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Why Was It Nearly Forgotten? the Agreda Treaty of August 1304

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Why Was It Nearly Forgotten? the Agreda Treaty of August 1304 Rethinking the Fifth Empire: António Vieira and the Clavis Prophetarum1 Maria Ana T. Valdez2 Abstract It is this paper’s purpose to introduce António Vieira’s model of the Fifth Empire and to contextualize it within the biblical exegesis tendencies of his time. Vieira’s conceptualization is of utmost importance for understanding the intellectual and religious environment of seventeenth-century Portugal: a disturbed time, during which people searched for answers in biblical prophecies to explain the reasons behind so much suffering. Vieira’s systematization, however, was first viewed as a possible heresy by the Portuguese Inquisition and was only later, and in part, rehabilitated by Antonio Casnedi. The Clavis prophetarum is also an expression of an eschatological hope common to the Iberian world, although it focuses mostly on Portugal. Keywords António Vieira, Clavis prophetarum, Fifth Empire, Apocalyptic Literature, Portugal Resumo Este artigo propõe analisar e contextualizar o modelo de Quinto Império proposto pelo Pe. António Vieira de acordo com os modelos de exegese bíblica praticados no seu tempo. A conceptualização vieiriana é fundamental para a compreensão do ambiente intelectual e religioso do século XVII português: um período conturbado durante o qual as pessoas procuravam compreender as razões do seu sofrimento à luz de profecias bíblicas. A sistematização efectuada por António Vieira, apesar de inicialmente tida como uma possível heresia por parte da Inquisição portuguesa, foi mais tarde reabilitada pela sententia de Antonio Casnedi. É necessário relembrar que a opus magnum vieirina—Clavis prophetarum—é um dos melhores exemplares de literatura escatológica daquela época, e que coloca a tónica no papel a realizar por Portugal e pelo monarca português com vista ao estabelecimento do reino divino de Deus na Terra tal como prometido nos textos bíblicos. Como tal, não é de estranhar que o Papa e o Rei português sejam descritos como “vigários de Cristo na Terra.” Palavras-chave António Vieira, Clavis prophetarum, Quinto Império, Literatura Apocalíptica, Portugal 1 This paper is part of the research undertaken for the PhD thesis in History, presented by the author to the University of Lisbon in December of 2008. It would not have been possible without the financial support of FCT, through the program POCI 2010. 2 CHUL, University of Lisbon and Yale University, Department of Religious Studies. E-mail – [email protected] Valdez Rethinking the Fifth Empire Many historians have devoted their life’s work to the study of phenomena such as prophecy, millenarianism, and apocalypticism, and in particular to its emergence, development, and influence, as well as the reasons why at times such phenomena appear to have vanished from the collective mind. It is our belief that R. Rusconi is on the right track when he underlines the originality of Iberian intellectual movements, especially after the beginning of Maritime Expansion (Rusconi, 1999: 132). Therefore, and risking jumping immediately to a conclusion, I have to say that it is my belief that the Iberian Peninsula, including its overseas territories, does indeed represent an original intellectual phenomenon regarding the issue of political prophecy. Vieira’s work, and particularly the Clavis prophetarum, represents a major contribution to the reinterpretation of a biblical concept used not only by the Church, but also by the broader community of Christians, as if it held the key to the promised kingdom of God. It is, nonetheless, necessary to remember that Vieira is not introducing a new subject at all. He is reinterpreting, according to his own beliefs and agenda, the theory regarding the end of time and the consequent achievement of the eschatological kingdom as it was first introduced by Daniel and later developed by the Christian author of the Book of Revelation. Moreover, because the achievement of the kingdom of God was so important for Christians, many theologians over the centuries attempted to interpret these texts in a way that would permit them to tell their communities how close, or not, they were to the end of the world, and, consequently, to the new beginning. Authors such as Josephus, Jerome, Hippolytus, Augustine, and Fiore, among many others, should be counted among these theologians. a) Daniel In the Book of Daniel (c. 2nd century bce), we find two different accounts of historical periodization based on the scheme of four succeeding empires. The first is found in Chapter 2 in the description of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, while the second account, in Chapters 7-8, is concerned with the description of the four beasts, and, in particular, with the depiction of the last two periods of the four-age schema, using the images of the ram and the he-goat. The first account of the theory of the four empires in the Book of Daniel is considered by scholars as the introductory chapter to the visions of the apocalyptic section. For example, regarding this issue, Hartman writes that: “(…) once independent stories that e-JPH, Vol. 10, number 2, Winter 2012 59 Valdez Rethinking the Fifth Empire the compiler of the Book of Daniel prefixed to his apocalyptic visions are made up of a theme within a theme” (Hartman and Di Lella, 1978: 142). It is only during the second part of this tale that the scheme of the four kingdoms is introduced. In accordance with the revelation that Daniel received in a night vision following previous prayers to the God of Israel, he told the king that he (the king) had seen an enormous and frightening statue. This statue was composed of different materials: the head was gold, the chest and arms were silver, the middle and the thighs were bronze, the legs were iron, and the feet a mixture of clay and iron. The king then saw how a stone had destroyed the entire statue, first hitting the feet. Afterwards, the same stone became a great mountain and filled the entire world. Following this description of the dream, Daniel explains its meaning to the king. First, he notes that Nebuchadnezzar was king because he had been chosen by Yahweh (Daniel, 2:37). He explains after this that the different materials represented successive empires, the golden one (the Babylonian Empire) being the first. At the same time, he describes how Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar’s successors were condemned to be defeated and how their supremacy would be destroyed in the future. Empires were predestined for destruction until the appearance of the “feet,” a mixture of clay and iron that represented the weakness of that last kingdom. From this last and weak kingdom however, a stronger one would rise up in the future. This kingdom was predicted to last forever and to be indestructible by the will of God, the same god who had given the dream to Nebuchadnezzar. The succession of empires forecast in this dream can also be interpreted in the light of historical events (Rowley, 1959: 161-73). It is common to read into this description the succession of empires in the Ancient Near East down to the 2nd century bce. According to this theory, the golden head would represent Babylon, the silver arms and chest, Media, the bronze middle and thighs, Persia, and the iron legs, Greece.3 Although scholars take the mixture of clay and iron portrayed in the statue’s feet to refer to the division of Alexander’s empire after his death, most would agree that the iron mixed with clay refers to the policy of intermarriage existing between Ptolemies and Seleucids. Moreover, from the point of view of Jewish resistance during the reign of Antiochus IV, the stone was also understood by the text’s editor to represent the eschatological Jewish kingdom still to come. The future would cause this schema to be continuously reinterpreted. From the 1st century CE onwards, the emphasis of the interpretation was placed on Rome instead of 3 Although Josephus points to Rome as the last empire, the chronology of the book does not permit us to reach such a conclusion. e-JPH, Vol. 10, number 2, Winter 2012 60 Valdez Rethinking the Fifth Empire Greece. In accordance with this subsequent interpretation, the sequence of empires would be Assyria, Media and Persia (understood as part of the same unity), Greece, and, finally, Rome as the last empire. The text of Daniel, Chapter 2, does not, however, specify the names of the empires, thus allowing for the theory of the four-kingdom scheme to be widely applied in the future when many reinterpretations were to follow. In fact, it seems more plausible that the sequence of empires represented in Daniel would have been one of Iranian origin, which was well known in the Near East and obviously did not contain references to Rome or Greece (Collins, 1984: 280-94). The author of this text was interested in history only when it served his own interests. In a word, history was significant insofar as it accentuated the importance of the Jewish people and their religion – that aside, the events that were reported could be mere fiction. Therefore, the different empires were depicted in accordance with their relationship with Israel, which may explain the correlation with the different metals and their inherent quality. In reality, this review of world history suggests to the reader a vision of a declining world about to reach its end. Daniel, Chapter 7, marks the beginning of the apocalyptic section of the Book of Daniel and occupies what J. Collins calls a “pivotal place” because it links the two parts of the book (Collins, 1984: 277). We find once more in this chapter a dream/vision concerning the four kingdoms, though this time represented by four beasts that came from the sea.4 This new section of the book, however, makes explicit mention of some current historical events, and therefore the context of the two texts is different.
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