O Sermon of the Sixtieth is one of the best known “Sermons” by the baroque writer and speaker Padre Antônio Vieira.
The work was written in prose in 1655 and its theme is based on religiosity. O Sermon of the Sixtieth was given in the Royal Chapel of Lisbon, in 1655.
Work Summary
With a religious theme, the Sermon of the Sexagesima is a sacred prose intended to convince people to convert to the Catholic religion.
Thus, Vieira uses several passages from the Bible to write the sermons. It mentions themes such as God, men, the preacher and the gospel.
Thus, he tries to show that the preacher is to blame and the truth of his doctrine. He therefore criticizes other preachers and the ineffectiveness of their speeches.
In short, the Sermon of the Sixtieth focuses on the way of delivering sermons. The Priest uses metalanguage to present his central idea: to preach is to sow.
Check the entire work by downloading the PDF here: Sermon of the Sixtieth.
Work Analysis
O Sermon of the Sixtieth is divided into 10 parts.
Antonio Vieira he was one of the most outstanding writers of the conceptist literary style.In other words, he had a great concern with the “game of ideas”. Thus, with a strong rationality (logical reasoning), the work is intended to convince the reader.
From several analogies he uses argumentation to answer the questions he asks himself.
The use of speech figures which offer greater expressiveness to the text. The most used are metaphor, comparison, hyperbole, etc.
It is worth remembering that with the Protestant Reformation the Catholic Church increasingly lost its faithful. In this way, Vieira tried to instill in people's minds the dogmas of the Catholic religion.
Understand more about the Cultism and Conceptism.
Excerpts from the Work
To better understand the language used in the Sermon of the Sixtieth, below are some excerpts.
I
And if God wanted this so illustrious and so numerous audience to leave today so disillusioned with preaching, how wrong with the preacher! Let's hear the Gospel, and let's hear it all, that it's all about the case that took me and brought me so far.
II
Semen est verbum Dei.
The wheat that the evangelical preacher sowed, says Christ that it is the word of God. The thorns, the stones, the path and the good ground into which the wheat fell, are the different hearts of men. Thorns are hearts entangled with cares, with riches, with delights; and in these the word of God is drowned. Stones are hard and stubborn hearts; and in these the word of God dries up, and if it is born, it does not take root. The paths are the restless and disturbed hearts with the passage and trampling of the things of the World, some that go, some that come, others that cross, and all pass; and in these the word of God is trodden down, because they disregard it or despise it. Finally, the good land is good hearts or good-hearted men; and in these it binds and bears fruit the divine word, with such fruitfulness and abundance, that it is harvested a hundred by one: Et fructum fecit centuplum.
III
Making the word of God little fruit in the world can proceed from one of three principles: either from the preacher, or from the hearer, or from God. For a soul to be converted through a sermon, there must be three contests: the preacher must compete with the doctrine, persuading; the listener must compete with the understanding, perceiving; God must compete with grace, lighting.
IV
But as in a preacher there are so many qualities, and in a preaching so many laws, and preachers can be guilty in all, what is this guilt to consist of? -- In the preacher, five circumstances can be considered: the person, the science, the subject, the style, the voice. The person he is, and the knowledge he has, the subject he deals with, the style he follows, the voice he speaks with. All these circumstances we have in the Gospel.
V
Is it perhaps the style that is used in pulpits today? A style so clumsy, a style so difficult, a style so affected, a style so found in all of art and in all of nature? This is also a good reason. The style must be very easy and very natural. That is why Christ compared preaching to sowing: Exiit, qui seminat, seminare.
SAW
Will it be for the matter or matters that preachers take? The way they call the Gospel booklet is used today, in which they take many subjects, raise many subjects and those who raise a lot of game and don't follow any don't pick up with their hands. empty. This is also a good reason. The sermon must have only one subject and only one subject. That is why Christ said that the farmer of the Gospel had not sowed many kinds of seeds, but only one: Exiit, qui seminat, seminare semen. He sowed only one seed, and not many, because the sermon will have only one material, and not many materials.
VII
Is it perhaps the lack of science that is found in many preachers? There are many preachers who live on what they did not reap and sow what they did not work. After Adam's sentence, the land does not usually bear fruit, but to those who eat their bread with the sweat of their brow. Good reason seems this too. The preacher will preach his own, not someone else's. That is why Christ says that the farmer of the Gospel sowed his wheat: Semen suum. He sowed his own, and not the alien, because the alien and the stolen is not good for sowing, even if the theft is a matter of science.
VIII
Will it finally be the cause, which we have been longing for, the voice with which preachers speak today? In the past they preached shouting, today they preach talking. In the past, the first part of the preacher was a good voice and a good chest. And truly, as the world is governed so much by the senses, sometimes more cries can be made than reason. This was also a good one, but we can't prove it with the sower, because we've already said that it wasn't a job by mouth. But what denied us the Gospel in the metaphorical sower, he gave us in the true sower, which is Christ.
IX
The words I have taken as a theme say so. Semen est verbum Dei. Do you know, Christians, why so little fruit is produced today with so much preaching? It is because the words of the preachers are words, but they are not the words of God. I speak of what is ordinarily heard. The word of God (as I would say) is so powerful and so effective that not only does it bear fruit in the good soil, but even in stones and thorns it is born. But if the words of the preachers are not the words of God, how much more so that they do not have the effectiveness and effects of the word of God?
X
You will tell me what they tell me, and what I have already experienced, that if we preach in this way, the hearers mock us, and do not like to hear. Oh, good reason for a servant of Jesus Christ! Mock and dislike it though, and let us do our craft! The doctrine which they scoff at, the doctrine which they despise, that is what we must preach to them, and for that very reason, because it is most profitable and most needed.
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