Published in The World of Tradition

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As the importance of the Society of Jesus in the Portuguese colonizing process is indisputable, the specificities of Jesuit cultural imagery were equally decisive to define several elements in the cultural formation of the colonies. Often centred on literature at many points of its historical development, Portuguese thought of the time was heavily determined by philosophy. Particularly in the sixteenth century, the first century of global colonization, the evangelizing impetus of the Society of Jesus acted as a main existential drive in both cultural and political process of sending missionaries abroad. This paper emphasizes the capital relevance of transcendent beliefs and values in the worldview of such missionaries, and how they shaped the missionary ethos in the daily life, the educational initiatives and the first reports of Jesuit authors.