Introduction

The use of the compendia of Universal History - by Victor ^{Duruy (1865}) and Pedro ^{Parley (1869}) - in secondary schools brought a series of political and cultural implications in the Brazilian imperial period, specifically in the teaching of the history of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Approved and adopted by the Imperial State, the textbooks, after Couto Ferraz (1854) educational reform, were marked not only by historical circumstances, but also through the seats of authorship and addressee.

The period separated for this study is from 1854 to 1878 and comprises, respectively, the process of implementation of the first Teaching Program - approved by the School Council, a board created by the regulation on February 17, 1854, resulting from the Educational Reform of Couto Ferraz ( 1854), and the educational reform of Leôncio de Carvalho in 1878. During this period, the educational projects of the conservative Catholic groups lose space for liberal groups which start to spread positivist proposals, marked by the ideas of progress and evolution (^{CARVALHO, 2003}). From the educational reform in 1878, religious education became optional and the so-called "non-Catholic people" were free to teach, untying the curriculum contents to Catholic theology.

In particular, we will discuss uses and historical forms which comprise the acceptance process of Nicene Christianity (the name is related to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) in the Roman Empire, under the administration of Emperor Constantine (306-337)² and its officialization under Theodosius (379-395). Owing to the nature of the investigation object, the methodology used was bibliographic and documentary research, based on Cellard (2012, p. 295), to whom the written document “an extremely precious source for every researcher in the social sciences”, since “it allows adding the dimension of time to the understanding of the social”. From this understanding on documentary analysis, we can infer that Christianity was the object of justifying and legitimizing uses of nation projects that, from 1850, forged the school narratives of history manuals, impregnating them, in our view, with political issues of states.

The Reform of Couto Ferraz was taken as a reference for the reflections for three reasons: firstly for being a governmental effort to standardize secondary education on a national scale, based on the curricular organization implemented at the Imperial High School Pedro II-ICPII, i.e., the curriculum of such a school unit became, in theory, a kind of radiating nucleus of curriculum proposals to provincial secondary schools; secondly, for the control and surveillance over school institutions, teachers and didactic productions, established through the creation of government departments and employment with such attributions; thirdly, by promoting religious education, according to Christian morality, at both the elementary and secondary levels, which establishes a direct relationship with school history, our object of investigation.

In face of the process of political centralization of the Brazilian Empire in the Second Reign and to the formulation of a teaching program for secondary state education that, from the High School Pedro II, it is extended to other educational institutions in the country, we try to understand how the school historic narrative of the Manuals history is intertwined with the formation of a national identity which is linked to the interests and political objectives of groups which occupied the spaces of power. We propose, thus, an interpretative strand that conceives the writing of school history as one of the ways to understand the mutual relationship between the State and religion; components, in our view, indispensable for forging a national identity at the relevant historical moment.

In the first part, we focus on the process of establishment and management of Brazilian secondary education, under the Couto Ferraz Reform (1854), emphasizing the educational legislation, responsible for defining the curricular organization, hiring and supervising teachers, as well as the production and regulation of school editions, since we understand that school history is not dissociated from the emergence of political projects towards public instruction.

Such a discussion is indispensable for us to reflect on the production, distribution and use of the Universal History compendia, as well as to outline the profile of the authors / producers of the investigated manuals. We analyze how the version of the history of Christianity disseminated in the eighteenth-century didactic manuals, especially in Victor Duruy's teaching manuals, is linked to the interests and objectives of imperial politics.

It is about a reflection on the conceptions of history that subsidized the school historical narrative; the emergence of Christian discourse by imperial power and the officialization of Christianity at the end of the fourth century. Thus,

Today it has been tried to understand in the historiography about the Old World that historical images and logics, to a greater or lesser extent, are committed to the contemporary, which consists in thinking not only of history, but its own interpretative traditions [...]. (SILVA, 2011, p. 10).

According to this author, the allusion to the so-called “classical heritage”, revisited by many contemporary intellectuals, is committed to the foundation of power projects or political-cultural ideologies. In this sense, the past is domesticated / instrumentalized to meet the interests and aims of the present. Thus, studying the process of acceptance and officialization of Christianity, in the compendia of History, offers us the opportunity to understand about Brazilian imperial politics. In our view, this instrumentalization of Ancient History in the eighteenth-century history teaching manuals supports the idea of the Nation intended by the elitist groups that occupied spaces of power in the Brazilian Empire.

1. Production, distribution and use of the Universal History compendia in 19th century Brazil

By the initiative of parliamentarians connected to conservative political groups such as: Luiz Pedreira do Couto Ferraz (1818-1886) and Justiniano José da Rocha (1812-1862)³, the decade of 1850 was marked by many achievements in the field of school institutions. By means of the Decree 1,331A (BRAZIL, 1854), the Regulation of the Primary and Secondary Instruction of the Municipality of the Court was approved, which established the creation of the General Inspectorate of the Primary and Secondary Instruction of the Municipality of the Court - IGIPSC and, by extension, of the position of General Inspector of the Instruction, connected to the Ministry of Empire Affairs, whose responsibility was to oversee and guide public and private education at primary and secondary levels, establish norms for the practice of freedom of education, reformulate studies at the High School Pedro II and the General Preparatory Exams. In this sense, confirms the excerpt:

The Regulation of February 17, 1854 finally created a technical-administrative body to oversee public and private primary and secondary education in the municipality of the Court: a General Inspector with clear and definite assignments, appointed by Imperial decree; a Managing Council set up under the chairmanship of the General Inspector and composed of the rector of the High School Pedro II, two public and one private teachers, and two other members appointed annually by the government; district delegates in charge of assisting the General Inspector in the visit and inspection of public and private primary and secondary education establishments (^{HAIDAR, 1972}, p. 114, bold types are ours).

In this way, the mechanisms of control and surveillance of public instruction are examined carefully, since it will be, especially for the School Council, the task of examining and comparing teaching methods and systems; prepare a list of approved compendia for use in schools; transmit an opinion on disciplinary infractions of teachers, as well as establish strict conditions for the practice of public and private teaching, which are now subject to civil service examinations for the presentation of tests about morality and ability

Turin (2015) warns us that, despite the exams for hiring teachers, the teachers' admission model was basically by appointment. Thus, the state, in the figure of the General Inspector, was responsible for appointments and dismissals. In addition, such teachers generally held more than one public function.

It is important to note that, from 1854, the preparatory exams for access to higher education were also prepared according to the teaching programs of the Imperial High School Pedro II - ICPII. Thus, the provincial secondary education institutions soon tried to adapt themselves to the programs set up by him. It should be clarified that, as the Educational Reform of 1841 was predicted, secondary public education began to be distributed in seven grades which, after the 1854 Reformation, were subdivided into two distinct courses: first-class studies, done in five years, in which a special certificate was conferred enabling the students to liberal professions; and 2nd Class, which comprised advanced studies of Latin, Greek, German, Italian, Geography and Ancient History, Geography and the Middle Ages, Rational and Moral Philosophy, Rhetoric and Poetics.

It should be noted that the contents of history, which remained in the final years according to the Teaching Program for 1856, were directed to classical and medieval studies (Vechia and Lorens, 1998). The Reform was intended to meet the new demands emerging from a society which wanted material progress, just like the European nation states. The first school stage brought together propaedeutic knowledge to commercial and industrial careers. The later series were dedicated to the improvement of the classic formation. It is important to highlight that these educational reforms were influenced by the French (Special Secondary Education) and German (Realschulen) secondary education systems that aimed to provide better basic preparation for those who were seeking technical professions, which signals the connections of Brazilian intellectuals and parliamentarians with European educational projects. Such an initiative failed, since the technical and manual professions were associated with slaves or free craftsmen in a slave-owning country.

Humanistic formation, on the other hand, would become the element of social distinction that would enable high school students to enter higher education, civil service and military positions. By this we mean that the polarization of scientific and literary studies became the object of criticism and the other educational reforms retained the ambiguous character of secondary education. On the one hand, formation for commercial, industrial and agricultural careers and, on the other hand, for civil service and military careers over seven years.

Regarding the distribution and use of the Compendia, Article 106 of the Regulations states that “teachers and principals of private schools may adopt any compendia and methods which are not expressly prohibited” (BRASIL, 1854, online).

In this sense, it is questionable why a particular work may be approved for use in secondary schools and others not. Firstly, we highlight the social position and place of speech of the authors of the textbooks, who were predominantly state teachers of the ICPII, the Military School, the Navy School or magistrates, most of them connected to the Brazilian Historical and Geographic Institute - IHGB. In addition, many of these writers were trained abroad, especially in France; others graduated in Faculties of Medicine, Law, Military Schools or even the secondary schools themselves, in addition to the Normal Schools or Seminaries (^{BITTENCOURT, 2008}).

During the Brazilian Empire, the teacher-authors derived from social groups committed to the nation project they intended to forge, namely: priestly, military, medical, magistrate groups, or laypeople who enjoyed “good testimony” with their peers. ^{Gondra and Schueler (2008}) point out that being a teacher in the Brazilian Empire required not only belonging to social categories that occupied places of power and professional experience, but also the investigation of morality. In context of morality, they claim that:

it related to all aspects of their personality, including their moral, family and sexual behavior, their habits of garment and speaking, their gestures, their behavior in public life, their ways of teaching. and to administer the school, the space and the school times and the examples that their figure mirrored - beyond their presentation and their insertion in social life of the community, the fulfillment of the requisites for the practice of teaching and the obedience to the norms and state regulations. (^{GONDRA; SCHUELER, 2008}, p. 177).

We understand that morality can also be interpreted as the ability of the candidate for teaching in articulating with a range of local political interests, the state, the church, parents and families with whom they talked through the instruction of young people.

Generally speaking, the compendia were translations of French textbooks or the result of the compilation of the teachers' classroom notes from the lessons of the manuals which were French too. Manuel Duarte Moreira de Azevedo, ICPII Professor of Ancient and Modern History, member of the IHGB and author of the Compendium of Ancient History, in the Preliminary Ideas part, which precedes the chapters of his work states that:

Having to teach ancient history to students of the 2nd and the 3rd year of the Imperial High School Pedro II, we recognize that the existing compendia, written in our language, were unsuitable for the teaching, not only by the style, correct as a matter of fact, but difficult for the boys to understand, except by philosophical considerations and appreciations which could not be understood by younger students, and whose intelligence is not yet developed. Not having a book that could be adopted, we followed the handout system dictated to the disciples. Gathering such handouts today in compendia , giving them better form and greater development. We try not to forget that we wrote to students that begin the study of history (^{AZEVEDO, 1864}, p. s/p, bold types are ours).

Note that the author criticizes the previous compendia and justifies, in the prologue of his work, the relevance of his compendium. Doing so, he highlights the mechanisms of production of such textbooks, which considered the particularities of the people for whom they were intended: students of the 2nd and 3rd grades of ICPII. Secondly, the obligation of religious education in curricular programs and the role of the Catholic Church with the State show the relevance of the religious confession of such authors of textbooks, in such a way that the compatibility of the contents conveyed to Christian morals could be decisive for approval of the textbooks or not. The suitability of language to the “target-public” was also an object of attention. The more appropriate for young people, the easier the memorization of the contents would be. Learning resulted from the ability of retaining, by memory, school knowledge.

According to the Regulation (BRAZIL, 1854), in its Article 115, a fine in the value of 15 thousand réis⁴ "would be applied "when the teachers use books and copies for the teaching not authorized competently ". With such coercive measures, we associate secondary state education with an agenda of political action committed not only to the centralization of political-administrative unity, but also “to the formation of a common ethos, aimed at a specific social stratum, destined to occupy [...] state administrative positions” (TURIN, 2015, p. 303).

It was assumed that the textbooks and the teacher had a true knowledge that should be retained and reproduced from memory. Having in mind the efforts to implement standardized educational proposals for the nation, the use of textbooks, endorsed by the Minister of the Empire, became a condicio sine qua non [condition without which not] to the intended homogenization of state instruction that was directed by in turn, to the formation of a leading social category that would be identified (and differentiated) by the use of certain cultural codes, within which we emphasize the classical studies.

The Provincial Instruction Regulation of São Paulo / 1869 (apud ^{BITTENCOURT, 2008}, p.58) ordered the following: “Art. 95 - The Government guarantees prizes in accordance with the second part of Article 56 to those who write or translate compendia, which will be subject to the provision of Paragraph 4 of Article 3 together with that of Article 4”. Therefore, due to the need for textbooks in Portuguese, the writing of textbooks was an activity fostered by the State to meet the demands, especially of secondary education. It was a paid activity worthy of institutional recognition, elaborated by men committed, what is expected, to the Nation and to the morals of its time. Therefore, such a task was covered with a patriotic, honorable tone, worthy of public men. From the works registered by the Empire, it is noted that any writers were not accepted for such productions, after all, it was necessary to master languages, foreign and national, as well as knowledge of the contents published in the Teaching Programs and some political influence with the General Inspectorate and with publishers.

In so far as the state fomented the writing of textbooks, it also restricted differentiated pedagogical actions of teachers who could deal with subjects subversive to the current political order or contrary to the intended educational objectives. According to ^{Bittencourt (2008}, p.54), legislators such as Gonçalves Dias and religious authorities, in speeches given at the Assembly, assumed that the use of the compendia was essential for the uniformity of educational content for the whole country.

From 1808 to 1822, the publication of the books was under the responsibility of the Royal Printing. From 1822 on, publications became responsibility of private initiatives, and until the mid-1860s, the three publishers that stood out in the production of textbooks were: BL Garnier (French origin), E & H. Laemmert (French origin) and Francisco Alves & Cia (Portuguese origin), which accounted for 44.2% of all national production. Such publishers were located in Rio de Janeiro. It is important to consider that the establishment of good contacts between the publisher and political representatives or members of the School Council was indispensable for the emergence and survival of publishers in Brazil. Party dissension or hostilities between the editor and the General Inspectorate could interfere with the appreciation of the compendia. The major publishers sought recognition from the Imperial Court. Baptiste Louis Garnier, for example, requested an award from the Empire cabinet for being the publisher who published and circulated most scientific and literary works for public instruction in the country and was awarded the title of “Official of the Imperial Order of the Rose” (^{BITTENCOURT, 2008}, p. 73).

From the reform of Couto Ferraz on, publishers significantly increased demands for school and literary works. The printings varied widely, but rarely exceeded four thousand copies a year. In any case, the circulation of school books surpassed the other discursive genres and signals a society that began in the reading world (^{BITTENCOURT, 2008}).

The provincial publishers, mainly the ones in São Paulo (5), Bahia (4), Rio Grande do Sul (12), Maranhão (3), Pará and Amazonas (8) established commercial agreements with bookstores in the main urban centers of the country. However, they were not limited to that. After approval of a compendium with the Minister of the Empire and the purchase of copyrights from the authors of the textbooks, the publishers followed the publication of the work.

Thus, publishers invested in publicizing the works in leaflets published in newspapers, almanacs and on the cover of the compendia with advertisements about school materials and other compendia sold in the bookstore. Another practice, according to historiographical studies, was to send copies to school principals for dissemination among the teachers. We argue that, the reasons shown above, efforts for the centralization of the public education system in the eighteenth-century Brazil go pari passu [simultaneously] with the process of political centralization, notably from 1850 on. The gradual parliamentary victory of conservative groups called saquaremas⁵ since the beginning of the Second Reign, within which we identified Couto Ferraz, in the portfolio of ministries⁶, signal the relevance of educational proposals in tune with the maintenance of imperial political unity. These groups presented themselves as defenders of monarchy, slavery and coffee. Soon, they were supported by large slaveholders, and therefore they acted in defense of common economic and social interests.

Another aspect that cannot be overlooked is the fact that the Empire of Brazil was a Confessional State, which required the union of secular and spiritual powers. Therefore, the construction of a national identity, as well as the legitimation of the Brazilian State, was not conceived in this period without the relationship with the Catholic Church. Thus, as the government fought, between the 1840s and 1860s, proposals for political decentralization, fomented by the so-called liberals, and movements contesting the current social order, supported in part by members of the Church, efforts were made to settle the presence of politicized or partisan clerics who questioned the political endeavors of the saquarema groups. This justifies the government's inclination to appoint bishops with an ultramontane⁷ tendency, unaffected by party politics and defenders of the discipline and order established in the country, which in fact was reflected in the decrease of clerics in parliament and social movements. According to ^{Santirocchi (2011}, p. 190):

The fall in the political participation of the clergy and their disappearance from the revolutionary movements from 1842 onwards reflect the manifest interest of the State in favoring a disciplined and apolitical clergy for public peace. Also added the ecclesiastical reform implemented by the bishops of ultramontane tendency who began to take over the Brazilian dioceses from 1844 onwards.

^{Santirocchi (2011}) also clarifies that, with the support of saquaremas, the government adopts measures that minimize the partisan political action of the clergy, since priests and bishops became authority figures with local communities and, consequently, played an important role in manipulating public opinion. For most conservatives, intervening in the discipline and moralization of clerics through support towards the ultramontane would produce significant impacts on the morality and discipline of the population. The speech of Deputy⁸ Nicolau Rodrigues dos Santos França e Leite (1803-1867), to the Chamber of the Deputies, in the context of the creation of a bishopric in Rio Grande do Sul, is quite emblematic in this sense:

Mr. President, every government that understands its mission must be fully convinced that religion is one of the most sublime ways of governing, it forms man inside, enables him inwardly for social union: civil laws unite men by the surface, but religion unites them by the heart. Therefore, it is undeniable that we must use all means to derive from this sublime, from this majestic principle all the advantages that society has a right to expect. (^{ARAUJO, 1845}, p. 94)

2. Conceptions of History and the writing of School History in Victor ^{Duruy's (1865}) and Pedro ^{Parley's (1869}) Universal History compendia

We are interested here to point out, besides the concern with the control and the formulation of teaching programs, the fomentation of the religious education of a Christian nature, since the educational reforms of 1856, 1858, 1862 and 1877, therefore after that of Couto Ferraz (1854) reserved specific subjects for religious teaching, such as Sacred History and Christian Doctrine, Religious Instruction, or Religion⁹ Teaching, which were allocated in the first year of high school. In the other school stages, the teaching proposal of French History was consolidated, which became common in Brazil starting from the Victor ^{Duruy’s teaching manuals (1865}). The study of the Sacred History follows the study of the Profane History, divided in Old Age, Middle Ages and History of Modern Times and, after the incursion by the so-called Universal History, migrated to the study of the Homeland History. We identify here a double objective in the teaching of History: to ensure the maintenance of Christian morality as a rectifier of the social and political order, as well as to adjust students to the political projects idealized by the monarchy. In Duruy's manuals, historical studies are not restricted to the genealogy of nations, but mainly to the scientific and material progress of humanity (^{FURET, 1986}).

Victor Duruy's Compendium on Universal History was translated by Father Francisco Bernardino de Souza in 1865. According to ^{Bittencourt (2008}), when comparing the original version, entitled Nouveau Manuel du Baccalauréat et Lettres, to the Portuguese version, we can see additions and deletions made by the translator to adjust the work to the field of educational experiences in Brazil and to accentuate the Christocentric tone of the writing of history.

Duruy produced the above-mentioned compendium in the 1820s in France, when he served as a teacher of history at the Lycee Napoleão in the context of French monarchical restoration and in the educational reform of François Pierre-Guillaume Guizot, Minister of Public Instruction and conservative leader of the Monarchy on July 9th, established in 1833 (TURIN, 2015). In France, Duruy, as minister, contributed to revitalizing the teaching of History, as discipline was considered subversive to the reestablished monarchical social order. Duruy occupied the aforesaid ministry between 1863 and 1869, when his works were translated in Brazil.

For the study of Antiquity, the Brazilian version of Victor Duruy's Compendium on Universal History presents the sequence of Early Times until the fall of the Western Empire, organization and administration of Gaul throughout the duration of the Roman Empire. Quantitatively, we note that the contents of Ancient Rome referred to approximately 63% of the Antiquity themes in the Ancient History section. The themes of republican Rome were 20.32% and imperial Rome 39%. Such indicators denote the author's choice and, by extension of the translator, for studies on the Empire and Christianity. It is noted that the historical school narrative spread reconciliation between secular and religious time. Such an approach resulted in forms of legitimation of historical subjects which occupied spaces of power, in addition to situating the Church as an inseparable partner of civil power.

From this angle, the Couto Ferraz Reform (1854) was inspired by the educational discussions and the writing of school history happening in France. Besides the establishing of mechanisms of control and surveillance over school compendia, such Reform was influenced by the Falloux Law (1850), under discussion in France, which intended to stop the progress of a secular education formation - requested by the French Republicans - in so far as the control of religious congregations to the administration of school institutions was instigated.

In this context, the writing of the school Ancient History, particularly the Roman History and its literatures are reconciled to Christianity, mainly under penalty of Brazilian teacher-authors. In other words, an “old moral” was taught, filtered by the Judeo-Christian perspective. In other words, the study not only of Latin sources, but also of Antiquity, becomes an exercise to form “good” Christians, and school narratives disqualified non-Christian practices, as noted in the excerpt:

Rome's politics was selfish, self-love, its royal spring. Romans had, like the Greeks, Persians, Egyptians and other ancient nations, some notions of virtue and sometimes showed noble and generous qualities. But they, like all these nations, lacked the true morality , the one which Jesus Christ taught us in the simple maxim: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” Like them, Rome was deprived of that true religion , from which mankind learned that every power founded on injustice must be of very short duration. As splendid as the Roman Empire was, it was far from getting a true glory . Its splendor acquired by pillage, its great renown could overshadow the sight of a gentile; but for a Christian they had and have little value; he regards this magnificence as false and groundless. (^{PARLEY, 1869}, p. 240, bold types are ours)

Regarding the distinctions between pagan and Christian literature, Duruy stated that:

There were only sophists and rhetoricians like Libanius , poets like Claudian , writers of short verses and epithalamia, powerless and useless literature ; and literature and art, still closely linked to paganism, fell with this cult, which only inspired faith to the rustic populations of the countryside. Faith and life, which were removed from the old cult and the old society, moved to a new worship and a new society. The Christianity that had developed and constituted through persecution had finally risen to the throne with Constantine and Theodosius (…).From its bosom came a high, passionate, active literature (Tertullian, S. Ambrose, S. Augustine, S. Gregory of Nazianzus, Lactantius, Salvian, etc.). (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 192, bold types are ours).

Parley¹⁰ and Duruy, in these excerpts, demarcate the superiority of Christian culture through a sequence of denials in which non-Christian customs, values and social principles are dichotomously conceived, i.e., from binary games (true / false; certain / wrong; useful / useless). For the writing of school history¹¹, such binarism incorporates an instructive or pedagogical function insofar as it presents standards of morality and excellence by which human actions are judged; this also implies, on the other hand, the right to be judged and to judge oneself by the standards that are relevant from the perspective of what is accepted within Christian communities as the basis for interpersonal relations (^{BARTH, 1998}).

In this sense, the authors point out, in their school narratives, the cultural boundaries that distinguish a Christian from a non-Christian through recognition, maintenance and validation of differences between “us” and “the other,” which reinforces the Christocentric tone of the narrative. Such narratives “legitimized the monarchy, either by the legal system or by the process of religious sentiment and somewhat nationalistic, as belonging to a territory and a faith” (^{MARTINS, 2008}, p. 208).

^{Narita (2017}) highlights the elementary role of religion in Brazilian educational processes in the nineteenth century. Sharing actions and values contributes to inserting the individual into a community through social identification processes. In other words, religion builds and disseminates a kind of basic social grammar, aimed at the moralization of thinking and acting, through which individuals recognize themselves. From this perspective, it is clear that through public instruction a moral horizon, which integrates society around Christian values and principles, is built.

Nineteenth-century civil society is recognized from the perspective of a moral horizon, indispensable, in our view, to the reproduction of social life and the maintenance of the civic order of the Brazilian Empire. José Liberato Barroso (1830-1885), in his work entitled A instrução pública no Brasil (1867), stated:

The great principles of Christian morality can and should be taught in schools by word and example. It is the great truths of this social Christianism , whose invisible work, deep in the consciences, and outside the dogmatic confessions , is infinitely more general, deeper, and more powerful than can be seen on the surface of the circle of the Churches; of this Christianity, which penetrates the legislation, customs and ideas of modern societies , which is the soul of civilization, a sequence of living ideas that has purified the elements of the social order (BARROSO apud ^{NARITA, 2017}, p. 141, bold types are ours)

The text enables us to reflect on the relationship among religion, moral, and public instruction in the nineteenth-century. In it, Barroso allows us to realize that Christianity, conceived in the field of morality, is understood as a sine qua non condition for the construction of a society along the lines of the Brazilian monarchical political project. In addition, the magistrate highlights the formative role of religion, a perception that does not circumscribe religious teaching only to the defense of a religious institution. Barroso's proposal makes us think of religion as a means of moral orientation of acting socially, in such a way that the formation of conduct also implies the formation of civic consciousness. Abílio César Borges (1824-1891), known as Baron of Macaúbas, in his book dedicated to children, Terceiro livro de leitura para uso da infância brasileira (1870), stated:

Without religion there is no morality. All morality which does not rest on the basis of God's love and respect for his law is perfectly vain; a phantom of morality, which the slightest breath dispels it. And that is what explains everything we see. (BORGES apud ^{NARITA, 2017}, p. 166, bold types are ours)

Then he stated:

Studying religion and history will not be for you a mere collection of facts and dates; you will see in the great events that it narrates , in the conquest of kingdoms, in the ruin of dynasties and empires, so many other scenes of the providential drama ; many other interventions of God in the business of this world (BORGES apud ^{NARITA, 2017}, p. 166, bold types are ours)

We underline the nexus between history, religion and morality. In this relationship, we ascertain morality as a derivation of the religious in the field of education. For Narita, the moralization of acting encourages the adoption of “educated behaviors”, whose anchorage is in the spectrum of moral grammar (patience, forgiveness, charity, civility, fidelity, generosity, work, etc.), which tangent the school historical narrative. (^{NARITA, 2017}, p. 171). Viewed broadly, the constitution of a kind of moral grammar that permeates the writing of eighteenth-century school history is objectified at a time when the author-teachers report themselves to Roman emperors favorable or not to Christian movements during the Empire.

In sequence, we continue with a display of excerpts from Duruy's comments on Roman emperors between Constantine and Theodosius:

The empire had, once again, just one lord, but the shy and suspicious Constance let himself be ruled by women, eunuchs and flatterers. Given all the religious issues that Arianism aroused, without having a very certain and fervent faith, he saw a new revolt in the East being prepared. He wanted Gallus the title of Augustus. Called to Asia through flattering promises, he was led to Pula, in Istria, and beheaded. (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 175)

Then, (Julian), being without a competitor, abjured Christianism from where the gets the nickname apostate; he professed the ancient cult publicly and reopened the temples, hoping he could make the people go back to them. (...) Severe to himself, he affected the simplicity and even the cynicism of a rigid stoic, and sometimes also too severe toward others. The court that he created in Chalcedon to judge the prevaricated officials was accused of having given unfair sentences (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 176).

In the internal government, Valentinian was severe and sometimes cruel. There was just one penalty for every crime: death. But, in religious matters, the principles of tolerance followed in respect to all religions (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 177).

The extracts denote Duruy's concern to associate the moral conduct of the emperors to the commitment to religion, whose model is Constantine and Theodosius, presented within the narrative as protectors of Christian communities and guardians of Christian values ​​and principles. Emperors who did not fit this model were badly estimated, such as Constance for his adherence to Arianism, Julian for his aversion to Christianity, and Valentinian for his "permissive nature." The position of emperors in relation to religion becomes a parameter to understand their moral conduct and their political actions. Having said that, discussing the circumscribed emperors between Constantine and Theodosius, Duruy allows us to glimpse the behaviors expected by a Christian ruler in an obvious effort to characterize the attitudes that, for him, would not be suitable for a good ruler. Let us note how such a narrative has serious implications for the political scenario at the time of the writing of the aforementioned Compendium.

It is also important to note that Duruy does not explore in the body of the narrative that, between Constantine and Theodosius, the Roman Empire is again administered by more than one emperor. Strictly speaking, there is a Roman emperor to the West and another one to the East¹². Strategically, Duruy does not explain Arianism, as professed by Constance II, he just mentions it briefly and then disqualifies it, without true and lively faith. The Nicena Christian trend, approved by Emperor Theodosius and professed by the Catholic Church to this day, is adopted as a prototype of Christianity, a position which neglects and obscures the other Christian currents that circulated throughout the Roman Empire.

In our view, the narrative provokes in readers the perception that the past is homogeneous, the “winning” speech, that is, signed and authorized by the instances of power. An origin for Christianity was sought, by which an explanatory causal chain is constructed. Duruy selects what fits into the apparent linear historical development that would result in the field of experience in which it is inserted and disregards or silences other historical experiences. The past is conceived from a unison, causal, linear and teleological report, organized to explain the present. Viewed from that perspective, the past confers intelligibility to the imperial formation and to the own constitution and political-cultural genesis of the present time, what Hall (2002, p. 54) calls the foundational myth and ^{Martins (2008}, p. 196) as construction of the origins.

Based on Duruy's recorded excerpts, in our view, in the educational sphere, the dialogues between History and Religion play the role of guarantor of interpersonal relations, through what ^{Narita calls the routinization of actions and values (2017}, p. 25; 133) which, in turn, contribute to the integration of the citizen into the social fabric. Moral formation, which permeated the curricula of secondary public instruction, expressed regularities and cohesive proposals among individuals, especially regarding to the recognition of the good ruler.

The formation intended by the Brazilian Empire towards high school students, on the one hand, focused on the propagation of a moral orientation, as the basic principle of sociability networks, on the other hand, the confluence of values as a guideline for the social conduct of individuals to ensure the “living well in the Empire” (^{NARITA, 2017}, p. 158). ^{Greiner (2008}, p.31) warns us that the propagation of a religious message and the activities of a Church in school curricula inevitably have political repercussions from the moment in which the spread of this message is not limited to the private sphere.

As it can be seen, regarding to school history, the 1850s extending, in our view, at least until the mid-1870¹³, represents a territory of dialogs and tension between Sacred History and Civil or Profane History. In the context of historicism, because the historical narrative becomes a repository of names, dates and events, which are directed towards an end as if there was something behind the apparent phenomena of perception, that is, the supposed intelligibility of the order of events starts to be explained by a kind of guiding thread or driving force that would guide the historical development. From this perspective, no event could be understood if it were disconnected from a totality, whose explanatory principle was linked to a timeline, marked by the progression of historical facts in which the European West symbolized the civilizational paradigm (WEHLING, 1992).

As in Duruy as in Parley, it is noted the adoption of a historicist conception of history, flawed by the notion of Divine Providence which presupposes that the order of events would be designed by God and historical reality would therefore result from action and divine will.

In other words, we show in the analyzed compendia the use of the providentialist version of historicism, as we will develop next. To facilitate our exposition within the limits of the writing of this article, we will guide the analysis of the process of acceptance and officialization of Christianity in the governments of Constantine and Theodosius, respectively. Having said that, within the framework of political dissent under Constantine's administration, Duruy begins the 20th Chapter of the Book, entitled Constantine - Triumph of Christianism - Theodosius - Definitive Sharing of the Roman Empire - Fall of the Western Empire - Organization and Administration of Gallia throughout the duration of the Roman empire, as follows:

Annoyed Rome by the abandonment of the new emperors, Maxentius, son of Maximinian, was given the title of Augustus (306). Soon he took his father for a colleague, so the empire had six emperors at once: both Augustus, Gallerius and Severus, the two Caesars, Constantine and Maximin, and two usurpers, Maxentius and Maximinian. Severus was defeated and killed by Maximian [...] the following year died Gallerius, victim of the disorderly life he led (May 311). Maxentius also succumbed to the strokes of his brother-in-law Constantine who beat him near the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber. It was during this expedition that Constantine, in the highest degree, excited the enthusiasm of the Christians in his favor by having the cross placed on his vexilla¹⁴. He had seen, according to Eusebius, shining a cross in the sky with the following words: "In this sign thou shalt conquer" (312), though Lactantius nothing said about it. Licinius, successor of Gallerius, had at the same time defeated Maximin, who was poisoned (313). The Empire had just two rulers: Licinius in the East and Constantine in the West. It was still too much [...]. Desiring to protect the Christians, whom his colleague was persecuting, Constantine attacked him [...] Constantine took off his purple robe, let him live; but some time later he ordered that he was killed in Thessalonica (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 168-9, our italics)

Duruy begins the chapter by means of a value judgment attributed to Rome, that is, to the territories that are under the political-administrative and military tutelage of the Romans in the fourth century. Throughout the reading, it is evident that the "irritation" of Rome is related to the presence of more than one political leader in the imperial government, which would have enabled the emergence of usurpers like Maxentius and Maximinian who contested the four-party division of the Empire between the two Augustus, Gallerius and Severus, and the two Caesars, Constantine and Maximian.

Throughout the narrative, Duruy informs, through Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, that the Christian God only gave Constantine signs that would make him victorious, as noted in the excerpt: He (Constantine) had seen [...] shine a cross in the sky with these words: In this sign thou shalt conquer. Then the narrative sequence presents Constantine as the protector of the Christian community against non-believers, such as Licinius, Roman emperor of the West. Constantine would have defeated him and become lord of the western and eastern Roman Empire.

The plot contrived by the author shows to what extent the divine authority served as a justifying paradigm for the political authority of the emperor Constantine, about any rivals or aspirants to the exercise of power. From the plot, it is deduced that the Monarchy is the result of wish and by extension, God's consent to one man. It is no coincidence that the second topic of this chapter is entitled Triumph of Christianity (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 169).

As regards the expedition referred to by Duruy to demonstrate Emperor Constantine's military efforts to contain the attacks of General Maxentius (306-312), who was defeated at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312) at the Tiber, there are indications of the historiographical operation of the referred teacher-author. The episode is known to be narrated by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea¹⁵ (260 / 265-339) in Ecclesiastical¹⁶History. In the aforementioned excerpt, it is noted that Duruy mentions it and he adds another Christian author: Lactantius (240-320), which demonstrates Duruy's concern to hold historical sources responsible for the information. Pedro Parley, in contrast, asserts that:

Constantine the Great was the first emperor who became a Christian. [...] It is said that Constantine, one day riding his horse in front of his army against Maxentius, saw a cross in the sky and written on it was: "In this sign thou shalt conquer". It is this view which is supposed to have convinced the emperor of the truth of the Christian religion and because of that he decided to adopt it as the religion of the State. From that time on, the victory of Christianity over the pagan religion was sure. Before the cross, disappeared the mythology of Greece and Rome, the idols of the empire of the world fell broken by the force of the truth of the Gospel. Many temples of the Gentiles became into churches, and the people, up until then accustomed to bow before statues of Jupiter and other fantastic gods, knelt humbly at the foot of the signal of redemption. (^{PARLEY, 1869}, p. 246)

Unlike Duruy, Parley is not concerned with citing sources to support historical information. However, in both narratives, the authors make us believe that after Constantine, Christian speech starts to be authorized, recognized and accepted by political institutions. The description of this enunciative scenario also points to a discursive construction of a more emotional than analytical character. This aspect reinforces not only the providentialist conception of Universal History, but also the attempt to reconcile sacred history with civil history, proposed by Duruy (1865) and Parley (1869).

Another element that catches the eye of us, regarding to the process of writing the historical school narrative, through the providentialist perspective, deals with the use of supernatural causes to explain the miraculous victory of Christianity in the fourth century (^{CUCHET, 2012}, p. 41). The authors disregarded the power relations between bishops and emperor, as well as the historical circumstances that enabled the emergence and consolidation of Christian discourse, besides assuming the point of view of late-ancient Christian authors, such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Lactantius, in the condition of historical truth.

The historical narrative is not constructed from a dialog between different historical sources and historiographic aspects. Instead, they focus their narratives on an unforeseen and miraculous event - Constantine [...] saw a cross in the sky and written on it the words: "In this sign thou shalt conquer" and they start from such an event to endorse the so-called triumph of Christianity. (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 169; ^{PARLEY, 1869}, p. 255). It is deduced that, from the point of view of Duruy and Parley, the order of events is not dissociated from divine intervention. Parley, for example, states that Divine Providence is in the gear of historical processes (1869, p. 242), which do not exclude miraculous deeds and political changes planned by divinity itself; in Duruy, that is inferred.

The authors thought of history from theological presuppositions, History as a result of the progressive triumph of a community of believers, unconcerned with political issues and devoted to the spread of the Gospel. Within the narrative, the event just becomes unique and intelligible when related to a “theological future” (KOSELLECK, 2009, p.127).

From this point of view, it is understandable that the conquest of Christianity comes from a kind of unexpected accident in history, and it would be unintelligible if God's direct intervention were disregarded. In such an enunciative context, divine intervention would make us understand more than the meaning behind the order of events - which would be equivalent to the belief in the providential order - but mainly the active principle that directly or miraculously drives historical processes - which alludes to the belief in the supernatural order.

The monarch's predilection of Christian divinity would signal divine consent to this form of government and its political institutions, which would endorse the fact that God is a historical agent, and cooperation between God and emperor would ensure the social harmony of the Empire/Nation, perspective shown clearly in the following excerpt:

It was in his expedition against Maxentius that Constantine declared himself highly defender of the Christian faith [...]. He favored conversions on the one hand, giving all the jobs to Christians, and granting privileges to the cities that knocked down the altars of idols; On the other hand, he tried to put an end to idolatry, first through exhortations towards the peoples in numerous edicts, and later, when Christianity was triumphing everywhere (...). The Council of Nicaea, gathered in 325, wrote the fundamental charter of Christianity. As soon as the sessions were closed, the emperor wrote to all the Churches "to resign to the wish of God enunciated by the council." The revolution in the religious order was over; Christianity was now the dominant religion of the empire; an immense fact, whose consequences still last today. [...] (^{DURUY, 1865}, p. 171-2).

Duruy regarded Constantine as a defender of the Christian faith, fact that would have made the triumph of Christianity possible everywhere. He endeavors to demonstrate the integration between politics and religion in the process of foundation of the monarch's political projects. We infer to the the readers of such manuals that history taught, “from the innumerable events of the past that convey general rules of action or, in other words, rules or principles taken as valid for every change in time and for human action that occurs in it ”(RÜSEN, 2010, p. 51). It is not a question of repeating the past in the present, but of perceiving, through the abstraction of past experiences, rules of action which guide actions in the present. In other words, this perception of the past gave meaning to a story that intended to be universal, since, through particular or episodic cases, the reader would understand general rules of “timeless validity” useful to current practical life ( RÜSEN, 2010, p. 52).

Looking at the past, from the perspective of Magistrae History, such school narratives suggest it is possible to understand exemplary or useful experiences to the present, however without abandoning the perception of the uniqueness of historical processes and the possibility of the progression of events (KOSELLECK, 2009, p. 54). In this case, it is necessary to “resemanticise” the idea of Historia Magistra Vitae, linked only to a conception of history in which the past offers examples to the present.

Final Considerations

We conclude that, from the perspective of such school narratives, the past not only instructs the present, but it also gives us its origins. Moreover, it conveys the notion of historical becoming, in our view, essential for the understanding of universal history in the school compendia of the historical moment in question.

In this sense, the historical narrative would not only instruct, but it would also pronounce sentences and judgments pertinent to the present and the future. It is with a look to the past that one tried to acquire teachings not only for one’s own time, but also for the future (KOSELLECK, 2009, p. 60). More broadly, the imperial present was situated in a continuum of the biblical canon and its models of virtue.

This reflection leads us to conclude that the compendia of Universal History, translated for the Brazilian high schools, were responsible for domesticating fragments of the past, in so far as it was inserted on them a historical sense that served the interests and objectives of the present and for teaching the readers, it would achieve the same material and scientific progress as civilized Europe enjoyed. For ^{Gonçalves (2009}, p. 134), “historical knowledge would be able to provide the guidance to materialize the long-awaited civilizational development”. Thus fidelity to a collective past allowed one to think of national identity from worldviews and expectations about life along the lines of European nation-states, particularly France.

In other words, the empire is inserted in a set of historical experiences that fit into a totality (universal history), whose role is to highlight the glory of civilization. Thus, the idea of justifying the presence of Universal History in the curricular proposals of the high school consisted of the inscription of Brazil in the epic of civilization, which included, at least in the literary sphere, the newly independent country in the wake of the development of European western countries.

From this perspective, it is understood that Universal History is not evidence, but a singular representation of the past. It was, specifically, about a particular representation of the world, which, as we know, is anchored in the cultural environment and historical developments of the European nations (^{INGLEBERT, 2014}, p. 7-8). At the time when eighteenth-century school narratives, as we approach, convey and activate certain cultural signs (Christian moral), they present parameters for political-social action and interaction, and use the past as a stronghold of founding events to explain the present, influence and meaning, through discourse, “both our actions and our conception of ourselves” (HALL, 2002, p. 50), besides establishing mechanisms of social distinction (^{BARTH, 1998}, 165).

In a country where Catholicism was the official religion, declaring oneself a Christian meant sharing a spiritual tradition with which the nation identified itself. In the nineteenth century, the conception of nation and its mechanisms of differentiation are thought, by many intellectuals - as we said - from the perspective of the formula: a language, a culture and a territory. In this sense, the nation is often confused with a standard of morality, as it is the case of Brazil in the eighteenth century, and the historical school narrative considers Christianity a legacy or heritage which serves the present.

In this sense, the strengthening of the schooling process and the fomentation for the production of didactic materials from 1850, particularly in the context of history teaching aimed at high schools, they fulfill the role of disseminating an ideal of nation and citizen, as in which it foments, through historical school writing, a set of ways of acting and thinking which encourages the cooperation of individuals and the sense of belonging to a specific political community, inspired by the idea of a European nation. Thus, the authority of the past, more precisely the contents of Ancient History in eighteenth-century Universal History manuals, was responsible for validating political and cultural experiences useful for the foundation of a social order and for the integration of the Brazilian empire with the standards of European Christian civilization.