Prophecy and Eschatology on Antonio Vieira

Abstract

In accordance to the most careful commentators, by defining the prophetic and eschatological view as the essential matrix of Father Antonio Vieira’s thought and conduct, this article examines the notions of “vision”, “prophecy” and “Eschatology”, within the writings of this Lusitanian-Brazilian prosaist and preacher, such as the History of Future and the Clavis Prophetarum. If Moses wrote, with a spirit of prophecy, the history of the beginning and creation of the world, that is, if there already was a prophet of the past, which is the time of History, what would prevent the existence of a historian of the future, too, once this is the hidden and veiled time of prophecy? Would History comprise all life of man and the world, since Creation to the end of times, hence allowing to enlighten its most profound and secret, sacred and providential transcendent meaning?