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This article is a textual and contextual analysis of one of Father António Vieira’s apocryphal writings addressed to Portugal’s prince regent D. Pedro: the “Paper on the Parliament made by the Prince and Regent Dom Pedro.” Besides reinforcing Vieira’s authorship, this study sheds light on the way the Jesuit faced one of the worst moments in the history of the New Christian phenomenon in Portugal, after a host desecration in the Church of Odivelas in May 1671, when politics and anti-converso feelings became intertwined. Rhetoric and political messianism appear in this manuscript as tools to transform hatred of New Christians into empathy and support.
Abstract
This article reassesses António Vieira’s views on New Christians and Jews. Rather than presenting a reductive portrait of Vieira’s philosemitism as merely empathic, positive, and tolerant, I argue that his supportive attitudes included some enduring negative ideas of Jewishness. An analysis of Vieira’s pro-converso and prophetic writings (including his Inquisition trial) show that his more ambivalent and dialectical perceptions were ultimately grounded on a theological-political interpretation of Paul’s Judeo-Gentile universalism.
Abstract
This article introduces the phenomenon of Jesuit-converso interactions, mostly in the early modern Iberian world. It summarizes the shifting attitudes of the Society of Jesus vis-à-vis New Christians of Jewish origin as actual or potential Jesuits and maps the multifaceted and variegated interplay between Jesuit priests and converso laymen, understood as a “tragic couple” relationship. This brief survey emphasizes the historiographical contribution of the last generations of Jesuit scholars, and of the five articles included in this special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies, to disclose a more overt “historical memory” of the Society of Jesus.