Thomas of Jesus OAD, (

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

, 1529 –

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, April 17, 1582), also known as ''Tome de Jesus'' and ''Tomé de Andrade'', was a reformer and preacher, instrumental in creating the

Discalced Augustinians The Order of Discalced Augustinians (; abbreviation: OAD) is a mendicant order that branched off from the Order of Saint Augustine as a reform movement. History During the Counter-Reformation, there was a special interest among the Augustinian ...

Life

Thomas of Andrada was born in Lisbon in 1529, and "belonged to one of the most illustrious house of Portugal". Thomas joined the

Order of Saint Augustine The Order of Saint Augustine (), abbreviated OSA, is a mendicant order, mendicant catholic religious order, religious order of the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1244 by bringing together several eremitical groups in the Tuscany region who ...

at the age of fifteen and took the

religious name A religious name is a type of given name bestowed for religious purposes, and which is generally used in such contexts. Christianity Catholic Church Baptismal name In baptism, Catholic Church, Catholics are given a Christian name, which should n ...

''Thomas of Jesus''. His attempts to reform the order met with little success as his zeal for a stricter observance only raised violent opposition and hardship for himself, and he was forced to desist. Nonetheless, after his death the regulations he had proposed were later adopted by those Augustinians who formed the discalced branch. He was a chaplain with

Sebastian of Portugal Sebastian ( ; 20 January 1554 – 4 August 1578) was King of Portugal from 11 June 1557 to 4 August 1578 and the penultimate Portuguese monarch of the House of Aviz. He was the son of João Manuel, Prince of Portugal, and his wife, Joanna of Aus ...

's campaign against Morocco in 1578. According to

Henry Edward Manning Henry Edward Manning (15 July 1808 – 14 January 1892) was an English prelate of the Catholic Church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but co ...

, Thomas was "mixing with the gay and nobles and soldiery" with the mission "to nurse the sick and tend the wounded", and to prevent imprisoned Christian slaves from the mortal sin of

apostasy Apostasy (; ) is the formal religious disaffiliation, disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous re ...

." Father Thomas was wounded, captured, and imprisoned for four years. His sister, the Countess of Linares, managed to raise his ransom, but Thomas requested that it be used to buy the freedom of two others, so that he could remain and minister to his fellow captives. He became ill and died on 17 April 1582 not long after their release.

Works

His main work, ''Os Trabalhos de Jesus'', is a mystical text consisting of contemplations on the sufferings of Jesus. He wrote it while a captive in Morocco. The book was published between 1602 and 1609, and was translated into several languages, including

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

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, and

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. Thomas of Jesus wrote the Latin treatise ''De contemplatione divina libri VI'' ("Six books on the divine contemplation"), firstly published at

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

in 1684, with the ''

imprimatur An imprimatur (sometimes abbreviated as ''impr.'', from Latin, "let it be printed") is a declaration authorizing publication of a book. The term is also applied loosely to any mark of approval or endorsement. The imprimatur rule in the Catho ...

'' of Michael J. Curley, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore

References

External links

Trabalhos de Jesus
1865 edition, at

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including websites, software applic ...

1529 births 1582 deaths {{RC-bio-stub