''História do Futuro'' (English: ''History of the Future'', full title is ') is a book written by Portuguese priest

António Vieira António (or Antônio) Vieira (; 6 February 160818 July 1697) was a Portuguese Jesuit Priesthood in the Catholic Church, priest, diplomat, orator, preacher, philosopher, writer, and member of the Royal Council to the King of Portugal. Biogr ...

in the mid-17th century and published posthumously in 1718.

Author

(1608–1697) was a prominent figure of the Brazilian Baroque prose, known for his sermons. His works were characterized by a desire to establish a Portuguese and Catholic empire governed by civic zeal and justice, which often led to political problems and suspicions of heresy.

Content

According to writer , with ''História do Futuro'', Vieira wrote the first

utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

n narrative in Portuguese, in which he sought to revive the

millenarian Millenarianism or millenarism () is the belief by a religious organization, religious, social, or political party, political group or Social movement, movement in a coming fundamental Social transformation, transformation of society, after which ...

and

messianic In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach' ...

myth of the

Fifth Empire The Fifth Empire () is an esoteric concept of a global Portuguese empire with spiritual and temporal power, based on an interpretation of Daniel 2 and the Book of Revelation, whose origins lay with António Vieira. The concept was re-popularize ...

, a Christian and Portuguese empire dominating the world, succeeding the four famous empires of

antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

. This unfinished text is in fact the first part of a much larger book. It is made up of twelve chapters: three dealing with the "matter of future history"; five developing its various uses; and four on the truth of future history.

History and editions

The writing of the book began in 1649, according to Sorel, or around 1665, according to Bosi, but it was only posthumously published in Lisbon in 1718. Despite being an unfinished fragment, it aroused great interest and also suspicions of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...

. The first edition consisted of only a few autograph fragments, complete and incomplete copies, and was considered highly defective.. Subsequent editions, including the 1953 edition by Hernâni Cidade, did not improve significantly. In 1976, a reference edition was published in

Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...

by the Dutch publisher Jose van den Besselaar, considered of high quality with extensive commentary and consisting of two volumes. Vítor Amaral de Oliveira considers Vieira's work, along with Bandarra's ''Trovas'', to be one of the two most important texts in Sebastianism.

References

{{Reflist

External link

French edition of 2015
1718 books Baroque literature Books published posthumously Portuguese literature