The memory of Portugal in the thirteenth century preserves one of the most luminous signs of the Spirit in history. The Festas do Espírito Santo appeared as sudden irruptions of grace in villages and towns; prisoners were released, debts were suspended, bread and meat were given to all, and a poor child was crowned as Emperor of the World by the Holy Spirit.
In these rituals the society proclaimed that the order of kings and bishops is not final, since the true power belongs to the Paraclete, and the crown rests upon the head of innocence. In the child crowned we recognise the new Aeon, the figure of Horus in Egyptian mystery, the Christ who speaks in the synagogue of Nazareth in Luke 4:16-22, proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord. The Feast was a collective Pentecost, the descent of Fire upon the community, the Jubilee made flesh in bread and freedom.
I. Joachim of Fiore and the Vision of the Third Age
Joachim of Fiore announced that history unfolds in three great ages; the age of the Father, the age of the Son, and the age of the Spirit. His vision, although condemned by official councils, inspired movements across Europe. In Portugal it found expression in the popular proclamation of the Spirit through feasts that inverted the ordinary order.
The era of the Spirit meant not only a new doctrine but the living descent of Fire into human time, the release of creation from bondage, the Jubilee that Isaiah and Christ proclaimed. When the child was crowned, the poor and unlettered enthroned for a moment, the entire community entered a sign of that third age. It was a prophetic act declaring that power is not in the hands of emperors of iron, but in the flame that crowns the innocent. The mystical intuition of Joachim found its incarnation in a people who dared to enact it with bread, wine, and the laughter of a child seated in majesty.
II. Shin and the Pentecostal Fire
The Hebrew letter Shin reveals the nature of this descent. It is the letter of Fire, the twenty-first, shaped like tongues of flame. In the Kabbalah it marks the union of Hod, the sphere of Mercury and the archangels of Raphael, with Malkuth, the kingdom of Sandalfon. When the Fire passes from the intellect of Hod to the body of Malkuth, a fifth element is born. The four elements of the world are transfigured by Spirit; earth, water, air, and fire are crowned by pure flame.
This is why the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, becomes YHShWH when Shin is inserted, the Name of Jesus, the Messiah who carries the descent of Fire into flesh. In the Feast of the Spirit this mystery is enacted: the crown is not gold but flame, the emperor is a child, the prisoners are released, the hungry are fed. It is the descent of Shin, the Pentecostal fire resting upon the multitude, the same fire that transformed the apostles into tongues of living Word. The child crowned in thirteenth-century Portugal is the image of this letter, the incarnation of the Fire that makes all things new.
III. Agostinho da Silva and the Portuguese Aeon
In the twentieth century Agostinho da Silva looked back to these feasts and saw in them the true vocation of Portugal. For him, the empire of caravels was a shadow; the real empire was the empire of the Spirit, proclaimed when a child was crowned and all were fed. He spoke of the destiny of a people consecrated to the Third Age, to the Pentecost that would cover the earth. The crown of the child was for him the sign that the future belongs to innocence and freedom, not to steel or doctrine.
In Thoth Tarot this is the Aeon, the twentieth key, the proclamation that the old order is ended and the new has begun. In the Egyptian mask it is Horus, the child who rises after Osiris; in the Christian mask it is Christ proclaiming the acceptable year in Nazareth. Agostinho saw that the same Fire continues to smoulder, waiting to be fanned into flame. The Festas do Espírito Santo are therefore not folklore only, but prophecy. They point to a world where bread is shared, captives freed, crowns laid upon children, and the Spirit is enthroned. They are the memory of a Pentecost that did not cease, the descent of Shin that seals the Pentagrammaton, the empire of the pure Fire.
et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini
spiritus sapientiae et intellectus
spiritus consilii et fortitudinis
spiritus scientiae et pietatis
Fiat Lux.