Variations on Martyrdom by José de Anchieta

Abstract

Abstract:In the course of his missionary work in Brazil in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the Jesuit José de Anchieta (1534-1597) authored multiple reports, lyric compositions, and dramatic spectacles about the lives and deaths of martyrs. Martyrdom thus became a consistent theme across his broad and variegated corpus—something in itself unsurprising, given the long history of martyrdom as an important religious subject for artistic portrayal, as well as the new avenues for martyrdom that confessional strife and missionary zeal opened up in the early modern period. And yet, there is no single kind of martyrdom typified in Anchieta's works. In this essay, I propose a comparative analysis of some of Anchieta's martyrological pieces as a way to highlight the different functions he assigns to classical and modern martyrs. We notice, for example, that the deaths of early Christians like Saint Laurence and Saint Ursula, already celebrated figures in medieval and early modern sources, are practically glossed over so as to focus instead on the saints' roles in the context of the nascent missions in Brazil, where they are treated as figures of inspiration and protection. In contrast, the misadventures of contemporary candidates for martyrdom, such as Pero Correia, João de Sousa, and Inácio de Azevedo, are rendered in much more careful detail. Especially when it comes to the last words and gestures of his fellow Jesuits, Anchieta writes with the sweeping eye of the chronicler, the mythmaker, and of course, the prospective martyrologist. Through strategic variation, Anchieta makes the martyr a nexus between the early history of Christendom and its recasting in the New World.