Joachim of Fiore and António Vieira’s Clavis Prophetarum

Abstract

This article investigates the influence of Joachim of Fiore’s thinking and of the subsequent Joachimites on the work of António Vieira, SJ (1608-1697). My purpose is to ascertain whether Vieira provides a distinctive eschatological interpretation of the sacred texts in the unfinished Clavis Prophetarum, which deserves recognition as such in intellectual and religious history, or whether he was so much under the influence of Joachimite thinking that he ought to be considered a Joachimite himself. The hypothesis that I will explore is that Vieira might have profited from and somehow merged ideas deriving both from Augustine and Joachim, concerning the interpretation of the content of the books of Daniel and Revelation and the date of establishment of the divine kingdom on earth. This study sheds light on Vieira’s views and, more generally, on potentially important but thus far under-investigated intellectual connections between Augustine, Joachim, and Vieira.