Sermão de Santo António aos peixes Add a review

The "Sermon of Saint Anthony to the Fish" (Portuguese: Sermão de Santo António aos Peixes) is a sermon written by Portuguese Jesuit priest António Vieira, preached to the congregation at the Church of Saint Anthony in São Luís do Maranhão, Colonial Brazil, on 13 June 1654. It is Vieira's most famous work.

It was preached in the context of the conflict between the colony's settlers and the Jesuits, who reiterated Pope Urban VIII's prohibition against Indian slavery. Three days after preaching it, Vieira secretly embarked to Lisbon to appeal King John IV for laws that would guarantee basic rights to Brazilian Indians, preventing them from being exploited by white colonists.

The sermon comprises an elaborate allegory: borrowing from the familiar legend of his namesake Saint Anthony's preaching to the fish (commonly cited in his hagiography), Vieira uses the different kinds of fish as metaphors for men, drawing direct parallels between the dynamics between big and little fish and those between colonists and the Indians.