Crise e Consciência : ensaio sobre a descristianização de Portugal no século XVII

Abstract

It is the purpose of this paper to understand unbelief and religious indifference in early modern Portugal, based on a retrospective analysis starting from the transition from XVIIth to XVIIIth century back to early seventeenth-century. By drawing on this method it is possible to realize that by mid-seventeenth century it became evident that the model of religious conformity, inherited from Counter-Reformation and imposed by coercion upon the whole society, displayed clear signs of exhaustion. As this situation became more evident, two opposite forms of reaction emerged. On one hand a skeptical attitude towards religion, sometimes even unbelief and atheism, grounded on XVIth century pyrrhonism and skepticism. On the other hand, religious rigorism, resting on an augustinian background. Both these movements would be called to play a major role in eighteenth-century intellectual battlefield in Portugal.

Keywords

• Dechristianization
• Jacobeia
• Augustinianism
• Mysticism
• Pyrrhonism