Edging on heresy? António Vieira, SJ and his apocalyptic “Fifth Empire”

Abstract

While introducing António Vieira, SJ’s theory of the Fifth Empire, our objective in this paper is to discuss whether the Church could have considered his approach heretical. Although his theorization bordered dangerous waters, we do not think it crossed the limits of the Catholic Church’s orthodoxy. For doing this, we will analyze some passages of the História do futuro and some of the Clavis prophetarum, especially those dealing with concepts aimed at establishing a universal religion that could prepare Humanity for the events described in the book of Revelation, anticipating thus, the establishment of the divine kingdom. Vieira, the Jesuit, appears to have been one of the precursors of concepts such as universalism, toleration, and ecumenism, and this in a seventeenth-century dominated by solid institutions such as the Inquisition.