The “Book of Nature” from Santo António to Fr. António Vieira

• Main Author: Soares, Martinho
• Publication Date: 2021
• Format: Article
• Language: por
• Source: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Download full: https://doi.org/10.34632/ephata.2021.9721

This work is divided into three parts. In the first, a historical-philosophical study on the medieval concept of “book of nature” is presented, relating this topic to analogical and religious hermeneutics developed by key authors such as Saint Augustine, Saint Isidore of Seville and Hugh of Saint Victor. To find the root of this allegorical-symbolic view of the natural world, older sources of Greco-Roman and Patristic culture are identified. In the second part, we study the presence and scope of naturalistic analogies in the Sermons of Saint Anthony of Lisbon. He who can very well be considered one of the most accomplished medieval cultists of this interpretative method, bringing to the text what for his Franciscan brothers was a daily experience. Few as Doctor Evangelicus knew how to match the symbolism of nature in such a fruitful and skilful way with theological reflection. In the third part, we examine the prevalence of the same concept in Father António Vieira's Sermonary. Baroque man and already deeply marked by the scientific revolution underway in his time, which will lead to the emancipation of the study of nature and the break with the theological discourse, the Jesuit preacher still maintains a foot well established in medieval tradition and in naturalistic analogical thought, in a final attempt to reconcile science and religious belief.