ABSTRACT
This article aims to investigate, in Jesuit letters written in Portuguese America between 1549 and 1563, the presence of one main preoccupation of Erasmian humanism: the catechetical emphasis. The importance which that humanism gave to instruction in Christian faith would have created conditions to the appropriation, by the Jesuits, of these ideas. By the analysis of our documental corpus, the article questions two statements generally made about Jesuit missions in the first years of its implantation in Portuguese America: its subjection to Millenarian ideas and its preference for other sacramental contributions, like mass baptism and auricular confession, instead of catechesis. The final aim is to indicate how, by the appropriation of a core aspect of Erasmian humanism, the Jesuit mission inscribed the Portuguese America of sixteenth-century second half in the universe of Humanist concerns then cultivated in Europe.
Keywords:
Erasmian humanism; Jesuit catechesis; Missionary work in Portuguese America