashed. How to find providential meaning in a Portuguese global empire built on the backs of both slaves and Jesuit missionaries? How to have providential certainty in a world bedeviled by greed, growing religious apathy, and geopolitical uncertainty? How to be a prophet in a new, yet weakened Braganza-led Israel? Out of hundreds of possible sermons, the authors have masterfully picked a handful to illuminate a complex, deeply contradictory world of faith and violence. * Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin * Missionary, diplomat, theologian, pulpit preacher, social critic, political strategist, and one of the finest writers of the Portuguese language, the Jesuit Antonio Vieira was a remarkable figure of the Baroque age whose life has remained relatively unknown to English-speaking readers. This excellent edition and translation of his sermons finally gives them access to Vieira's talents and thought, and helps to restore him to the prominence he deserves. * Stuart Schwartz, George Burton Adams Professor of History and Chair of the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, Yale University * The sermons Monica Leal da Silva and Liam Brockey have edited, translated, and introduced-a small fragment of Vieira's corpus of sermons, delivered over the course of several decades and originally published in twelve volumes between 1679 and 1699-consistently seduce and shock, affect, surprise, and edify, bringing more of the work of this renowned diplomat and orator into English for the first time... Da Silva and Brockey's edition would be perfect for an undergraduate history course on colonial Latin America or Brazil or religious history surveys of various temporal and spatial configurations. Who knows, it might offer some coveted lessons and needed inspiration to orators-preachers, teachers, and politicians-of our own day as well. * Richard Hoffmann Reinhardt, Reading Religion *

Author Information

Mónica Leal da Silva was born in Lisbon, Portugal, and educated at the University of Lisbon. She has taught Portuguese language and literature at the elementary, secondary, and university levels for over twenty years. Since emigrating to the United States, she has taught at Princeton University and Michigan State University. Mónica Silva is the author of three acclaimed works of children's literature, as well as works of cultural criticism, published in Portugal. She has also translated works of historical scholarship in the United States and the U.K. In addition to teaching and writing, Mónica Silva has contributed to published forums on social and educational issues. Liam Matthew Brockey is an historian of Early Modern Europe, and a specialist in the history of Roman Catholicism and the Society of Jesus. Educated at the University of Notre Dame and Brown University, he has written extensively on Jesuit missions in China, Japan, and India, as well as on the Portuguese empire. He is the author of two monographs, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724 and The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia, and many journal articles. Liam Matthew Brockey recently served as President of the American Catholic Historical Association, and was elected to the Academia Portuguesa da História.

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