The myth of São Tomé or Sumé [Saint Thomas] and the theological-political nexus between the East and the West

Abstract

In Vision of Paradise, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda affirms the myth of São Tomé as the only conquest myth of Luso-Brazilian origin. Unlike the Castilian world, which was guided – as of the earliest letters penned by Christopher Columbus – by imaginary questions on the idea of Paradise on Earth, the source of youth, the Amazon and its treasures, and the white king and his mountains of gold, the Portuguese world was more modestly and uniquely nourished by a fantasy based on the mythology of São Tomé [Saint Thomas] and his journey around the world. In Brazil, Manuel da Nóbrega’s earliest letters on the term ‘Sumé” are used to refer to the figure of Tomé, to human footprints, and to a mysterious messenger of supernatural truths establishing communication between Brazil and India, and these regions with the Catholic-Portuguese world. The myth of Tomé or Sumé thus serves as a historical solution or an intellectual and imaginary attempt to link Brazil and Asia and both to the Christian cosmology.