The moralization of death in Antônio Vieira’s Theatrum Sacrum

Abstract

Initially this article delineates the role of death and the proliferation of the macabre in the social imagination between the 16th and 17th centuries, based on the works of Delumeau, Arriès, Mâle and Chanu, among others. Secondly, it examines the widespread diffusion of human body images in the 17th century culture as well as the prominent role of anatomy, which transcended the scope of medical practices, adopting metaphorical meanings. The aforementioned topics pave the way to understanding the relevance of the pulpit in the dissemination of the Catholic Church’s concept of death, which can be identified in the sermonistic work of the Jesuit Antônio Vieira. The main focus of the present article is an analysis of Vieira’s construction of a memento mori from the resumption of the biblical commonplace that man is dust and to the dust will return. This scriptural theme is developed in the three Ash Wednesday ecclesiastical sermons composed by Vieira, which are discussed in the final section of this paper.