The Concept
The Fifth Empire is not a mere territorial empire. It is a spiritual and linguistic body which spreads throughout the entire world. It represents the ultimate form of fusion between material ( science, reason, intellectual speculation ) and spiritual knowledge (the occult, mystical speculation, cabalism). It is the pinnacle of all the work undertaken by the previous empires (according to old principle of the translatio imperii), which are the following under Pessoa's point of view:
- First Empire - Ancient Greece, all knowledge and experience extracted from the ancient empires;
- Second Empire - Roman Empire, expansion of the First Empire's culture and knowledge;
- Third Empire - Christianity, fusion between the First and the Second Empires, with the absorption of several eastern elements (such as Judaism) - the Christian Moral;
- Fourth Empire - Europe, spreading throughout the entire world the outcome of the previous empires and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony, its culture and the English-speaking world as a result of the British Empire - the English individualism.
The Fifth Empire, led by "the hidden one" (O Encoberto in the poem, an allusion to Sebastianism), will unite the entire world spiritually and culturally, led by the Portuguese Nation.
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