Fifth Empire

The Fifth Empire (Portuguese: Quinto Império) is a 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 became well known after the publication of the book Mensagem, by Fernando Pessoa.

The Fifth Empire is not a mere territorial empire. It is a spiritual and linguistic body which spreads throughout the entire world. It represents the ultimate form of fusion between material (science, reason, intellectual speculation) and spiritual knowledge: the occult, mystical speculation and Kabbalism. It is the pinnacle of all the work undertaken by the previous empires (according to old principle of the translatio imperii), which are the following under Pessoa's point of view:

The Fifth Empire, led by "the hidden one" (O Encoberto in the poem, an allusion to Sebastianism), will unite the entire world spiritually and culturally, led by the Portuguese Nation.

The Fifth Empire is a belief messianic, millenarian (quiliástica), designed by Father António Vieira in the seventeenth century.

The first four empires were, according to Vieira, in order: the Assyro-Caldeans, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. The fifth was the Portuguese Empire.

As we saw when viewing the book of Daniel 2, in the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament), in Bible, Father António Vieira came to this myth based on a biblical passage that tells the story of King Nebuchadnezzar and his dream, with a statue that featured five kinds of materials.

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