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ABBE FARIA DEBATE
[Goanet]
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:02:11 +0000
From: "Jose Pereira"
Subject: [Goanet]
JOSE FARIA'S ORATION IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL
To:
goanet@goanet.org
In his interesting article "Faria,"
recently published in Parmal, Luis S. R. Vas refers to a sermon Jose
Faria (1756-1819) is supposed to have given in the Sistine chapel.
This speech was recently translated from the Latin into English by
Professor Ivo da conceicao Sousa. It congratulates Pope clement XIV
(r. 1769-1774) on his accession to the papacy, and could only have
been given when Faria arrived in Rome in 1772, a city where he was to
study for eight years.
In no way could Jose Faria have delivered an oration in the Sistine
chapel at the age of 15. In the first place, that oration, composed in
a consummate Latin style, mentions another institution where it was
delivered, [hoc loco, atque huius collegii, "this place and this
college"] the collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide, founded by Pope
Urban VIII in 1627 for training missionaries, where the young Faria
was enrolled as a student; but the actual building, the locus of the
congratulatory oration, was built in 1662 by the great architect
Borromini.
Who and why would anyone have invited an obscure boy of 15, whose
achievements lay only in the future, and those not in theology but in
medicine, to give a homily in the most august chapel in the whole catholic
world? Faria was no doubt a genius, and must have learnt good Latin from
his teachers in Goa, but he could hardly, in his teens, have mastered its
rhetorical style with its innumerable devices and conceits. Besides, the
oration displays a familiarity with the Fathers of the church (whose
writings are contained in bulky tomes) and with papal defenders of
orthodoxy against the heresies in the early church. These tomes were not
easy to procure, especially in a place so remote from Europe as Goa. The
Fathers he mentions are Athanasius, Augustine, Basil of caesarea, celestine (pope,
adversary of the Nestorian heresy), chrysostom, cyril of Alexandria, Eleutherius (pope, adversary of the Montanist heresy), Epiphanius, Irenaeus, Isidore (bishop of Seville), Leo the Great (pope,
adversary of the Eutychian heresy), Nazianzenus, and Sylvester (pope,
adversary of the Arian
heresy). The heresies Faria refers to are the Arian, Donatist, Eutychian,
Gnostic, Macedonian, Manichaean, Montanist, Nestorian, and Novatian. To
master the writings of these theologians and to acquire a familiarity with
the heresies (not to mention to work out a superb Latin style) would
require more than 15 years – indeed, a lifetime!
It is my guess that the oration he is recorded to have delivered (whether
in the collegio Urbano or the cappella Sistina) was not his composition
but was written for him by his teacher (the Dominican Tommaso Maria
Mammachi?). The delivery, in fluent Latin, of an oration on the supreme
importance of the papacy in the catholic church, by a vivacious
brown-skinned boy, from a remote land reachable only by a long and
arduous journey by sea, was a clear proof of the universality of
the catholic message and the success of its missionaries: the scenario
would have appealed to the sense of drama of the Romans of that
Baroque age. When, however, in 1780, this young genius had
completed his studies in the Eternal city and defended his
philosophical dissertation, which he dedicated to the Portuguese king
D. Jose in elegant Latin, he was a master of ciceronian rhetoric and
needed no ghost writer, but his interests now were not focused on
theology or philosophy, but on hypnotism. As for the remark that
his father is alleged to have made in the Portuguese parliament, "kator re baji" (and everyone who talks of Faria repeats it
ad nauseam), it could strike one as odd that, as a young boy, Faria could
face the most august assembly in Europe, the Pope with the college of
cardinals, and not bat an eye, while, as a confident and academically
successful young man, should come to be tongue-tied when addressing a far
less illustrious body, the members of an obsequious parliament.
─ Dr. Jose Pereira
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Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 01:14:57 -0500
From: Jorge/Livia de Abreu Noronha
Subject: [Goanet]
Re: Goanet Reader: The Amazing Abbe Faria (Luis S R
Vas, PARMAL)
To:
goanet@goanet.org
1. Wouldn't it be possible to have Dr. ManoharRai SarDessai's English
translation of Abbe Faria's "De la Cause du Sommeil Lucide" reprinted
to mark the 250th birth anniversary of Faria?
2. ManoharRai SarDessai tells us in his "A History of Konkani
Literature" that Shennoy Goembab wrote in 1941 a "story of the life of
the AbbC) Faria, the father of modern hypnotism", that "it has an
excellent introduction by the great Goan educationist and teacher Dona
Propercia Correia Afonso de Figueiredo", and that "This short
biography is a rare achievement that wins both the appreciation of the
expert and the gratitude of the common
reader".
I
suggest that Luis S.R. Vas and Isabel S.R. Vas have this biography by
Shennoy Goembab translated from Konkani to English and published to
mark the same 250th birth anniversary. Perhaps Prof. Sebastian Borges
could be asked to do the translation.
3. Dr. Daniel Gelasio Dalgado's 1906 "Memoir on the Life of AbbC)
Faria", as published by Laurent Carrer, Ph.D. in 2004, has on page 41
the following (which I assume to be the English translation of the
original document worded in Portuguese):
B+From the Register of Baptisms at the Church of Our-Lady-of-Hope in
Candolim, Goa. On June seventh of the year seventeen hundred
fifty five, I, Br. Manoel de Jesus e Maria, with the permission of the
Very Reverend Father Manoel de AssumpC'ao, priest at this church of
Our-Lady-of-Hope in Candolim, have baptized and anointed with holy
oils Joseph Custodio, born eight days ago, son of Caetano Victorino de
Faria and Rosa de Sousa. His godparents are P. Joao Simoes, residing
in Sirula, and Celestina Maria Luisa de Sousa, residing in this
parish. - Signed: Br. Manoel de Jesus MariaB; >From this register it
would seem that Jose Custodio de Faria (Abbe Faria) was born not on
May 31, 1756 but on May 31, 1755. It would be worthwhile to search for
the original baptism register (if at all available - as I understand
that all such documents were transferred to the Historical Archives in
Panjim and many of them are in an appalling state and hardly readable,
while others have simply vanished) and ascertain which is in fact the
correct year when the Abbe was born: 1756 or 1755. Could Isabel Santa
Rita Vas, Luis Santa Rita Vas or Cecil Pinto undertake this task and
clarify
the matter.
Jorge
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 21:50:02 +0530
From: Cecil Pinto
Subject: [Goanet]
Luis Vas replies to Jose Pereira regarding Abbe
Faria's oration
To:
goanet@goanet.org
Re Dr. Jose Pereira's message regarding my
article The Amazing Abbe Faria.
----------
Since Jose' Faria travelled to Portugal from Goa when he was 15 and
was not even in Rome, obviously couldn't have preached in the Sistine
Chapel at that age.
I found his oration in the Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama, No.
26,dated 1935. It carried a preface by Dr. Alfredo Rodrigues Santos
which read:
"It being presently extremely difficult, due to its rarity, to acquire
a copy of the oration "The Advent of the Holy Spirit" authored by
Jose' Custodio de Faria (Abbe' Faria), at the time a student of the
College of Propaganda Fide, of Rome, published in this same city, and
dedicated to Pope Pius VI, we reproduce it here...It was a work
published in 1775", that is when the Abbe was 19, not beyond the realm
of possibility!
However, his biographers refer to it in conjunction with his being
ordained in 1780 a the age of 24, after defending his thesis on the
Existence of God, One God and Divine Revelation. It's possible that at
this time he unearthed the 5-year old study and sent it to the Pope,
after which he was asked to preach at the Sistine Chapel, but I am
unsure of the exact date.
Incidentally, after finding this oration in Latin I requested Fr.
Conceicao de Souza to translate it into English, which he kindly and
brilliantly did, and it can now be read at the www.abbefaria.com site
hosted by Mr.Dom Martin.
Luis S. R. Vas
Date: Wed, 21 Dec
2005 01:37:02 +0000
From: "Jose Pereira"
Subject: [Goanet]
Observations on Luis Vaz's comments
To:
goanet@goanet.org
I
am grateful for Luis Vaz's comments, which I believe clinch the issue
of Jose Faria's supposed Sistine chapel oration. My arguments, taken
mostly from the evidence provided by the oration itself, is briefly
as follows.
1. GIVEN DATE OF THE PUBLICATION OF THE ORATION, 1775.
If the oration was published in 1775 it could only refer to Pope
Clement XIV (r. 1769-1774), who was dead in 1774. It is not
impossible that Faria was then invited to Rome by the next Pope, the
tragic Pius VI (r. 1775-1799), and there was nothing to prevent the
latter from inviting a man who had made his name in philosophy alone,
to deliver a heavily theological homily on the divine
institution of the papacy. And why not in the Sistine chapel? But that
cannot be the oration we are discussing here, which, if read in honor
of Pius VI, could only have been published after 1775.
2. LOCUS OF THE ORATION: COLLEGIUM URBANUM DE PROPAGANDA FIDE (NOT
THE SISTINE CHAPEL)
Faria tells us that the oration was given in a College (the Propaganda
College) at the beginning of its Academic Year. He wishes to offer
gratitude to the Pope in the name of the whole College, which he
claims to represent, and proudly mentions the fact that the occasion
was the first in the history of the institution (with the Pope as the
"guest of honor," as we would say today). Since Pope Sixtus IV built
the Sistine chapel (1475-1483), innumerable popes have been addressed
there by any number of orations. And that noble fane is no place for
inaugurating academic years.
3.
THE ADDRESEE, POPE CLEMENT XIV (R. )
Finally the Pope was a published theologian of repute. Faria refers to
the Pope's power of intelligence revealed through an abundance of
writings. In addition the oration congratulates the Pope for having
been elected unanimously. The Pope (whose conclave lasted from
February to May 1759), must have winced at this statement, for in the
final ballot, the only vote not cast for the future Pope Clement was
his own.
Jose Pereira
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:53:19 +0100
From: "Jorge/Livia de Abreu Noronha"
Subject: Re: [Goanet]
JOS? FARIA'S ORATION IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL
To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <goanet@goanet.org>
Dear Prof. Jose Pereira,
As for "... it could strike one as odd that, as a young boy, Faria
could face the most august assembly in Europe, the Pope with the
college of cardinals, and not bat an eye, while, as a confident and
academically successful young man, should come to be tongue-tied when
addressing a far less illustrious body, the members of an obsequious
parliament", I beg to offer the following comments:
a) I think that the assembly he was facing at the Portuguese Queen's
private chapel was not "the members of an obsequious parliament" (in
fact I don't think there was even a parliament at that time) but the
whole Portuguese nobility;
b) Maybe he was extremely fluent in the Latin language and felt
therefore completely at ease in the presence of the Pope and the
college of cardinals, but not so fluent in Portuguese, which caused
him to be tongue-tied in the royal chapel in Lisbon;
c) Faria's sermon in question, on "The Advent of the Holy Spirit",
was delivered not at the request of Pope Clement XIV (r. 1769-1774)
but at the request of and in the presence of Pope Pius VI (r.
1775-1799), after he had been ordained priest at the age of 24 and a
little before his return from Rome to Lisbon. By that time he must
have been entirely capable of writing his own sermon or oration in
good Latin.
Would I be wrong in these my assumptions?
As regards his dissertation, Aleixo Manuel da Costa relates in his "Dicionario
de Literatura Goesa" (Vol. I) that the thesis "De Existentia Dei, Deo
Uno et Divina Revelatione" was dedicated by him to the Portuguese
Queen D. Maria I and her spouse D. Pedro III, as her father King D.
Jose (to whom he was indebted for having made it possible for him to prossecute his college studies in Rome) had already died by then.
Jorge
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:14:23 +0000
From: "Jose Pereira"
Subject: [Goanet]
JOSE FARIA'S ORATION IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL
To:
goanet@goanet.org
Dear Jorge Noronha
You are right: I was in error: there was no parliament. Faria's sermon
was delivered, as you point out, in the queen's chapel.
Cunha Rivara, in his "A Conjuracao de 1787 em Goa", p. 88, refers to
the "kator re baji" episode. "Pregava Jose Custodio pela primeira vez
na capela real, e vendo aí os principais personagens e capacidades do
reino, perturbou-se; ao que o pai, que o for a ouvir oculto debaixo
do pulpito, acudiu em voz que ele ouvisse, dizendo-lhe em lingua de
Goa - tudo isto e palha - com que o pregador ficou tao animado, que
ganhou o desembaraco necessario, e foi aplaudido o sermao."
Here Rivara seems to suppose that Faria's nervousness was due to his
being overwhelmed, not by a feeling of inadequacy at his poor command
of the Portuguese language, but by the dignitaries of the Portuguese
court - which, splendid as it was, could hardly compare in majesty
with the papal court held in the Sistine. It is hard to believe that
the young Faria was far more fluent in the immensely complex
Ciceronian Latin than in the far simpler "Bocagian" Portuguese of the
18th century. He seems to have had litt
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