(Jesuit Studies) Cristiano Casalini - Jesuit Philosophy On The Eve of Modernity-BRILL (2019)

Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity
Jesuit Studies
Modernity through the Prism of Jesuit History
Editor
Robert A. Maryks
Editorial Board
James Bernauer S.J. (Boston College)

Louis Caruana S.J. (Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome)
Emanuele Colombo (DePaul University)
Paul Grendler (University of Toronto, emeritus)
Yasmin Haskell (University of Western Australia)
Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Pennsylvania State University)
Thomas M. McCoog S.J. (Fordham University)
Mia Mochizuki (Independent Scholar)
Sabina Pavone (Università degli Studi di Macerata)
Moshe Sluhovsky (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Jeffrey Chipps Smith (The University of Texas at Austin)
volume 20
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/js

Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve
of Modernity
Edited by
Cristiano Casalini
leiden | boston
Cover illustration: Detail of “O trabalho perdido [Visual gráfico] : desta arvore divina…” – [Lisbon: Regia
Officina Typografica 1771]. Joaquim Carneiro da Silva, 1727–1818. © Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (bnp)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Casalini, Cristiano, 1976- editor.

Title: Jesuit philosophy on the eve of modernity / edited by Cristiano
Casalini.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019] | Series: Jesuit studies :
modernity through the prism of Jesuit history, issn 2214-3289 ; Volume 20
| Includes index. |
Identifiers: lccn 2018061270 (print) | lccn 2019005157 (ebook) | isbn
9789004394414 (ebook) | isbn 9789004394391 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: Jesuits--Intellectual life--16th century. |
Jesuits--Intellectual life--17th century. | Jesuits--Theology. | Catholic
Church and philosophy. | Philosophy, Renaissance.
Classification: lcc bx3702.3 (ebook) | lcc bx3702.3 .j46 2019 (print) | ddc
108.8/25553--dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018061270
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 2214-3289
ISBN 978-90-04-39439-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-39441-4 (e-book)
Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided
that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,
Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Constance Blackwell, who so generously agreed to contribute a chapter to
this collection, passed away before the volume was completed. She was
working on the Jesuit contributions to the question of the “primum
cognitum.” Identifying the impact of the Conimbricenses on Johann Jakob
Brucker (1696–1770) was just the last of the many thrilling insights she was
able to anticipate through her always sharp and witty emails.
This volume is dedicated to her memory.
∵
Contents
Introduction 1
Cristiano Casalini
Part 1
The Landscape
1 Philosophy in Jesuit Schools and Universities 13

Paul F. Grendler
2 Uniformitas et soliditas doctrinae: History, Topics, and Impact of Jesuit

Censorship in Philosophy (1550–99) 34
Christoph Sander
Part 2
The Disciplines
Section 2.1
Knowledge
3 From Probability to the Sublime(s): Early Modern Jesuit Rhetoric;

an Anti-philosophy or an Alternative Path to a Modern Idea of
“Truth”? 77
Anne Régent-Susini
4 Jesuit Logic 95
E. Jennifer Ashworth
5 Jesuit Psychology and the Theory of Knowledge 115

Daniel Heider
Section 2.2
Nature and Theological Concerns
6 Early Jesuit Philosophers on the Nature of Space 137

Paul Richard Blum
viii Contents
7 “Accedit Theologicum argumentum”: Discussing Transubstantiation in

Commenting Aristotle; the Commentarius Collegii Conimbricensis on
Aristotle’s De generatione 166
Stefano Caroti
Section 2.3
Action
8 A Juridicized Language for the Salvation of Souls: Jesuit Ethics 193

Christoph P. Haar
9 Political Thought 213

Erik De Bom
Part 3
Authors
Section 3.1
The Roman College
10 Francisco de Toledo: Setting a Standard for Jesuit Philosophy 251

Anna Tropia
11 Benet Perera: The Epistemological Question at the Heart of Early Jesuit

Philosophy 270
Marco Lamanna
Section 3.2
Madrid
12 Luis de Molina: The Metaphysics of Freedom 297

Alexander Aichele
Section 3.3
Coimbra
13 Pedro da Fonseca’s Unfinished Metaphysics: The First Systematic Jesuit

Metaphysics before Suárez 327
António Manuel Martins
Contents ix
14 Manuel de Góis: The Coimbra Course and the Definition of an Early

Jesuit Philosophy 347
Mário S. de Carvalho
15 Francisco Suárez: A “New” Thomistic Realism 373

Benjamin Hill
Part 4
Reverberations
16 Descartes and the Jesuits 405

Alfredo Gatto
17 John Locke and the Jesuits on Law and Politics 426

Elliot Rossiter
Index 445
Introduction
Cristiano Casalini
“Suárez is the thinker who had the strongest influence on modern philosophy.”1
These were the words Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) addressed to his students
in Freiburg in 1919, placing the prince of Jesuit philosophers at the pinnacle
of Western philosophy. At that time, Heidegger, while brilliant, was still a
young and not-so-famous professor; his appreciation of Francisco Suárez
(1548–1617) was almost certainly mediated by Franz Brentano (1838–1917), a
former p rofessor whose phenomenological concept of “intentionality” was
heavily indebted to Thomas Aquinas’s (1224/25–74) and Suárez’s Scholasti-
cisms. Heidegger aimed to illuminate the history of ontology and considered
Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) idea of metaphysics a direct result of Suárez’s
epistemology. While the scope of Heidegger’s appreciation seems devoid of
other important branches of philosophy, such as logic, physics, and psychol-
ogy, it is clear that his commentary stands as a milestone in the history of the
reputation of Jesuit philosophers. A few years later, Étienne Gilson (1884–1978)
would dig into the origins of René Descartes’s (1596–1650) philosophy and
come to expose the late Scholastic Jesuit roots underpinning his work.2 Gilson
had a deep impact on philosophical historiography, as he generated an out-
pouring of studies that challenged the ancient prejudice about early modern
philosophers’ rejection of Scholastic thought.
From that moment on, late Scholasticism was no longer considered a void,
repetitive, and backward assembly of obscure Counter-Reformation teachers
but instead came to be understood as having been guided by a more complex
and nuanced variety of doctrines, some of which were tightly connected to the
so-called philosophical revolution of the Cogito age. This new interpretation,
which emerged during a century of historiography, followed a leading para-
digm that historian of philosophy Charles Lohr eventually systematized in sev-
eral papers starting in the 1970s.3 Like Heidegger, Lohr regarded Suárez’s work
as a turning point from which Jesuit philosophy reached its height.
1 Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, ed. Albert Hofstadter (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 1982), 80.
2 Étienne Gilson, Études sur le rôle de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du système car-
tésien (Paris: Vrin, 1930).
3 See, for example, Charles H. Lohr, S.J., “Jesuit Aristotelianism and Sixteenth-Century Meta-
physics,” in Paradosis: Studies in Memory of Edwin A. Quain, ed. Harry G. Fletcher III and Mary
B. Schulte (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 203–20.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_002

2 Casalini
The renewal of Jesuit studies, beginning with the work of Lohr, has also
provided a focal point for understanding the Jesuits’ impact on early modern
philosophy. In large part, this impact has been traced to the contributions of a
long list of single Jesuit philosophers, with the literature tending to highlight
the differences between Jesuit philosophers rather than inquiring into what
they had in common as members of the same religious order. And when the
literature has profiled the Jesuits as parts of a whole, the tendency has been
to focus on the mandatory authorities for Jesuit philosophers, namely Aqui-
nas and Aristotle,4 or to view Jesuit philosophical works as different tiles of
an inhomogeneous mosaic, or simply as an eclectic middle way between the
Thomist and Scotist traditions.
Some brilliant efforts have undoubtedly been directed toward discerning
the relationship between Jesuit philosophy and single philosophical subjects,
especially logic, natural philosophy, psychology, and metaphysics.5 Lacking,
however, was an inquiry into the scope and limits of Jesuit philosophy as a
whole.
To address this imbalance, the present volume provides a picture of the most
relevant themes and figures in Jesuit philosophy in the first century after the
order’s inception. While previous scholarship has either emphasized the dif-
ferences between authors with respect to their philosophical doctrines, which
were barely connected, or has simply labeled Jesuit philosophy as eclectic, this
4 A plethora of articles appeared in renowned philosophical journals such as Études and Re-
vista portuguesa de filosofía, which in the aftermath of the Second World War revealed the
complex framework of medieval authorities followed by the early Jesuit philosophers. At the
same time, Paul Oskar Kristeller’s reconstruction of Renaissance Aristotelianism’s vitality
(Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters [Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956])
paved the way for Charles B. Schmitt’s (Aristotle and the Renaissance [Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1983]) and Luce Giard’s (Les jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif
et production du savoir [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995]) reconstructions of the
Jesuits’ own Aristotelianism.
5 See, for example, Leen Spruit, Species intelligibilis: 1. Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions
(Leiden: Brill 1994); Alison Simmons, “Jesuit Aristotelian Education: The De anima Commen-
taries,” in The Jesuits: Culture, Learning and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley, S.J., et
al. (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1999), 522–37; Roger Ariew, Descartes and the Late
Scholastics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Dennis Des Chene, Physiologia: Natural
Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian Thought (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000);
Des Chene, Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2000); James B. South, “Suárez on Imagination,” Vivarium 39 (2001): 119–58; Henrik La-
gerlund, ed., Forming the Mind: Essays on the Internal Senses and the Mind/Body Problem from
Avicenna to the Medical Enlightenment (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007).
Introduction 3
volume focuses on the existence, distinctiveness, and limits of a Jesuit philoso-

phy at the dawn of modernity.
Several key points are advanced. First, Jesuit philosophy originated in
schools and was meant for schools. Although this can be said of many other
religious orders, this did not occur for many humanist authors, who also had
an influence on Jesuit philosophers, many of whom often included humanists
among their references. Second, the pedagogic purpose of Jesuit philosophy
helped shape the way that Jesuits wrote their books, and one of the major con-
tributions to the history of early modern philosophy was provided by Jesuits
who adopted different ways to “comment” on Aristotle. Of prime example is
the work of several Jesuit philosophers who established the new literary genre
of cursus that introduced the concept of “manual,” “handbook,” as the leading
product for the teaching of philosophy—replacing the traditional system of
medieval commentaries, which followed the table of contents and the order
of dealing with them as outlined by Aristotle. The progressive introduction
of this new genre was clearly not without controversy, as testified by the po-
lemics of some prominent Jesuits at the Roman College against young Suárez.
Nonetheless, the progressive affirmation of a table of contents obeying the
ordo doctrinae (order of reason) instead of Aristotle’s order found important
supporters in Jesuits such as Benet Perera (1536–1610), Suárez, and the Conim-
bricenses Manuel de Góis (1543–97), Baltasar Álvarez (1560–1630), Cosme de
Magalhães (1551–1624), and Sebastião do Couto (1567–1639).
As these authors’ literary style reflected the need to follow the mandatory
authorities of Aristotle and Aquinas, as stated in both the Jesuit Constitutions
and the Ratio studiorum, it is not surprising that some concern was raised
in the Roman curia about the need to patrol Jesuit philosophers’ freedom of
thought by means of censorship. As a result, pressure was placed on the di-
rection of Jesuit philosophy by a number of superiors general—Claudio Ac-
quaviva (1543–1615, in office 1581–1615) in particular—who sought to establish
“uniformity and safety” in doctrine.
The first section of this volume, entitled “The Landscape,” aims to ad-
dress the above-mentioned issues. Too often, the history of philosophy has
dealt with the content of late Scholastic works without providing a vivid pic-
ture of the history that lies behind late Scholastic thought, not to mention
the deep impact this history has had on the evolution of philosophical doc-
trines. Paul Grendler introduces the reader to the schooling framework of Je-
suit philosophy, providing answers to a number of core questions: How did the
philosophical trio (logic, natural philosophy or physics, and metaphysics) fit
into the J esuit curriculum? What was the influence of the University of Paris on
4 Casalini
the Jesuit philosophical curriculum? What did the Ratio studiorum say about
philosophy? Why did Jesuit philosophy teachers sometimes teach twice a day?
As philosophical studies in Jesuit schools were considered a prerequisite for
the study of Catholic theology, Christoph Sander examines how the Society
dealt with the major concern of orthodoxy in philosophy in the period stretch
ing from the promulgation of the Constitutions (1558) to the end of Acquaviva’s
generalate (1615). Against this historical background, Sander illustrates the
ideological assumptions that underpinned acts of censorship, thereby reveal
ing the educational or institutional techniques that were established for
censorship and the preservation of uniformity. Yet not all of these efforts were
effective in practice, as they were not implemented consistently nor approved
by all Jesuit intellectuals.
The volume’s second section explores the Jesuits’ attitude toward the dif-
ferent philosophical disciplines, focusing mostly on their epistemological
differences. A first group of contributions deals with the general problem of
knowledge, which raises questions of methods and the powers that the mind
has to cope with in order to make sense of its experience, reasoning, and
speaking. Anne Régent-Susini focuses on the role of rhetoric in shaping a Jesuit
attitude toward philosophy. Contrary to the black legend of the Jesuit order,
which depicted Jesuits as dangerous sophists, archenemies of common sense
as well as scientific truth, Régent-Susini points to the profound re-evaluation
of the role that rhetoric played in early Jesuit culture. Indeed, Jesuit rhetorical
inquiries were deeply linked to a remarkably innovative method of question-
ing language and ethics, which Régent-Susini explains in depth. Investigating
these matters also means examining the importance of the ancient, patristic,
and humanist heritages in Jesuit rhetorical thought and the way they allowed
the Jesuits to use rhetoric not only as a technique of manipulation but also as
an instrument for creative philosophical exploration.
Such an exploration cannot be completed outside the framework of the
established “art of reasoning,” that is, logic, which the Jesuits developed with
remarkable results. Jennifer Ashworth provides a comparative exploration of
the contributions of six Jesuit authors from the sixteenth century and the first
two decades of the seventeenth century. These authors became prominent
and influential logicians whose works were widely printed in Europe and used
in both Catholic and Protestant universities. Francisco de Toledo (1533–96),
Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99), and Philippe du Trieu (1580–1645) wrote standard
logic texts of varying lengths that covered interesting remnants of the
specific medieval contributions to logic as well as Aristotelian logic. Toledo
also wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s Organon, as had Sebastião do Couto,
who was responsible for the relevant volume of the Coimbra commentaries,
Introduction 5
and Antonio Rubio (1548–1615). Similarly, Marcin Śmiglecki (1564–1618) pro

duced an elaborate series of questions on various topics in Aristotelian logic.
Ashworth examines the Jesuits’ discussions of such issues as the nature of
logical inference, supposition theory, and the doctrine of analogy while also
considering their influence on early modern philosophy, with special reference
to Descartes and John Locke (1632–1704).
Although the Jesuit order undoubtedly produced some brilliant scholars at
the start of the early modern period, such as Suárez and Perera, this influence
was not limited to Jesuit philosophers of the so-called “first” and “second” gen-
erations. Indeed, a commonplace this volume tries to overcome is that sev-
enteenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit philosophers were nothing but dull
repeaters of what their predecessors had already settled. Daniel Heider’s con-
tribution highlights the plastic dynamic of Jesuit philosophy by focusing on
the significant doctrinal shift between the cognitive psychology of the repre-
sentative of the second Jesuit generation, namely Suárez, and the exponent
of the third tradition, namely Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641). Heider
deals with the main issues in this field that can be taken as examples of the
broader metamorphosis of Suárez’s (and other Jesuits’) teaching in the Cursus
philosophici in which Jesuit authors are commonly placed in the nominalist
tradition.
A second group of contributions focuses on the relationship between Jesuit
philosophy and theology. Paul Richard Blum deals with the issues of space and
“vacuum” (void) in the sixteenth century, a fiercely debated question on the
eve of the scientific revolution. By challenging both Charles B. Schmitt’s and
Edward Grant’s historiographical theories, which place the Jesuit theories of
vacuum in the context of Renaissance philosophers who diverged from Aris-
totle, Blum offers a more precise assessment of the influence of Renaissance
philosophers of physical nature on the Jesuits. Among the non-Aristotelian
thinkers, Julius Caesar Scaliger (1540–1609) and Girolamo Cardano (1501–76),
Girolamo Fracastoro (1476/78–1553), Jean Bodin (1530–96), Bernardino Tele-
sio (1509–88), Sebastián Fox Morcillo (1526/28–c.1559), and Francesco Patrizi
(1529–97) are taken into account. Such philosophers recur in Jesuit texts such
as those by the Conimbricenses, Fonseca, and Toledo, and the works of Perera
and Suárez, as well as those of Francisco Oviedo (1602–51), whose theory of
spatium imaginarium (imaginary space) can be seen as the endpoint of the
philosophical development. In so doing, Blum reveals how the making of
physical theory changed over time. By reinterpreting Aristotle’s concepts and
terminology, the Jesuits came to comparable conclusions in similar regard to
the opponents of school philosophy, namely that space and vacuum are indis-
pensable categories for describing the structure of nature.
6 Casalini
Stefano Caroti provides an in-depth survey of how the Conimbricenses

dealt with topics in natural philosophy that had a direct impact on theological
questions, such as those about transubstantiation. By pointing to several cross-
references among the volumes of the Cursus, Caroti highlights the inclusion
of a theological argument in a discussion that makes it possible to assess the
Jesuit influence on early modern philosophy in comparison with the contribu-
tions of Descartes and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642).
A third group of authors in this section focuses on the art of acting morally
and politically. Christoph Haar provides an overview of major Jesuit authors
and their works in the field of ethics by highlighting the specific Jesuit contri
bution to the rise of an autonomous science of morality. This is exemplified
by Juan Azor’s (1535–1603) Institutiones morales (Moral instructions [1600–11]).
A panorama of topics in Jesuit ethics is then provided and discussed: first,
the highly influential synthesis of legal and moral philosophical traditions
by authors such as Valère Regnault (1545–1623), Luis de Molina (1535–1600),
Suárez, Tomás Sánchez (1550–1610), and Leonard Lessius (1554–1623); second,
the shift in the approach toward moral authority and decision-making from
the tutiorist approach in early Jesuit moral works to the full endorsement of
probabilism in the early seventeenth century; and, finally, the promotion
of the case method in solving moral problems in Jesuit education. Erik de Bom,
meanwhile, offers an overview of Jesuit political thought in the sixteenth
century according to the perspectives that take into account the “toolkit” the
Jesuits used to express their political ideas and the major themes within the
Jesuit political thought of the time. Among such themes are the origin and le-
gitimacy of political power and authority, their relationship to reason of state,
the relationship between the common good and individual rights, and the
problematic question of tyrannicide. De Bom concludes with a comparative
overview of the major Jesuit political thinkers, such as Juan de Mariana (1536–
1624), Molina, Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604), Suárez, and Robert B ellarmine
(1542–1621), and demonstrates how Suárez and Bellarmine in particular can be
integrated into an overarching framework.
There is bound to be some overlap in a book of essays examining philosoph-
ical themes and the biographies of individual philosophers. To minimize this,
general chapters on Jesuit natural philosophy and metaphysics have been left
aside as a large part of the historiographical literature has already dealt with
these topics, and as the Jesuit contributions on issues pertaining to natural
philosophy and metaphysics are mostly assessed in this volume’s chapters on
individual Jesuits.
The volume’s third section is a fresco of the leading early Jesuit philoso-
phers, grouped geographically according to the major philosophical and
Introduction 7
c ultural centers of the early Society of Jesus: Rome, Lisbon, and Madrid. Anna
Tropia focuses on two of Toledo’s philosophical works: first, his commentaries
on Aristotle, which were part of his philosophical teaching in Rome and were
adopted as textbook material in all Jesuit colleges; and, second, his Summa
casuum conscientiae (De instructione sacerdotum et peccatis mortalibus) (Cases
of conscience [On the education of priests and mortal sins] [1598]), which in-
troduced a new genre to the Jesuit philosophical literature. Tropia offers an
insight into the characteristics of Toledo’s work that earned him such success,
as well as the unique way in which he commented on Aristotle and Aquinas.
Marco Lamanna introduces the reader to the philosophy of the Valencian
Jesuit Benet Perera (Pererius), highlighting how Perera exemplifies the Jesu-
its’ attitude toward philosophical topics not only because he examined some
of the most germane and debated topics by members of the Society of Jesus
in the Jesuit order’s first steps to prominence but also because his works il-
luminate the role played by Jesuit philosophy in the history of early modern
thought.
Alexander Aichele provides an insight into Molina’s major contribution that
shaped Jesuit culture within both fields of philosophy and theology. Molina
not only gave the Society of Jesus its doctrine of grace and human freedom but
also, unlike early Jesuit thinkers, received remarkable attention in the philo-
sophic debates of his day. For the most part, this debate focused on his theory
of middle science (scientia media), in which God’s prescience accounts for
future contingents without determining them. Lying between natural science
(scientia naturalis), which entails all possible true propositions (that is, every
possible world), and free science (scientia libera), which entails every proposi-
tion as being actually true (that is, the actual world), middle science reconciles
both knowledge of all future events and scenarios, and free agency of some of
its parts, namely beings equipped with free will.
António Manuel Martins examines the life and work of Pedro da Fonseca,
vindicating his pivotal role in shaping a Jesuit metaphysics before and beyond
Suárez. Fonseca’s commentary on Metaphysics was used in many Jesuit schools
and was the first systematic approach to metaphysics attempted by the first
generation of Jesuits. Despite the prominence of Fonseca’s writings, however,
it is instead Suarez’s Disputationes metaphysicae (Metaphysical disputations
[1597]) that is widely regarded as the most important work on metaphysics.
Martins provides a comparative study of a topic of crucial importance for both
philosophy in general and Jesuit metaphysics in particular, namely the concept
of relation as understood by Fonseca and Suárez.
After a brief introduction dealing with the local circumstances related to
the creation of the Coimbra Course, its content, and its worldwide diffusion,
8 Casalini
Mário Santiago de Carvalho offers an exposition of the entire course and its
major author, Manuel de Goís. Rather than dealing with its various modules
one by one, Carvalho interprets the whole course and its philosophical coher-
ence (or inconsistency) by introducing some of the major topics that circum-
scribe its most important themes, namely a philosophy of knowledge (analysis,
cognition, sensibles, and intelligibles); a philosophy of science (science, cause,
analogy, qualities); a philosophy of nature (matter, substance, action, poten-
cy, beauty, life); a philosophy of the world (world, elements, planets, u nity); a
philosophy of man (body, soul, intellect, happiness, time, resurrection); and
a philosophy of God (God, eternity).
Concluding this section, Benjamin Hill focuses on Suárez and offers over-
views of the major contributions he made to philosophy and philosophical
theology. In particular, Hill illuminates Suárez’s role in the development and
establishment of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum and highlights the distinctiveness
of Suárez’s philosophical theology by explicating the major points on which
he differs from Aquinas. Hill then moves to an overview of Suárez’s master-
piece, Disputationes metaphysicae, with particular attention to his notions
of being, substance, cause, and intentionality (objective being). A final, sub-
stantive section considers Suárez’s relationship to the work of other Jesuit
philosophers.
The last section of this volume includes contributions on the influence and
impact of Jesuit philosophy on philosophers such as Descartes and Locke.
Since the connection between Descartes’s Jesuit education and his philoso-
phy has already been the subject of many studies, Alfredo Gatto focuses on
some specific issues related to the Cartesian philosophy with particular regard
to Descartes’s epistemology. Gatto highlights some of Descartes’s references to
the Jesuits in his works and presents a brief description of his intellectual and
public link with the Society of Jesus and its representatives. Gatto then goes on
to deal with some of the key issues that characterized Descartes’s relationship
with the Jesuit tradition, such as the mind–body distinction, the four causes,
the Eucharist, and the extension of the divine will, which concludes the funda-
mental role played by the Jesuit tradition in Cartesian thought.
In a similar vein, Elliot Rossiter draws on points of continuity between Locke
and the Jesuit intellectual tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
in the areas of law, politics, and toleration. Concerning law, Locke’s theory of
natural law is discussed as having parallel strands to that of Suárez. Both are
moderate voluntarists about moral laws of nature: they hold that the content
of the law is given by the nature of human beings, but that the normative force
of the law can only come from a divine command. Concerning politics, Locke’s
Introduction 9
theory of natural rights and political power is highlighted as having impor-

tant affinities with the work of Francisco de Vitoria (1492–1546), Molina, and
Suárez. Furthermore, in refuting Robert Filmer’s (1588–1653) Patriarcha, Locke
came to a position that is, in many ways, quite close to those of earlier Jesuits
like Suárez and Bellarmine. Concerning toleration, Locke employs a political
theology that is indebted to Jesuit views of human nature and original sin. The
anthropological optimism undergirding his arguments for toleration derives
from his inclination to Arminianism , which—as Rossiter claims—are similar
to Jesuit views.
Assuming that this volume sheds some light on the existence and limits of
a Jesuit philosophy on the wake of modernity, it may also reveal that there
is still much more mining to be done. Excluding Suárez, a fair and substan-
tial assessment of the impact of each of the Jesuits mentioned in this volume
on the mainstream of early modern (and modern) philosophy is yet to come.
Much of the work will necessarily include research inquiries into the deepest
corners of both Jesuit and non-Jesuit archives and historical libraries with the
aim of finding the recurrence of Jesuit philosophical books beyond Catholic
countries, the manuscripts of courses and classes given by Jesuit philosophers,
and the impact of Jesuit philosophical teaching on non-European cultural con-
texts, to name but a few. Further, an almost untouched but promising field of
research is Jesuit philosophy following what Heider here calls “the third gen-
eration.” Jesuit philosophy did not stop with Suárez, as Jacob Schmutz once
pointed out; rather, there were two other waves of Jesuit philosophy that kept
alive the tradition of Jesuit ingenuity into the period of early modern philos-
ophy with remarkable innovations (possibly more innovative than Suárez’s
work). If such a field of research will be covered by scholarship in the follow-
ing years, it might well be the case that Heidegger’s appreciation of Suárez will
have to be nuanced.
Many experts in the field have contributed to this volume. Robert Maryks—
the most powerful engine in the world for the advancement of Jesuit studies
and a friend of mine—had a tremendous role in this enterprise. The Institute
for Advanced Jesuit Studies and, in particular, its director Casey Beaumier, S.J.,
granted liberal support and generous advice. Stephen Schloesser, S.J., played an
important role in helping me shape a structure for the volume. Michael Smith,
Kasper Volk, and Sean McLaughlin helped with the editing work. Credit is also
due to Tim Page, who spent hours upon hours copy-editing and preparing the
volume for publication. Finally, I am most grateful to Francesco and Giovanna
Mattei, both experts of the depths of Jesuit culture and to whom the “free air”
of the Etruscans provided with the vaccine.
10 Casalini
Bibliography
Ariew, Roger. Descartes and the Late Scholastics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Des Chene, Dennis. Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2000.
Des Chene, Dennis. Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian
Thought. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000.
Giard, Luce. Les jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif et production du savoir. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1995.
Gilson, Étienne. Études sur le rôle de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du système
cartésien. Paris: Vrin, 1930.
Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Edited by Albert Hofstadter.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters. Rome: Edizioni di
Storia e Letteratura, 1956.
Lagerlund, Henrik, ed. Forming the Mind: Essays on the Internal Senses and the Mind/
Body Problem from Avicenna to the Medical Enlightenment. Dordrecht: Springer,
2007.
Lohr, Charles H., S.J. “Jesuit Aristotelianism and Sixteenth-Century Metaphysics.” In
Paradosis: Studies in Memory of Edwin A. Quain, edited by Harry G. Fletcher III and
Mary B. Schulte, 203–20. New York: Fordham University Press, 1976.
Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1983.
Simmons, Alison. “Jesuit Aristotelian Education: The De anima Commentaries.” In The
Jesuits: Culture, Learning and the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John W. O’Malley, S.J.,
Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, 522–37. Toronto:
Toronto University Press, 1999.
South, James B. “Suárez on Imagination.” Vivarium 39 (2001): 119–58.
Spruit, Leen. Species intelligibilis: 1. Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions. Leiden:
Brill 1994.
Part 1
The Landscape
∵
Chapter 1
Philosophy in Jesuit Schools and Universities

Paul F. Grendler
For the Jesuits, the collective term “philosophy” eventually meant the trio of
logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, all based on the study of the appro-
priate texts of Aristotle (384–322 bce). Jesuit philosophy rose out of the cur-
sus artium, the philosophy course, of the University of Paris. But it took many
years of experimentation before the Jesuits developed and refined their own
philosophy curriculum and codified it in the Ratio studiorum of 1599. Once this
was accomplished, the Society had a comprehensive and uniform philosophy
curriculum, which they taught in an increasing number of schools and univer-
sities. High enrolments proved that Jesuit philosophy was popular with stu-
dents. On the other hand, philosophers in secular universities criticized Jesuit
philosophy teaching for a lack of originality and too much homogeneity. The
Jesuits, by contrast, prized uniformity and achieved it, in part, through dicta-
tion and textbooks.1
1 The Development of the Philosophical Cursus
All of the first ten Jesuits, with one possible exception, plus Juan Alfonso de
Polanco (1517–76) and Jerónimo Nadal (1507–80), studied philosophy at the
University of Paris between 1525 and 1538.2 Hence the form and content of
Parisian philosophical instruction strongly influenced the Jesuits’ initial at-
tempts to teach philosophy. At Paris, the cursus artium consisted of three years
of philosophy. Students began with two years of logic. In the first year, they
concentrated on the Summulae logicales (Summaries of logic), written in the
1230s by Peter of Spain (1210/15; elected Pope John xxi 1276; d. 1277). The most
published logic textbook of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was a
1 I wish to thank Christoph Sander who read an earlier draft and made many useful sugges-
tions, Professor Liam Brockey for the information on philosophy in the Asian missions, and
Professor Nelson Minnich for help with a passage. The mistakes are all mine.
2 Diego Laínez (1512–65, in office 1558–1612) may have been an exception. He already had bach-
elor, licentiate, and master of arts degrees from Alcalá de Henares when he arrived in Paris at
the end of 1532. He concentrated on theology at Paris, which does not mean that he ignored
philosophy.

14 Grendler
summary of the contents of the books of Aristotle’s Organum. In the second

year, students studied the various books of Aristotle’s Organum directly, plus
Porphyry’s (c.234–c.305) Isagoge and a little of Aristotle’s De anima. In the third
year, they attended a course usually called natural philosophy. In practice, it
was a smorgasbord offering a little natural philosophy based on Aristotle’s
Physics and Parva naturalia, some metaphysics based on Aristotle’s Metaphys-
ics, and some moral philosophy based on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristo-
tle. They were also expected to learn some astronomy and mathematics based
on De sphaera (The sphere) written around 1220 by Johannes de Sacrobosco
(John of Holywood [c.1195–1244/56]), although continually updated with new
planetary tables and commentaries, plus mathematical texts. Students also
participated in disputations and review exercises. The proximate goal of the
philosophy courses was to prepare students to pass examinations for the bach-
elor, licentiate, and master of arts degrees, which may explain why the third
course dealt with a little of this and a little of that.3 After acquiring these de-
grees, most of the students left the university, while a small number remained
to study theology, canon law, or medicine.
The Jesuits taught philosophy in their first European schools, at the
University of Gandía and at Messina. Manuel de Sá (c.1528–96), still a Jesuit
scholastic, taught logic at Gandía, possibly from 1547 to 1550.4 However, there
was so little teaching and so few students that the only reason for calling
Gandía a university was that it had a papal charter dated 1547. By 1555, all
philosophical and theological instruction was gone. The school at Messina,
founded in 1548, was far more important. Isidoro Bellini (d.1551) taught logic in
the first academic year, 1548–49. In the second year, André des Freux (c.1515–56)
taught logic to sixteen students, while Bellini taught natural philosophy to
thirteen students.5 The Messina school had classes in logic, natural philosophy,
and theology from the beginning, because both the Jesuits and the Senate of
Messina intended to create a joint civic–Jesuit university as soon as possible.
It never happened because of strong differences between the Senate and the
Jesuits over the governance and finances of the proposed university. When
the Jesuits subsequently founded a school, they almost always began with low-
er school classes in grammar and the humanities. Then, after a few or many
3 There is a considerable bibliography on this topic; for a useful summary, see Georg Schur-
hammer, Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times, vol. 1, Europe 1506–1541, trans. M. Joseph Costelloe
(Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1973), 113–15, 143–45.
4 António Leite, “Sá, Manuel de (I),” dhcj 4:3454; Sommervogel, 7:349.
5 Year by Year with the Early Jesuits (1537–1556): Selections from the Chronicon of Juan de
Polanco, S.J., trans. John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004),
91–92. For the Latin from the Chronicon, see Mon. paed. 1:515.
Philosophy in Jesuit Schools and Universities 15
years when there were enough well-prepared students, they added a class in
philosophy.
The founding of the Collegio Romano on February 22, 1551 offered an oppor-
tunity for the Jesuits to teach a larger philosophical curriculum. Three letters
written by Polanco in late October and early November 1553, at the beginning
of the academic year, plus a 1553 entry in his Chronicon, provide the first infor-
mation about philosophy instruction at the Collegio Romano. Polanco wrote
that the Roman College was teaching three courses in philosophy based on
Aristotle in the 1553–54 academic year. The letters and the Chronicon entry, as
well as the lack of information about philosophy in the first two years, strongly
suggest that this was the beginning of philosophy instruction at the Roman
College. The first course taught the rudiments of logic to beginners, whom Po-
lanco called sumulistas, which was what they were called at Paris. The second
course taught more advanced logic. The third course taught natural philoso-
phy and metaphysics. Polanco added that these students also studied moral
philosophy and mathematics. Polanco named the three Jesuits teaching the
three courses, but he did not list any teachers for moral philosophy and math-
ematics. This meant that moral philosophy and mathematics were included in
the third class. He gave the number of Jesuits and students from the German
College attending each of the three classes, but no information about other
students. Polanco stressed that the Roman College was following the lead of
the universities of Paris, Louvain, Alcalá de Henares, and other Spanish univer-
sities, all of which taught the Paris cursus artium.6
Nadal and Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556) also recommended that the Je-
suits should follow the Paris model, but with some variations. In his De studii
generalis dispositione et ordine (On the general arrangement and order of stud-
ies [1552]), Nadal prescribed an extensive philosophy cursus consisting of four
year-long courses in which moral philosophy, logic, natural philosophy, and
metaphysics, each based on the appropriate texts of Aristotle, would be taught.
6 Polanco’s letters to Luis de Mendoza, Adrian Adriaenssens, and Alfonso Salmerón of Octo-
ber 20, 24, and November 4, 1553, in Epp. ign. 1:595 (quote), 613–14, and 655–56. The letter to
Adriaenssens is reprinted in Mon. paed. 1:440–43. The Chronicon entry is reprinted in Mon.
paed. 1:550–51. Part of the letter of October 20 is translated into Italian in Ricardo G. Vil-
loslada, Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione della Compagnia di
Gesù (1773) (Rome: Apud Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954), 28–29. However, Villoslada’s
list of the teachers of logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and mathematics at the Col-
legio Romano, based on an Archivio Pontificia Università Gregoriana manuscript, in 331–35,
is not accurate for the early years. It indicates that there were four distinct courses in logic,
natural philosophy, metaphysics, and mathematics beginning in the academic year 1553–54.
However, it took a decade and longer for them to emerge as separate courses, a development
that has not been studied.
16 Grendler
Nadal placed the strongest emphasis on logic, for which he offered the most
detailed prescriptions. Indeed, the logic professor was to deliver three lectures
daily. Nadal referred to classes in natural philosophy and metaphysics but did
not make a clear distinction between them. Nor did he explain the place of
moral philosophy; at one point, he mentioned a moral philosophy course that
would meet on Sundays and feast days, instead of the regular teaching days.7
In late 1553 and early 1554, Ignatius, with the help of Polanco, wrote the
section on universities in the Constitutions, which the Society adopted as
binding in 1558. However, Ignatius offered only brief and general guidance
on philosophy. In part 4, chapter 12, he wrote this unhelpful sentence: “Logic,
physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy should be treated, and also
mathematics with the moderation appropriate to secure the end which is being
sought.”8 And in part 4, chapter 14, he ordered that Aristotle should be followed
in logic, and natural and moral philosophy. The First General Congregation
(1558) added the words “and metaphysics,” making the statement: “In logic,
natural and moral philosophy, and metaphysics, the doctrine of Aristotle
should be followed, as also in the other liberal arts.”9
The recommendations of Nadal and Ignatius had little influence on the phi-
losophy curriculum, which slowly developed from its Paris origins. A frame-
work began to emerge in the 1560s, but it took another thirty years to become
a complete structure. Two key developments were the decisions that the phi-
losophy cursus would be a triennium, not a quadrennium, and that logic would
be taught in a single year. On the other hand, in the 1560s Jesuit schools often
organized the teaching of natural philosophy and metaphysics into six-month
units, meaning that the teacher devoted six months to teaching one text of
Aristotle, and six months to another text. Only slowly did the Jesuits begin to
make natural philosophy a year-long course to be taught in the second year
and metaphysics a year-long course to be taught in the third. Mathematics and
moral philosophy were detached from the philosophy cursus. The former be-
came a distinct but less important course. Moral philosophy disappeared as a
separate course, and its content, analysis of the Nicomachean Ethics, was not
7 See Mon. paed. 1:143–48.

8 The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms: A Complete English
Translation of the Official Latin Texts (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), part 4, chap-
ter 12, 180 (paragraph 451).
9 Ibid., part 4, chapter 14, 183 (paragraph 470). For the action of the First General Congrega-
tion, see For Matters of Greater Moment: The First Thirty-Eight General Congregations: A Brief
History and a Translation of the Decrees, ed. John W. Padberg, Martin D. O’Keefe, and John L.
McCarthy (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1994), 78, decree 33 after the election.
part of the curriculum of the three philosophy courses. And the teachers of
logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics taught twice daily.10
In the 1580s, the Jesuits launched the long process of drafting a Ratio stu-
diorum to be followed by all schools. The draft version of 1586, which mostly
summarized what Jesuit schools were teaching without making choices, had
a prolix section on philosophy that leaned strongly toward the trio of logic,
natural philosophy, and metaphysics.11 The 1591 draft unequivocally privileged
a triennium of logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, and relegated moral
philosophy and mathematics to inferior positions.12 The leadership charged
the provinces with implementing the 1591 draft on a trial basis and then to
submit comments, which they did in abundance.
The final Ratio studiorum adopted in 1599 codified and made binding a phi-
losophy cursus consisting of three year-long courses in logic, natural philoso-
phy, and metaphysics. It moved books of Aristotle here and there in order to
create a tightly knit curriculum with which to teach almost all of Aristotle. The
curricular texts for logic were Aristotle’s Categories, On Interpretation, Prior
Analytics, Topics, and On Sophistical Refutations, five of the six works of the Or-
ganum. In addition, at the end of the academic year the teacher was expected
to explain some of the prolegomenous matter of the Physics and On the Soul,
in preparation for the course in natural philosophy. The Ratio studiorum also
encouraged the teacher to use materials from the logic manuals of two Jesuits,
Francisco de Toledo (1532–96) and Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99).13 It did not
mention Porphyry’s Isagoge or the Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain, which
meant that they were not recommended.
The second-year course was natural philosophy, which was the heart of Ar-
istotelian science. The Jesuits viewed it as a way of teaching cosmological and
ontological reality by studying different kinds of being. The Physics of Aristo-
tle, which discussed corporeal substances in general, came first. Indeed, the
Jesuits often called the course physica and the students physici because of the
10 This is not the place, nor is there space, to study the evolution of the philosophical trien-
nium. Some aspects can be followed in Mon. paed. as follows: 3:536 (catalog of courses at
the Roman College of June 16, 1560); 3:558, 560 (Dillingen catalogs of 1564 and 1565, the
latter a clear indication that logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics were separate
courses); 3:581–89 (the complex catalogs of the Coimbra college of 1561 through 1565);
2:99 (Nadal’s “Ordo studiorum germanicus” of 1563); 2:179 (“Gubernatio Collegii Romani”
of 1566); 2:254–56 (“De artium liberalium studiis” of 1565–70).
11 Mon. paed. 5:95–110.
12 Ibid., 5:279–85.
13 The Ratio studiorum: The Official Plan for Jesuit Education, trans. Claude Pavur, S.J.
(St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004), 101–3 (paragraphs 213–20).
18 Grendler
importance of the Physics in it. Next came simple eternal substances delin-
eated in De caelo et mundo (On the heavens). Then came simple non-eternal
substances, discussed with the aid of De generatione et corruptione (On genera-
tion and corruption), followed by mixed inanimate substances based on the
Meteorology.14 The Jesuit curriculum did not always follow the order found in
Aristotle’s books; for example, some metaphysical issues in book 8 of the Phys-
ics were postponed to the metaphysics class.15
The third year was metaphysics taught by means of book 2 of De generatione
et corruptione, plus the Metaphysics, especially books 1, 7, and 12, and On the
Soul. In the directions for teaching book 2 of On the Soul, the Ratio studiorum
told the Jesuit metaphysics teacher that “he should not digress into anatomy
and the rest of the things that are the concerns of medical doctors.”16 The Ratio
studiorum did not mention teaching Aristotle’s Parva naturalia or his animal
books, which many professors taught in non-Jesuit universities. The reason was
that natural philosophy was viewed as preparation for the study of medicine in
many universities. For the Jesuits, natural philosophy and especially metaphys-
ics were preparation for theology.17 Both mathematics and moral philosophy
appeared in the Ratio studiorum of 1599 as optional courses to be taught once
a day but for only thirty to forty-five minutes.18 In practice, mathematics was
taught in Jesuit schools and universities when there was a Jesuit mathemati-
cian available to teach it, which was true in only a minority of schools. Moral
philosophy was rarely taught even in the most important Jesuit schools.
Jesuit philosophers did a lot of teaching. The Ratio studiorum told Jesuit
teachers of logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics that they should teach
two hours daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.19 Because they
lectured five or five and one-half days a week, and the academic year of Jesuit
upper schools began in early November and lasted through the end of August,
14 Ibid., 103–4 (paragraphs 221–23).

15 Marcus Hellyer, Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Germany
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 72–73, makes this point.
16 Ratio studiorum, 104 (paragraphs 224–25).
17 However, Jesuit instruction at the University of Coimbra was an exception. When teach-
ing On the Soul, the Coimbra Jesuits commented on some anatomical topics and demon-
strated that they were well acquainted with the works of past and contemporary medical
authors. See Christoph Sander, “Medical Topics in the De anima Commentary of Coimbra
(1598) and the Jesuits’ Attitude towards Medicine in Education and Natural Philosophy,”
Early Science and Medicine 19 (2014): 76–101.
18 Ratio studiorum, 108–10 (paragraphs 235–41).
19 Ratio studiorum, 101 (paragraph 213).
Jesuit philosophers delivered three hundred and more lectures annually.20 By

contrast, ordinary professors in Italian universities were expected to deliver
one lecture daily, five days a week, from early November until early June, but
with many holidays, for a total of about 135 lectures. In practice, unauthor-
ized holidays, professorial absenteeism, and student disturbances that blocked
classes reduced the number of lectures to sixty to seventy in the early seven-
teenth century.21
The three Jesuit philosophy courses comprised the middle of Jesuit educa-
tion. The lower school of grammar, humanities, and rhetoric classes, lasting
about six years, gave the students a very thorough education in humanistic
studies based on the Latin and Greek classics. Many students left after com-
pleting the humanities class, while others left after completing the rhetoric
class because they had acquired what they came for, fluency in Latin and a
thorough knowledge of the classics. They had the necessary skills to fill sec-
retarial and administrative positions in civil and ecclesiastical organizations.
At the ages of sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, the remaining students, and
new students with the requisite skills in Latin, began the three years of phil-
osophical study. In northern Europe and the Hispanic Peninsula, these were
students who otherwise would have attended collegiate universities in pursuit
of bachelor of arts, licentiate of arts, and master of arts degrees. In Italy, many
students who enrolled in Jesuit logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics
classes intended to go on to universities to study law and medicine. This made
perfect sense, because logic was considered useful preparation for both law
and medicine, while natural philosophy was considered essential preparation
for medicine. Recognizing this, some colleges of doctors of law and colleges
of doctors of medicine in non-university towns in Italy, that nevertheless pos-
sessed the authority to confer doctorates, allowed students to count the three
years of study of logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics in Jesuit schools
toward the required six or seven years of study for doctorates. Colleges of doc-
tors of law and of medicine affiliated with universities did not, because they
realized that some students would desert university lectures in logic, natural
philosophy, and metaphysics in favor of Jesuit classes. Metaphysics was con-
sidered necessary preparation for the study of theology. Hence, some students
20 According to a 1594 memorandum concerning the Padua school, the Jesuit logic and natu-
ral philosophy teachers lectured twice a day for 160 days, thus delivering 320 lectures in
the academic year. Maurizio Sangalli, Cultura, politica e religione nella Repubblica di Vene-
zia tra Cinque e Seicento: Gesuiti e somaschi a Venezia (Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze,
lettere ed arti, 1999), 290–91.
21 Paul F. Grendler, The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2002), 495–96.
20 Grendler
intending to join religious orders, or to go on to universities to acquire doc-

torates in theology, studied the philosophical trio in Jesuit schools. All of the
above were external students. A minority of the students were Jesuit scholas-
tics for whom the philosophical triennium followed by four years of theology
were required.
2 Teachers and Schools
Which Jesuits taught logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics? How were
they educated for teaching? Where did they teach? Diego Laínez (vicar gen-
eral 1556–58, superior general 1558–65) issued the decree that determined who
taught and when.
In the years immediately following 1548, the Jesuits opened as many new
schools as possible as quickly as possible. That created a desperate teacher
shortage. Loyola and Laínez coped by sending whoever was available to teach
whatever subject needed to be taught, wherever needed. Rather than solving
the teacher shortage, this added the disruption of frequent teacher moves.
When last year’s brilliant Jesuit was replaced by this year’s mediocre Jesuit, en-
rolments plummeted, and parents complained. Rectors of colleges relayed the
complaints to Rome and added their own sharp comments. After trying some
ill-advised expedients to solve the teacher shortage, Laínez hit upon a drastic
solution that changed the Society forever.
On August 10, 1560, Polanco, writing for Laínez, wrote a letter to all superiors
in the Society. He decreed that the ministry of the schools was as important
as all the other ministries combined and that all Jesuits, with rare exceptions,
would teach.22 By “all Jesuits,” he meant all Latin-educated Jesuits. All priests
and those studying to be ordained (scholastics) would teach; temporal coad-
jutors, called brothers, who served as cooks, custodians, tailors, and in other
mundane capacities, would not teach, because they were not Latin-educated.
Implementing the decree had the collateral effect of organizing the educa-
tion and career paths of almost all Jesuits including those who taught philoso-
phy. A young man typically entered the Society at the age of sixteen, seventeen,
or eighteen.23 He then spent two years as a novice. After the novitiate, if the
young Jesuit was not well prepared in Latin and Greek, he spent a year or two
studying the humanities and/or rhetoric. If he was well prepared in Latin and
Greek, he immediately began the philosophical triennium, which he did in one
22 Laínez 5:165–67. It is reprinted in Mon. paed. 3:304–6.

23 Numerous biographies in dhcj and arsi records document this paragraph.
of the two or three major schools in his province. When he completed philo-
sophical studies, the young Jesuit, now aged twenty-three to twenty-five, spent
the next three to five years teaching grammar, humanities, and rhetoric in a Je-
suit lower school in his home province. For some Jesuits, this was all the teach-
ing they did. Next, he studied theology for four years in the most important and
largest Jesuit school in his province, usually the only one offering three classes
in Scholastic theology. He was ordained a priest after the third year of theologi-
cal studies, sometimes in the fourth year. He was now in his early thirties. After
completing theological studies, a small number of Jesuits became teachers of
philosophy. Thus, Jesuit philosophy teachers were always ordained priests in
their thirties or older.
Once they started teaching philosophy, some Jesuits spent much of the rest
of their lives teaching the philosophical trio. Others taught philosophy for five
or six years before ascending to teaching theology. Jesuit philosophy teach-
ers normally enjoyed a respite from teaching at some point in their careers.
They served as a non-teaching prefect of studies, or were appointed rector of
a college for a few years. If not appointed to another rectorship, they returned
to teaching philosophy or theology. After reaching the academic pinnacle of
teaching theology, some Jesuits taught theology for the rest of their lives. These
men were considered the leading scholars of the Society. They included Robert
Bellarmine (1542–1621) and Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), as well as others who
published book after book but are not so well remembered today.
The largest and most important Jesuit schools taught logic, natural philoso-
phy, and metaphysics every year. However, one Jesuit did not teach the same
subject year after year. He normally taught logic the first year, natural philoso-
phy the second year, and metaphysics the third year, then repeated the cycle.24
This was beneficial to the teacher in that he did not have to teach the same
material year after year. And he had the opportunity to refresh his understand-
ing of almost all the Aristotelian philosophical corpus over the course of three
years. For the student, it meant that he had the same teacher for all three year-
long courses. If the teacher was excellent, the student learned well. If not, the
highly structured curriculum and its pedagogical exercises still guaranteed that
students learned. A single philosophy teacher in a small Jesuit school had to
improvise. He might teach the three courses one after the other over a period
24 For the cyclical pattern with the names of the Jesuit teachers at the Jesuit school at Parma
from 1601 through 1768, see Ugo Baldini, “S. Rocco e la scuola scientifica della provincia
veneta: Il quadro storico (1600–1773),” in Gesuiti e università in Europa (secoli xvi–xviii):
Atti del Convegno di studi, Parma, 13–15 dicembre 2001, ed. Gian Paolo Brizzi and Roberto
Greci (Bologna: clueb, 2001), 283–323, here 294–309.
22 Grendler
of three years. But if a new student, who had not yet studied logic, arrived
when the teacher was teaching natural philosophy or metaphysics, he would
be at a disadvantage compared with students who had already attended the
first and/or second course. There are hints that single philosophy teachers in
small Jesuit schools taught a combination of logic and natural philosophy ac-
cording to the needs and wishes of students, and largely skipped metaphysics.
As the number of Jesuit schools and teachers increased, so did the number
of philosophy classes. In 1600, the major school in each Jesuit province in
Europe taught philosophy, almost always all three courses. But it might be the
only school in the province to teach the philosophical cursus. At that time,
only a small number of the other schools in a province taught philosophy,
usually only a single class.
Information from the Italian assistancy in 1600, which consisted of the five
provinces of Rome, Venice, Milan, Naples, and Sicily, shows the pattern.25
Table 1.1 Philosophy in the Italian Assistancy in 1600
Province Number of Schools Total Upper Philosophy

schools teaching number of school teachers
philosophy teachers teachers
Rome 9 1 40 12 3
Venice 11 3 38 11 4
Milan 7 1 33 10 3
Naples 12 5 49 18 7
Sicily 12 1 41 6 3
— — — — —
Totals 51 11 201 57 20
Sources: arsi, Rom. 54, fols. 50r–52r; Venet., fols. 251r–64r; Mediol. 47, fols. 150r–56r; Neap. 80,
fols. 172r–77r; Sic. 60, ff. 168v–71r. (László Lukács, “De origine collegiorum externorum deque
controversiis circa eorum paupertatem obortis 1538–1608,” ahsi 29 (1960): 189–245; and
30 (1961): 3–89, has read the same documents and presents summary results at 48–51, 64.
However, he did not count the number of philosophy teachers. The only significant difference
between his reading and my reading of the documents is that he finds fewer teachers and
upper-school teachers in the province of Naples.)
25 The schools at the Jesuit collegiate universities of Cagliari and Sassari are not included
because they were in the Jesuit province of Sardinia, part of the Spanish assistancy, while
the island of Sardinia was ruled by Spain.
In the province of Rome, which encompassed Lazio, Umbria, the Marches,

and Tuscany, only the Roman College taught philosophy, with three Jesuits
teaching simultaneously.26 In the province of Venice, which included the Ro-
magna, the Republic of Venice, and eastern Lombardy including the duchies
of Ferrara, Mantua, and Parma, the Jesuit school at Parma had a teacher of
logic and one for philosophy, while the Brescia school had a single philosophy
teacher. The Venice professed house did not have a lower school but did offer
philosophy lectures in the Jesuit church, an unusual arrangement that did not
last.27 Of the seven schools in the province of Milan, which included most of
Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria, only the school in Milan taught philosophy
with simultaneous classes in logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics.28 The
province of Naples, which included the entire Italian peninsula south of Lazio,
offered much more philosophy. Of its twelve schools, five taught at least one
course in philosophy. The Collegio Massimo of Naples, by far the largest school
in the province, had classes in logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, plus
one in moral philosophy. The school at Catanzaro had two philosophy classes,
while the schools in L’Aquila and Cosenza had one each.29 The province of
Sicily, which included the island plus Malta, had twelve schools. The school at
Palermo offered all three classes; no other school in the province taught phi-
losophy.30 Overall, in 1600 the five provinces of Italy had forty-one schools, of
which eleven (twenty-two percent) taught philosophy. They had fifty-seven up-
per school teachers, of whom twenty (thirty-five percent) taught philosophy.
Jesuit schools in northern Europe and in the Hispanic Peninsula also taught
philosophy. Although precise numbers are not available, the number of phi-
losophy teachers can be estimated. In 1600, there were about 212 upper-school
teachers in the assistancies of Portugal, Spain, and Germany in their schools
in Europe. (The few upper-school teachers in the overseas provinces of these
assistancies have been excluded.) If, as in Italy, thirty-five percent of the upper-
school teachers taught philosophy, then seventy-four Jesuits taught philosophy
in northern Europe and the Hispanic Peninsula in 1600.31 If the estimate is ac-
curate, this was a substantial number.
The number of philosophy teachers in the missions was far fewer. For ex-
ample, the upper schools in Goa and Cochin in India that began in the 1570s
consistently taught either the full cursus philosophicus simultaneously or one
26 arsi, Rom. 54, fols. 50r–52r.

27 arsi, Venet. 37, fols. 251r–64r.
28 arsi, Mediol. 47, fols. 150r–56r.
29 arsi, Neap. 80, fols. 172r–77r.
30 arsi, Sic. 60, 168v–71r.
31 Lukács, “De origine collegiorum externorum,” part 2, 51–52, 54–65.
24 Grendler
or two of its classes. The Jesuit school at Macao, founded at the end of the
sixteenth century, taught philosophy sporadically in the next half century. The
Jesuit school at Manila regularly taught philosophy.32
In northern Europe and in the Hispanic Peninsula, Jesuits often taught phi-
losophy in Jesuit universities, that is, universities ruled by or dominated by the
Society. For example, they taught one or more of the philosophical triennium
in the universities of Dillingen, Trier, Mainz, and Würzburg in the second half
of the sixteenth century. They also had a strong presence, sometimes a mo-
nopoly, in philosophy instruction, in some civic universities, that is, universi-
ties ruled by civil governments, such as Ingolstadt and Vienna.33
By contrast, there were no Jesuit universities in Italy.34 And the Jesuits
taught philosophy in only four civic universities. They taught all three of the
philosophical trio at the universities of Parma and Fermo continuously in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one to three courses most of the time at
the University of Macerata, and all three courses at the University of Mantua
for four years, 1625 to 1629.35 That was all, because Italian universities did not
welcome Jesuit teachers into their midst. Worse, they sometimes tried to stop
Jesuit schools from teaching philosophy, claiming that only the university had
the legal right to teach philosophy in a university town. For example, the uni-
versities of Padua and Bologna forced the Jesuit schools in those towns to stop
teaching philosophy to non-Jesuit students. Consequently, in Italy Jesuits did
almost all of their philosophical teaching in their own schools.
The seventeenth century witnessed a great expansion in the number of Je-
suit schools and teachers in Europe, and philosophy played a large part in the
expansion.
The quantity of philosophy instruction in Italy increased threefold in a half
century. There were more than three times as many Jesuit schools teaching
philosophy (thirty-six to eleven), and nearly three times as many teachers of
philosophy (fifty-eight to twenty) in the Italian assistancy in 1649 compared
32 This information comes from Professor Liam Brockey, for which I am very grateful.
33 Karl Hengst, Jesuiten an Universitäten und Jesuitenuniversitäten: Zur Geschichte der Uni-
versitäten in der Oberdeutschen und Rheinischen Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu im Zeital-
ter der konfessionellen Auseinandersetzung (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1981), 298,
table and passim; and Hellyer, Catholic Physics, appendix 2, here 245–47.
34 Although the Roman College had the authority to confer degrees in theology and philoso-
phy, it did not teach law or medicine, which complete Italian universities did.
35 For the University of Mantua, see Paul F. Grendler, The University of Mantua, the Gonzaga
& the Jesuits, 1584–1630 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). For the rela-
tionship between the Jesuits and the other Italian universities, see Paul F. Grendler, The
Jesuits and Italian Universities 1548–1773 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America
Press, 2017).
Table 1.2 Philosophy in the Italian Assistancy in 1649
Province Number of Schools Total Upper Philosophy

schools teaching number of school teachers
philosophy teachers teachers
Rome 22 11 89 38 17
Venice 19 4 63 22 9
Milan 20 4 70 22 8
Naples 25 9 80 37 11
Sicily 21 8 97 43 13
— — — — —
Totals 107 36 399 162 58
Sources: arsi, Rom. 59, fols. 67r–92r; Venet. 40, fols. 151r–70r; Mediol. 2, fols. 115r–29r; Neap. 83,
fols. 117r–58r; and Sic. 66, fols. 157r–85r.
with 1600. The rate of growth of philosophy courses was much higher than the
rate of growth for schools and teachers as a whole. While there were twice as
many Jesuit teachers (399 to 201) in 1649 compared with 1600, there were three
times as many philosophy teachers. Ten Italian Jesuit schools, usually two in
each province, taught metaphysics, natural philosophy, and logic simultane-
ously in 1649. In another indication of the growth of philosophy instruction,
all five Italian provinces had more Jesuits teaching philosophy than teaching
Scholastic theology: fifty-eight Jesuits taught philosophy while only thirty-
three Jesuits taught Scholastic theology in 1649.36 It is likely that there was a
similar expansion of philosophy instruction in the rest of Europe.
The limited enrolment information available demonstrates that the phi-
losophy classes were well attended in Italy, especially in schools in large cities
lacking universities. The logic class always had the highest enrolment, followed
by natural philosophy and metaphysics. In 1630, for example, the Palermo
school had eighty students in its logic class, sixty in the natural philosophy
class, and fifty in the metaphysics class. (Obviously, these are rounded off num-
bers.) The total enrolment in the school of twelve classes was 1,140, with nearly
36 There were many more Jesuits teaching cases of conscience (sometimes called moral the-
ology) than teaching Scholastic theology. But cases of conscience was not part of the four
years of Scholastic theology. It was a service course intended for local confessors. Cases
lectures sometimes met only two or three days a week and might be held in a church
rather than the Jesuit school.
26 Grendler
two-thirds in the six lower-school classes.37 In the same year, the school at
Messina had sixty-five students in its logic class, fifty in natural philosophy, and
twenty-seven in its metaphysics class, in a school of twelve classes with a total
enrolment of 786.38 The pattern was the same even when enrolments were
astonishingly high. In January 1661, the Jesuit school in Milan had two classes
of logic with a combined enrolment of 213 students, a single class in natural
philosophy with eighty-five students, and a metaphysics class with seventy stu-
dents. The school had a total enrolment of 1,813 students in nineteen classes.39
Enrolments steadily decreased in the three courses of the philosophical cur-
sus in Italy because many lay external students abandoned the Jesuit school
after they studied logic, or logic and natural philosophy. Having studied these
subjects, they believed that they were ready to study law or medicine in uni-
versities, so they left. The Italian Jesuits were well aware that these students
were “escaping” to law and medicine, and wanted to stem the loss.40 The above
enrolment figures suggest that they had little success.
Smaller Jesuit schools in small towns had lower enrolments. In June 1661,
Cuneo (in Piedmont, near the French border) had a single unspecified philoso-
phy class of forty students in a school of three classes with a total enrolment
of 180.41 In July 1660, Novara, in Lombardy, had a single class of philosophy
with only fifteen students in a school of six classes with a total enrolment of
330 students.42 This was an unusually low figure; most philosophy classes had
enrolments of forty to fifty in Italy in the middle of the seventeenth century.
3 Conflicts with Universities
Of the three parts of the Jesuit curriculum, humanities, philosophy, and the-
ology, philosophy by far provoked the greatest number of, and the most bit-
ter, conflicts with European universities. The reason was simple: all European
universities taught logic and natural philosophy based on Aristotle, and many
taught metaphysics. Every student who attended a Jesuit philosophy class was
37 arsi, Sic. 184 I, fol. 53v.

38 Ibid., fol. 45r.
39 arsi, Mediol. 73, fols. 168r–69v. Simona Negruzzo, Collegij a forma di seminario: Il sistema
di formazione teologica nello Stato di Milano in età spagnola (Brescia: Editrice La Scuola,
2001), 129, also has this information.
40 “Ad medicinam vel ad iurisprudentiam dilabuntur”; in Mon. paed. 5:81 (1586), and repeat-
ed at 333 (1591). See also Sander, “Medical Topics,” 97n85.
41 arsi, Med. 73, fol. 182r–v.
42 ARSI, Med. 73, fol. 158r–v; and Negruzzo, Collegij, 367.
one fewer potential university philosophy student. Every Jesuit who obtained
a professorship in philosophy displaced an incumbent, or prevented a non-
Jesuit, usually a layman, from obtaining a professorship. Lay professors losing
students to Jesuits, or replaced by Jesuits, or fearing displacement, protested
to city governments and princes. Civil authorities sometimes supported the
unhappy professors, which sparked battles. There was less conflict in theology,
even though the Jesuits also sought and obtained university theology profes-
sorships. The displaced theologians were members of medieval mendicant or-
ders who had less influence with civil powers and were less inclined to fight
the Jesuits. Jesuit lower-school classes teaching Latin grammar, humanities,
and rhetoric produced very little conflict with universities, because these were
traditionally considered pre-university disciplines, even though universities
offered a limited amount of humanities and rhetoric instruction.
Students sought philosophy instruction from the Jesuits for several reasons,
including the desire to learn Christian philosophy and to avoid the secular Ar-
istotelianism taught in Italian universities and sometimes elsewhere. Many
saw secular Aristotelianism as the road to atheism or even atheism in disguise.
The key issue was whether Aristotelian philosophy without the aid of faith
or revelation was able to demonstrate the existence of God, the immortal-
ity of the individual soul, and the creation of the world. Pietro Pomponazzi
(1462–1525), who taught natural philosophy at the universities of Padua and
Bologna, brought these issues to the attention of European learned opinion
in dramatic fashion with the publication of Tractatus de immortalitate animae
(Treatise on the immortality of the soul) in 1516. He argued that human reason
employing Aristotelian philosophy could only reach one conclusion, that the
human intellective soul was mortal because it could not know without sense
experience, an operation of the body. Hence the soul and the body were indis-
solubly united; when the body died, so did the soul. He then outlined the stark
religious and moral consequences of the soul’s mortality.
After Pomponazzi, there were almost as many positions concerning the
immortality of the human intellective soul and the other propositions usu-
ally labeled Averroist (named for Ibn Rushd or Averroes [1126–98]) as there
were philosophers. In general, most Italian university philosophers and some
in other lands separated philosophy from theology to greater or lesser degree.
They denied that Aristotelian philosophy by itself could demonstrate funda-
mental Christian beliefs. The most prominent was Cesare Cremonini (1550–
1631), a popular and influential philosopher who taught at the University of
Ferrara from 1578 to 1590 and at the University of Padua from 1591 until 1629.
The Jesuits, by contrast, firmly held that Aristotelian philosophy rightly under-
stood could demonstrate philosophically the soul’s immortality, the individual
28 Grendler
uman intellect, the existence of God, and that the world had a creator. There
h
was no contradiction between the truths of philosophy and theology, in their
view.
Some parents and rulers feared that university professors would teach their
sons philosophical atheism. The Jesuits exploited this fear by promising that
they would teach Christian philosophy if given philosophy positions. In 1570,
the rector of the Jesuit college in Turin tried to persuade the duke of Pied-
mont-Savoy to give philosophy instruction at the University of Turin to the
Society. He promised that the Jesuits would teach “Christian philosophy” in
place of “that secular philosophy tending toward atheism.”43 In 1599, the Jesu-
its were negotiating the terms of their participation in the proposed University
of Parma. Antonio Possevino (1533–1611) told Duke Ranuccio I Farnese, ruler
of the duchy of Parma (1569–1622, r.1592–1622), that if someone who was not
first a good theologian taught philosophy, he might introduce “pestilential er-
rors about the mortality of the soul.”44 Possevino alluded to the fact that only
Jesuits who had completed their theological training taught philosophy. Since
they were educated Catholic theologians, they would teach Christian Aristo-
telianism. The duke gave the Society the charge of teaching philosophy in the
new university that opened in 1601. The issue arose outside of Italy as well. In
Germany, Peter Canisius (1521–97) and his half-brother Derick (Theodorich)
Canisius (1532–1606), also a Jesuit, dismissed a Jesuit from the Society because
of his alleged adherence to Averroist views.45
Another point of difference was pedagogy. The Society adopted pedagogi-
cal practices designed to ensure that their philosophy instruction was uniform
and effective. It began with Ignatius of Loyola, who believed that the lack of a
43 “Dopo ch’io son qui quanto ho potuto faticato in questa materia e ne son già a bon ter-
mine, gioverà grandissima per introdur philosophia cristiana, poiché l’istesso duca et
questi signori sogliono dir spesse volte che hanno toccato con mano che questa philoso-
phia secolare tende all’atheismo, del quale non vi manca qui semenza e il duca lo ha in
grande orrore, e dice che in questo si confida che la Compagnia qui abbia dar far frutto
grande.” Letter of Achille Gagliardi (1539–1607) to Superior General Francisco de Borja
(in office 1565–72), September 13, 1570, Turin, in arsi, Ital. 139, fol. 220r (entire letter fols.
219r–20v). It is also quoted in Scaduto 1964–92, 3:332.
44 “Altri potrebbono pretendere letture di filosofia benché fossero secolari, la quale quando
è letta da chi non è prima buon Teologo, serve spessissimo per introdurre pestilenti er-
rori della mortalità dell’anima, o di altro.” Memorandum of Possevino summarizing his
discussion with Duke Ranuccio I, no date but 1599, printed in Gian Paolo Brizzi, “Educare
il principe, formare le élites: I Gesuiti e Ranuccio I Farnese,” in Università, principe, gesuiti:
La politica farnesiana dell’istruzione a Parma e Piacenza (1545–1622) (Rome: Bulzoni, 1980),
133–211, here 188.
45 Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 17–19.
sound pedagogy had hindered his progress at the universities of Barcelona and
Alcalá de Henares. He recommended in the Constitutions that Jesuit students
should take careful notes in class. Polanco and Diego de Ledesma (1519–1575),
for many years prefect of studies at the Roman College, developed the prac-
tice further and made it an important part of Jesuit pedagogy. Students in the
philosophy and theology courses were advised to bring loose sheets of paper
to the lectures in order to take detailed notes. They were expected to fill in the
gaps in their notes during repetitions (recapitulation and review exercises) to
produce notebooks that would be useful for disputations and compositions.46
At the end of the year, a Jesuit student was expected to have a detailed set of
lecture notes that could be used for his own lectures, made available to other
students, or circulated beyond Jesuit ranks.47
The Jesuits used dictation when teaching philosophy because it was an ef-
fective pedagogical tool. Many Jesuits complained that Jesuit teachers used
dictation too much, and some wanted to prohibit it completely. But because
it helped weak students, it was used.48 In 1599, the Ratio studiorum cautiously
permitted dictation in the teaching of philosophy and theology.49
The famous Coimbra commentaries were in part the product of dictations.
They originated as Jesuit teacher dictations to students at the University of
Coimbra, where the Jesuits had a strong presence. With the approval of Supe-
rior General Claudio Acquaviva (1543–1615, in office 1581–1615), a team of Jesu-
its prepared them for publication. Although called commentaries, they were
eight well-organized presentations of Aristotle’s major works, beginning with
the volume on the Physics published in 1592 and concluding with a volume on
Aristotle’s logic in 1606.50 Many more editions followed. They were part of a
wave of Aristotelian philosophical textbooks that both Catholic and Protestant
philosophers wrote in the late sixteenth century.51 The Coimbra commentaries
were widely used across Europe until about 1650 when their popularity waned.
46 Paul Nelles, “Libros de papel, libri bianchi, libri papyracei: Note-Taking Techniques and the
Role of Student Notebooks in the Early Jesuit Colleges,” ahsi 76 (2007): 75–112, esp. 88–95.
47 Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 75; and Nelles, “Libros de papel,” 102–4.
48 For discussion of dictation, see Mon. paed. 4:225, 232, 239–40, 254, 282, 323, 433, 673–74,
679; 6:171–72, 230, 272, 274, 291; 7:236, 301, 337, 369, 587. See also Nelles, “Libros de papel,” 88.
49 Ratio studiorum, 55, 101 (paragraphs 137, 138, 215). Dictation was an essential part of teach-
ing in the lower school and never questioned.
50 See Cristiano Casalini, Aristotele a Coimbra: Il Cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel
Collegium Artium (Rome: Anicia, 2012); and chapter 13 in this volume.
51 For a good introduction to philosophical textbooks, see Charles B. Schmitt, “The Rise
of the Philosophical Textbook,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed.
Charles B. Schmitt et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 792–804.
30 Grendler
In 1611, Acquaviva wrote to the superiors of all provinces to impress on them

the necessity of “solidity and uniformity in knowledge” (soliditas et uniformitas
doctrinae), by which he primarily meant greater allegiance to Thomas Aquinas
(1224/25–74).52 This was followed by an ordinance of 1613, again imposed on
all provincial superiors. Acquaviva reaffirmed that philosophy served theology,
and that Jesuits should follow Aristotle, so long as he did not differ from the
Catholic faith. He warned against adding new philosophical ideas, or introduc-
ing obscure authors and pertinacious opinions into philosophical teaching. He
reminded prefects of studies of their duty to visit classrooms regularly, to ques-
tion students, and to read the students’ notes, all of which the Ratio studiorum
had commanded. Acquaviva did not promulgate new rules; he simply ordered
provincial superiors to enforce the existing ones.53
In this atmosphere, the Jesuit cursus philosophicus began to appear in print.
The books were well organized and very thorough summaries of the year’s
work in logic, natural philosophy, or metaphysics, or all three, that made
extensive use of questions, assertions, objections, and responses. Although they
possessed some of the characteristics of commentaries, they were not word-for-
word explications of the text, but taught at a slight distance from it. The goal was
to organize Aristotle in such a way that teachers would teach more effectively
and students learn more easily. One of the most important and most often
published was the Cursus philosophicus of Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667),
first published in 1632. It claimed to present the cursus philosophicus as it was
actually taught in Jesuit schools.54
Some Italian university professors strongly criticized Jesuit philosophy ped
agogy. They charged that a Jesuit who used a cursus philosophicus text, what
critics called a compendium, or lecture notes from a course that the Jesuit
teacher had previously attended as a student, was not creating original know
ledge. They accused the Jesuits of not teaching directly from the texts of
Aristotle. They believed that students could not become good philosophers
unless they studied his words directly.55 Jesuit teachers lacked originality and
52 Mon. paed. 7:657–59. The quoted phrase opens the letter and is repeated on 658.
53 Ibid., 7:660–64; for philosophy, see section 6 at 662–63. See also Hellyer, Catholic Physics,
33–35; and the Ratio studiorum, 43 (paragraph 115).
54 Carlos Baciero, “Arriaga, Rodrigo de,” dhcj 1:243–44; and Sommervogel 1:578–81.
55 “Leggendo come fanno la logica, et filosofia senza però legger il testo d’Aristotile, ma sola-
mente alcuni moderni Summisti non approvati dalle Università de’ studi generali con
danno delle scolari che non possono riuscir boni filosofi senza studiar Aristotile.” Letter of
the two Venetian governors of Padua to the Venetian Senate of December 5, 1591, summa-
rizing the criticisms of some professors and students of the University of Padua against
the teaching of philosophy of the Jesuit school at Padua; printed in Antonio Favaro,
“Lo Studio di Padova e la Compagnia di Gesù sul finire del secolo decimosesto: Narrazione
failed to create new knowledge. They devoted too much time to quaestiones,
which were traditional key passages in a text on which important meaning
hinged, and over which many scholars had labored. And so on.
The criticisms were accurate to some degree. But Jesuit philosophical edu-
cation was not intended to create new knowledge. Its goal was to teach the
existing understanding of Aristotle very thoroughly and in a way that students
could understand and assimilate. Moreover, the uniformity of Jesuit philo-
sophical instruction enabled students to move from one school to another
with minimal disruption of their education. The disadvantage was that Jesuit
philosophical instruction lacked variety, which was not highly prized at that
time.
The broader argument, that learning an established system of thought, or
following a fixed curriculum, stifles originality, is a criticism that has been di-
rected against traditional teaching in many disciplines, even the analysis of
diatonic musical harmony, over the centuries. The criticism has not proven
to be sustainable. A regulated curriculum stifles some students and teachers
and liberates others. The uniform Jesuit philosophical education did not sup-
press the creativity of Suárez. And good teachers usually find ways to draw
fresh insights from old material. For most teachers and students, Jesuit philo-
sophical instruction was comprehensive, reliable, and imparted a great deal of
knowledge.
Thus, the Jesuits took the traditional philosophical curriculum taught at the
University of Paris and practically everywhere else in Europe and reshaped it
into a well-organized and comprehensive program to teach logic, natural phi-
losophy, and metaphysics based on the foundational texts of Aristotle. The Je-
suits believed that their philosophy cursus prepared future clergymen for the
study of theology and other students for law and medicine. Most important,
they were convinced that it gave all students an excellent understanding of the
content and principles of philosophical learning.
Bibliography
Baldini, Ugo. “S. Rocco e la scuola scientifica della provincia veneta: Il quadro storico
(1600–1773).” In Gesuiti e università in Europa (secoli xvi–xviii): Atti del Convegno
di studi, Parma, 13–15 dicembre 2001, edited by Gian Paolo Brizzi and Roberto Greci,
283–323. Bologna: CLUEB, 2001.
documentata,” Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti 5, tomo 4 (1887–88):
401–535, here 487–88. For more criticisms of Jesuit philosophy teaching, see Grendler,
Jesuits and Italian Universities.
32 Grendler
Brizzi, Gian Carlo. “Educare il Principe, formare le élites: I Gesuiti e Ranuccio I Farnese.”
In Università, principe, gesuiti: La politica, farnesiana dell’istruzione a Parma e Pia-
cenza (1545–1622), 133–211. Rome: Bulzoni, 1980.
Casalini, Cristiano. Aristotele a Coimbra: Il Cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel Col-
legium Artium. Rome: Anicia, 2012.
The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms: A Complete
English Translation of the Official Latin Texts. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources,
1996.
Favaro, Antonio. “Lo Studio di Padova e la Compagnia di Gesù sul finire del secolo deci-
mosesto: Narrazione documentata.” Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed
arti 5, tomo 4 (1887–88): 401–535.
For Matters of Greater Moment: The First Thirty-Eight General Congregations: A Brief
History and a Translation of the Decrees. Edited and translated by John W. Padberg,
SJ, Martin D. O’Keefe, SJ, and John L. McCarthy, SJ. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sourc-
es, 2004.
Grendler, Paul F. The Universities of the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore and London:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Grendler, Paul F. The University of Mantua, the Gonzaga & the Jesuits, 1584–1630. Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
Grendler, Paul F. The Jesuits and Italian Universities 1548–1773. Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2017.
Hellyer, Marcus. Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Germany.
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Hengst, Karl. Jesuiten an Universitäten und Jesuitenuniversitäten: Zur Geschichte der
Universitäten in der Oberdeutschen und Rheinischen Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu im
Zeitalter der konfessionellen Auseinandersetzung. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh,
1981.
Negruzzo, Simona. Collegij a forma di seminario: Il sistema di formazione teologica nello
Stato di Milano in età spagnola. Brescia: Editrice La Scuola, 2001.
Nelles, Paul. “Libros de papel, libri bianchi, libri papyracei: Note-Taking Techniques and
the Role of Student Notebooks in the Early Jesuit Colleges.” AHSI 76 (2007): 75–112.
The Ratio studiorum: The Official Plan for Jesuit Education. Translated by Claude Pavur,
S.J. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004.
Sander, Christoph. “Medical Topics in the De anima Commentary of Coimbra (1598)
and the Jesuits’ Attitude towards Medicine in Education and Natural Philosophy.”
Sangalli, Maurizio. Cultura, politica e religione nella Repubblica di Venezia tra Cinque e
Seicento: Gesuiti e somaschi a Venezia. Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed
arti, 1999.
Schmitt, Charles B. “The Rise of the Philosophical Textbook.” In The Cambridge History
of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard
Kessler, and Jill Kraye, 792–804. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Schurhammer, Georg. Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times, vol. 1, Europe, 1506–1541. Trans-
lated by M. Joseph Costelloe. Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1973.
Villoslada, Ricardo G. Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione
della Compagnia di Gesù (1773). Rome: Apud Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954.
Year by Year with the Early Jesuits (1537–1556): Selections from the Chronicon of Juan de
Polanco, S. J. Translated by John Patrick Donnelly, S. J. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit
Sources, 2004.
Chapter 2
Uniformitas et soliditas doctrinae: History, Topics,

and Impact of Jesuit Censorship in Philosophy
(1550–99)
Christoph Sander
“Idem sapiamus, idem dicamus omnes” (We think the same, we all say the
same). In referring to this maxim borrowed from the Apostle Paul, the Jesuit
Constitutions demanded uniformity of doctrine among the order’s members.1
This ruling extended to all areas of Jesuit culture, but it was especially intended
to allow for the preventive censorship of Jesuit publications. With regard to the
Jesuits’ program of education, the Constitutions require that the doctrine to
be followed in their college and university classes should be “solid” and “safe,”
that is, conform to Catholic doctrine.2 Both requirements—“uniformity” and
“safety”—were of equal importance. For to consider the “safety of doctrine” as
being more important than that of doctrinal “uniformity” would be akin to dis-
regarding cloth because food is more essential, as the Roman theologian Ste-
fano Tucci (1540–97) put it.3 Thus from 1581 onward, these two qualifications of
Jesuit learning mostly appeared as a pair, leading to the notion of “uniformitas
et soliditas doctrinae” (uniformity and solidity of doctrine). It took the Society
of Jesus almost fifty years of discussion before the Jesuits arrived at a codified
understanding of this concept, as set out in their Ratio studiorum in 1599; a
centralized institute for Jesuit censorship was eventually founded in 1601.
This chapter sketches the origins and development of the debate over the
notion of a uniform and solid doctrine and its impact on Jesuit philosophy.
More precisely, it outlines how Jesuits thought about and actually exercised
censorship in philosophy, how much liberty of philosophizing they allowed
for, and what institutional means they established to enforce solidity and uni-
formity in doctrine. The scope of this chapter ranges from the drafting of the
1 I would like to thank Paul Grendler, Ulrich G. Leinsle, and Anselm Oelze for their helpful
comments and corrections.
See n. 12, and Emilio Rasco, “‘Idem sapiamus, idem dicamus omnes’: ¿Una cita de Pablo?,”
ahsi 46 (1977): 184–90.
2 See n. 14.
3 See Mon. paed. 7:37.

History, Topics, & Impact of Jesuit Censorship in Philosophy 35
Constitutions in around 1550 up until the promulgation of the Ratio studiorum

in 1599. However, before doing so, it is important to clarify four relevant issues.
The first of these is that “censorship” is employed in this chapter in the
broad meaning of the term, not only applying it to the preventative or repres-
sive censorship (censura praevia or repressiva) of books but more widely to all
measures used to control the orthodoxy of printing and teaching, for instance
by prescribing certain philosophical tenets and issuing general guidelines for
teachers.4
Second, the focus of the chapter is restricted to cases of censorship within
the Society. That is, it focuses on how Jesuits reflected on or exercised censor-
ship over their fellow Jesuits’ teachings and publications; hence cases of Jesuits
censored by other Catholic organs of censorship, for instance, are excluded
from the following discussion.5
Third, this chapter focuses on the acts of censorship that applied to all the
Jesuit provinces.6 Peculiar provincial practices and rules that often co-existed
with decrees and rules that were given to all provinces will, however, be con-
sidered when doing so would be helpful for understanding centralistic, supra-
provincial guidelines and rules.
Finally, “Jesuit philosophy” here strictly applies to the branch of education
that was referred to as “philosophia” or “cursus artium.”7 Although the primary
focus of this study is on philosophy, the censorship of theology cannot be ex-
cluded entirely because several discussions about and acts of censorship in
philosophy are related to censorship in Scholastic theology.8
The chapter is divided into four parts, together with an appendix. The first
section provides a brief history of all supra-provincial Jesuit documents re-
lating to the censorship of philosophy. These documents are not analyzed in
detail but are listed in order to provide a chronological overview and to dis-
tinguish between various kinds of censorship. The second part of the essay
outlines the most relevant features of Jesuit censorship in a more comparative
way. The chapter then goes on to explore the immediate impact of censorship
4 The expression “censura” is only occasionally used, but with regard to both printing and
teaching, see Mon. paed. 4:664, 706; 5:77, 271, 283; Nadal 1976, 190, 387. In other cases, “censura”
had a different meaning; see n. 11.
5 See n. 136.
6 For dates and names of all Jesuit provinces, cf. Synopsis 1950.
7 For the broader scope of early modern Scholastic philosophy, see Sven K. Knebel, Wille, Wür-
fel, und Wahrscheinlichkeit: Das System der moralischen Notwendigkeit in der Jesuitenscholas-
tik, 1550–1700 (Hamburg: Meiner, 2000), 19.
8 See Ugo Baldini, Legem impone subactis: Studi su filosofia e scienza dei gesuiti in Italia, 1540–
1632 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1992), 81.
36 Sander
on Jesuit philosophy by looking at some specific examples. Finally, in the con-

cluding section, the chapter addresses the question of how Jesuit censorship
can be assessed and why it is worth studying.
1 Historical Sketch of Normative Censorship Documents
In the Society of Jesus, censorship and restrictions regarding the libertas opin-
ionum (freedom of opinion) of their members have to be understood in their
proper historical context. In general, there was no consensus among the Jesu-
its over how uniformity and solidity in doctrine could be achieved, the extent
to which it should reach, and which means of censorship were justified and
helpful. Therefore, the idea and scope of censorship changed several times
during the first five decades of the Society’s history. This history has already
been covered elsewhere and does not need to be recapitulated here.9 Instead,
the following aims to provide a list of all the normative supra-provincial Jesuit
9 Among the best introductions to the topic are the Latin introductions to the volumes of
Mon. paed. 1–7. Comprehensive analyses, with a mostly theological focus, can be found in
Anita Mancia, “La controversia con i protestanti e i programmi degli studi teologici nella
Compagnia di Gesù, 1547–1599,” ahsi 54, no. 107–8 (1985): 3–43 and 210–66; Anita Mancia,
“Il concetto di ‘dottrina’ fra gli esercizi spirituali (1539) e la Ratio studiorum (1599),” ahsi 61
(1992): 3–70; Dennis A. Bartlett, “The Evolution of the Philosophical and Theological Ele-
ments of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum: An Historical Study, 1540–1599” (PhD diss., University
of San Francisco, 1988). For more aspects, see Andreas Inauen, “Stellung der Gesellschaft
Jesu zur Lehre des Aristoteles und des hl. Thomas vor 1583,” Zeitschrift für katholische The-
ologie 40 (1916): 201–37; Charles H. Lohr, “Jesuit Aristotelianism and Sixteenth-Century Meta-
physics,” in Paradosis: Studies in Memory of Edwin A. Quain, ed. Harry George iii Fletcher
and Mary Beatrice Schulte (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 203–20; Antonella
Romano, “Pratiques d’enseignement et orthodoxie intellectuelle en milieu jésuite (deux-
ième moitié du xvie siècle),” in Orthodoxie, christianisme, histoire, ed. Susanna Elm, Éric
Rebillard, and Antonella Romano (Rome: École française de Rome, 2000), 241–60; Alfredo
Dinis, “Censorship and Freedom of Research among the Jesuits (xvith–xviiith Centuries):
The Paradigmatic Case of Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671),” in Jesuítas, ensino e ciência:
Séc. xvi–xviii, ed. Luís Miguel Carolino and Carlos Ziller Camenietzki (Casal de Cambra:
Caleidoscópio, 2005), 27–57; Marcus Hellyer, Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy in
Early Modern Germany (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 16–32; Ulrich
G. Leinsle, Dilinganae disputationes: Der Lehrinhalt der gedruckten Disputationen an der
Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Dillingen 1555–1648 (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner,
2006), 48–59; Rivka Feldhay, Galileo and the Church: Political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue?
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 133–45; Friedrich, Markus. “Theologische
Einheit und soziale Kohärenz. Debatten um die Homogenität von doctrina im Jesuitenorden
um 1600.” In Vera doctrina: Zur Begriffsgeschichte der Lehre von Augustinus bis Descartes, ed.
Philippe Büttgen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009), 297–324. A useful comparative ac-
count that also takes into account other Catholic orders can be found in Jacob Schmutz,
“Les normes théologiques de l’enseignement philosophique dans le catholicisme romain
documents concerning censorship in the sixteenth century in a chronological

order and to relate them to their origins and their content.10 The topics covered
in these documents will be discussed in the second section of the chapter.
The Jesuit Constitutions (1550–58) provide only a brief and rather vague
discussion of censorship and freedom of opinion.11 Yet two passages were of
particular importance. In the third part of the Constitutions (C1a), Ignatius
of Loyola (c.1491–1556) deals with the unity of doctrine by declaring that dis-
sonant doctrines will not be tolerated, and thus books written by Jesuits must
not be printed without the superior general’s approval.12 The fourth part of the
Constitutions (C1b) applies the notion of “safe and solid doctrine” to Jesuit ed-
ucation.13 Loyola prescribed that “in general […], in each branch those books
should be lectured on which are found to be of more solid and safe doctrine.”14
Philosophy was considered to be a discipline that was helpful for preparing
students to study theology.15 However, the Constitutions simply state that Ar-
istotle had to be followed in philosophy teaching, without going into any detail
over how this ought to be done or which books of Aristotle or his commenta-
tors ought to be selected.16
Even though the Constitutions were not very specific regarding the issue of
solidity and uniformity in doctrine, they remained the standard for any form of
censorship throughout the following decades.17 However, the practice of phi-
losophy teaching often varied from college to college.18 Under the generalate
of Francisco de Borja (1510–72, in office 1565–72), the Roman College and its
prefect of studies Diego de Ledesma (1519–75) were given the task of d rafting
moderne (1500–1650),” in Philosophie et théologie: Anthologie, ed. Philippe Capelle-Dumont

(Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 2009), 3:129–50.
10 All references in brackets (e. g. C1) relate to Appendix A. For important collections of
unedited sources, see. Mon. paed. 6:34n16); Baldini, Legem impone subactis, 75–119.
11 In the Constitutions, the Latin term “censura” exclusively refers to ecclesiastical pun-
ishment. For a definition, see Francisco Suárez, Disputationes de censuris in communi,
excommunicatione, suspensione, et interdicto, itemque de irregularitate, Opera omnia 18
(Mainz: Birckmann, 1617), 2b; Siegfried Bräuer and Heiner Lück, “Zensur,” Theologische
Realenzyklopädie (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 36: 633–44. On dates for the drafting of the
Constitutions, see George E. Ganss, Saint Ignatius’s Idea of a Jesuit University (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 1954), 273–80.
12 See Const. 3, 86 (=3.1.18). See n. 137.
13 See Const. 3, 118–19, 150–51.
14 Ganss, Jesuit University, 326 (=4.14.1).
15 See Const. 3, 144–45 (=4.12.1&3). See n. 73.
16 See Const. 3, 151 (=4.14.3). See n. 72.
17 For references to the Constitutions, see Appendix A.C1.
18 For an early synopsis of philosophy teaching in the Society’s colleges, see Paul Gilbert, “La
preparazione della Ratio studiorum e l’insegnamento di filosofia di Benet Perera,” Quaes-
tio 14 (2014): 1–30. See also the contribution of Paul Grendler in this volume.
38 Sander
and issuing the first supra-provincial decree on philosophical censorship and

the first (extant) Ratio studiorum, which was also sent to the Jesuits’ other
colleges.19
In 1565 (C2), Borja issued his Decretum Borgianum, which contained five
general rules and seventeen particular doctrines that were prescribed for
philosophers and theologians.20 As Juan Alfonso de Polanco (1517–76) noted,
these rules had been provided in order to promote conformity of opinion in
the spirit of the third part of the Constitutions.21 The decree was immediately
sent to the other Jesuit colleges and was often referred to or discussed in the
following years.22
The decree, which was addressed to both teachers of philosophy and theol-
ogy, was issued in response to a crisis that had arisen in philosophy teaching
at the Roman College around 1564.23 Ledesma, who had probably ghost-writ-
ten the decree, had sent a survey to the philosophers of his college in order
to draft a plan of studies. He had compiled even longer lists of doctrines than
were contained in Borja’s decree, including one that was mandatory for phi-
losophers at his college.24 The conflict that arose from these efforts concerned
the teaching of Jesuit philosopher Benet Perera (1535–1610), who, among other
things, was charged with promoting a skeptical position on the question of
whether Aristotle’s philosophy was able to demonstrate matters of Christian
faith and who stood accused of attaching too much importance to the Arab
philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd [1126–98]).25 Borja’s decree only responded
to the first charge by prescribing that the position to be defended must always
be considered to be more in agreement with faith.26
The Ratio Borgiana (C3), written between 1565 and 1570, did not prescribe
any mandatory philosophical doctrines and only provided a few general rules.27
19 Ignatius intended the Collegio Romano to be the prototype of all of the Society’s colleges;
cf. Mon. paed. 1:511, 3:23, and Bartlett, “Evolution,” 37.
20 Cf. Mon. paed. 3:382–85, and Appendix C for a translation.
21 See Pol. compl. 1:560, 2:651.
22 See Mon. paed. 3:105, 115, 396n2, 439. See also Appendix A.C2.
23 On this debate, see Christoph Sander, “In dubio pro fide: The Fifth Council of the Lateran
Decree Apostolici regiminis (1513) and Its Impact on Early Jesuit Education and Pedagogy,”
Educazione: Giornale di pedagogia critica 3, no. 1 (2014): 39–62; Sander, “The War of the
Roses: The Debate between Diego de Ledesma and Benet Perera about the Philosophy
Course at the Jesuit College in Rome,” Quaestio 14 (2014): 31–50.
24 See Mon. paed. 2:436–59, 474–79, 487–88.
25 See n. 82.
26 See n. 87.
27 See Mon. paed. 2:254 and Scaduto 1992, 104–8. Cf. also László Lukács, “De prima Societatis
Ratione studiorum sancto Francisco Borgia praeposito generali constituta (1565–1569),”
With regard to philosophy, it restated its ancillary role for the study of theol-
ogy as outlined in the Constitutions and referred to an important comment on
the Constitutions that Jerónimo Nadal (1507–80) had made at an earlier date,
namely that philosophy teachers ought to remember the papal bull Apostolici
regiminis (1513) of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–17).28
In 1573, the general congregation (C4) urged teachers not to read the inter-
preters of Aristotle who contradicted Christian faith, but to refute such inter-
preters and lecture on philosophy in a way that serves theology best, as the
Constitutions required.29 This announcement mainly resulted from the strug-
gles in the Upper German province, as some German Jesuits were accused of
sympathizing with Perera and his alleged Averroism.30 These troubles led to
pleas to resolve the matter with a new official decree.31
The so-called “Regulae Societatis Iesu” (C5) began to be compiled in 1577,
and C4 was inserted into the list of rules, as was the passage on uniformity of
doctrine in the Constitutions.32 When the Rules were augmented in 1582, a
more general rule was also inserted: the invention or introduction of new opin-
ions on the part of Jesuits and teachers, in accordance with the Constitutions,
ought to be prevented and controlled by the supervision of the provincial.33
During the generalate of Claudio Acquaviva (1543–1615, in office 1581–1615),
the quest for censorship finally led to four consecutive versions of a Ratio stu-
diorum (1586A/B, 1591, 1599)—a document that several provinces had urgently
requested.34 When preparing the first Ratio, Acquaviva asked for the opinion
ahsi 27 (1958): 209–32; Mancia, “Controversia,” 1985, 11–13; Mancia, “Dottrina,” 28–32;
Bartlett, “Evolution,” 67; John W. Padberg, “Development of the Ratio Studiorum,” in The
Jesuit Ratio studiorum: 400th Anniversary Perspectives, ed. Vincent J. Duminuco (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 80–100, here 81. Lukács argues that Ledesma is
not the author.
28 See Nadal 1976, 126–27; Mon. paed. 2:255. See n. 75, and Sander, “In dubio pro fide,” 46–8.
29 See Mon. paed. 4:248; Institutum 2:228–29.
30 See Ulrich G. Leinsle, “Der Widerstand gegen Perera und seine Physik in der oberdeutschen
Jesuitenprovinz,” Quaestio 14 (2014): 51–68; Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 17–9, 30–2. For the
German case, see Luce Giard, “Le rôle secondaire de Petrus Canisius dans l’élaboration de
la Ratio studiorum,” in Petrus Canisius S.J. (1521–1597): Humanist und E uropäer, ed. Rainer
Berndt (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000), 77–106.
31 See Mon. paed. 3:40–1; 4:238–39. For a synopsis of the German provincial congregation
of 1568, 1571, and 1573 at Augsburg, see Georg Michael Pachtler, ed., Ratio studiorum et
institutiones scholasticae Societatis Jesu (Berlin: Hofmann, 1887), 2:5–6.
32 See Regulae Societatis Iesu (Rome, 1580), 14, 36. Also see Institutum 3:8, 79; Mon. paed. 4:21;
Baldini, Legem impone subactis, 105n5.
33 See Institutum 3:79.
34 On the development of the Rationes, see Mon. paed. 5:1*-34*; Bartlett, “Evolution,” 111–83;
Padberg, “Development.”
40 Sander
of several leading Jesuits and established a commission to get a grip on one

pressing issue: How far should Jesuit theologians be bound to the doctrine of
Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–74)?35 As a consequence of this inquiry and the dis-
cussion around the so-called Delectus opinionum (i.e., a list of selected doc-
trines from Aquinas), a debate was also triggered over uniformity and solidity
in doctrine, thus involving philosophy teaching as well. In 1582, the new supe-
rior general sent a letter (C6) to all provinces containing six general rules that
integrated several points that had already been made about uniformity and
solidity in doctrine.36 However, its principal aim was to instruct Jesuit provin-
cials to avoid new doctrines in philosophy teaching.
The Ratio of 1586 (C7a) related to this letter (C6) and expanded its rules to
eleven for theologians.37 The twentieth and last rule for the philosophy teach-
ers made clear that these general rules for theologians must be observed as
well.38 Among many other instructions, the Ratio prescribed that theologians
and philosophers should follow Aristotle, unless his doctrines contradicted
the Christian faith; it referred to the Lateran Council; forbade the reading of
Averroes; advised Jesuits to avoid speaking disrespectfully about Aquinas; and
listed fifteen propositions as examples of approved philosophical doctrines to
be taught.39 However, the Ratio of 1586A was not meant to be implemented
by Jesuit teachers; its purpose as a pilot project was that all provinces could
review it according to their experiences, which they did extensively, ultimately
leading to the Ratio 1586B and the Ratio of 1591.40
In the section on philosophy, the Ratio of 1591 (C7b) contained a section
entitled “Censura doctrinae” (censorship of doctrine) with the same instruc-
tions as those in 1586A/B, but it only listed ten exemplary doctrines.41 This Ra-
tio was meant to be implemented for a trial phase of three years and was not
yet considered to be final. In 1593/94, the general congregation (C8) approved
five rules to be included in the final version of the Ratio as instructions for
philosophy teachers.42 All the aforementioned instructions still appear among
35 See Bartlett, “Evolution,” 146–63; Leinsle, Dilinganae disputationes, 54–9; Mancia,

“ Dottrina,” 32–45. See also Mon. paed. 5:7*-9*; Astrain 1913, 18–42.
36 See Mon. paed. 6:25–6.
37 Ibid., 5:19; Leinsle, Dilinganae disputationes, 55n146.
38 See Mon. paed. 5:106.
39 See ibid., bid., 5:95–109.
40 For the philosophy section of the Ratio 1586B, see Mon. paed. 5:107–9, 283–84. For a more
extensive discussion of the review and re-drafting of the Rationes, see Mancia, “Contro-
versia,” 212–62. The respective documents are edited in Mon. paed. 6 and 7.
41 See Mon. paed. 5:283–84; Leinsle, Dilinganae disputationes, 58.
42 See Mon. paed. 7:249; Institutum 2:273–74.
these rules, save for the exemplary propositions, which were dropped entirely.
Thus, the Ratio of 1599 (C9) only gave general guidelines, without prescribing
any philosophical propositions.43
Two points are worth emphasizing here. First, there were two basic forms by
which Jesuit officials sought to control philosophical learning: lists of proposi-
tions to be taught and general guidelines providing abstract criteria for the
“pious doctrine” or instructions concerning the style of teaching.44 Control
over printing with specific regard to philosophy, however, did not feature prom-
inently in these sixteenth-century documents. Second, all of the official docu-
ments discussed above resulted from the demands of certain Jesuit provinces
and individuals, and their issuance mostly followed the previous consultation
of one (or more) renowned Jesuit scholar(s). Hence, none of the measures
were simply imposed top-down; instead, they emerged via a bottom-up pro-
cess of communication through letters, surveys, or provincial congregations.45
2 Important Features of Jesuit Censorship
Jesuit censorship extended to at least three domains of learning: the Jesuits’

doctrinal system, their pedagogical approach, and their control over the teach-
ing staff. Censorship was based on certain principles that informed the notion
of a “pious philosophy” and was supervised through a hierarchical system of
control.
The three principles of Jesuit censorship were unitas, soliditas, and a cer-
tain attitude toward the libertas opinionum. The first two principles are close-
ly related to each other, and with the beginning of Acquaviva’s generalate in
1581 they merged in the formulation of a uniform and solid doctrine.46 The
libertas opinionum, however, had wide political, philosophical, and religious
implications.47
43 See Mon. paed. 5:397–401.

44 Hellyer adds the never achieved goal of a unified philosophy course book; see Catholic
Physics, 24.
45 See ibid., bid., 19.
46 Mon. paed. 7:288.
47 See, e.g., Philipp Schmitz, “Probabilismus: Das jesuitischste der Moralsysteme,” in Igna-
tianisch: Eigenart und Methode der Gesellschaft Jesu, ed. Michael Sievernich and Günter
Switek (Freiburg: Herder, 1990), 355–68; Harro Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society
of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 77, 131;
Sander, “In dubio pro fide,” 56.
42 Sander
The concept of unity was referred to in the third part of the Constitutions.48
Loyola explicitly limited his request for unity by saying that it should only be
prescribed as much as feasible (quoad eius fieri possit/quantum fieri potest).
This pragmatic formula later gave rise to various interpretations.49 Moreover,
as the documents gathered by Loyola’s assistant Polanco testify, this passage on
unity had a forerunner in the statutes of the Augustinian order.50 Thus other
Catholic orders also sought to follow a uniform doctrine.51
Unitas and its synonyms (unio, uniformitas, and consensio or conformitas)
stood against doctrinae differentes, and diversitas or varietas, which were seen
as a threat to unanimity (concordia) and posed a danger of “sects” emerg-
ing within the Society.52 The Constitutions justify the aim for unity on moral
grounds, for instance by saying that Jesuits are more able to serve God if they
are bound together in fraternal love (iuncti invicem fraternae charitatis vinculo).
It was clear that this unity could not be achieved immediately but would in-
stead be realized over time, in much the same way as the church established
the articles of faith over the course of many centuries, with many councils.53
It was important that the Society avoided a doctrine in which contradictory
positions co-existed.54
The relevance of “unity of doctrine” for education becomes clear when the
Constitutions request that “in everything which the rector ordains, he should
proceed in conformity with what is deemed throughout the whole Society.”55
Pedagogical rules, lists of propositions, and the demand for a course book in
philosophy were considered means to this end, as will be discussed below.
48 See n. 12.
49 See Nadal 1976, 72–3. See also Mon. paed. 2:477, 6:14; Matthias Reichmann, “Ordenszensur
und persönliche Verantwortlichkeit in der Gesellschaft Jesu,” Stimmen aus Maria-Laach
87 (1914): 151–60, here 159; Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 25; Dinis, “Censorship,” 39.
50 See Const. 1, 276. A sermon of 1551 on the Council of Trent delivered by an Augustinian
monk (F.L. Aretinus), who quotes the “Idem sapiamus” phrase in a very similar way to
the Society’s Constitutions. See Josse Le Plat, ed., Monumentorum ad historiam concilii
Tridentini (Leuven: Typographia Academica, 1781), 1:214.
51 See n. 133. On the early modern Franciscans, see Marco Forlivesi, “The Ratio studiorum of
the Conventual Franciscans in the Baroque Age and the Cultural–Political Background to
the Scotist Philosophy Cursus of Bartolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto,” Noctua 2
(2015): 253–384. For a comparative account, see Schmutz, “Les normes.”
52 For various references to the concept of unity, see Appendix B.1.1. For the concept of “con-
cordia,” see Mon. paed. 5:22, 6:285; for “sects,” see ibid., 5:5, 22, 7:35; C5, C8, C9. Hellyer
distinguishes “doctrinal, pedagogical, and existential” reasons for the Society’s search for
unity, see Catholic Physics, 19. See also n. 148.
53 Mon. paed. 6:80; 7:34.
54 Ibid., 7:33.
55 Ganss, Jesuit University, 327 (=4.14.3).
The notion of “solid doctrine” appears in several places in the Constitutions,

but it does not refer exclusively to “doctrine” in the educational or academic
sense of the word, such as a “philosophical doctrine,” for instance.56 The no-
tion of a solid doctrine in the Constitutions also referred to political attitudes,
dogmatic beliefs, or social habits, on behalf of which Jesuits were judged, such
as before their admission as members of the Society, for example.57 “Soliditas”
was often substituted or accompanied by labels such as secura, (magis) appro-
bata, or fundata (secure, more approved, or profound). An initial attempt to
establish a formal principle that could be used to identify the doctrina solidior
(more solid doctrine) was given by Nadal: the via securior (more secure way)
consists in the most common doctrine among the doctors, because whenever
it is common it is safer (ubi communis est opinio, ibi securius).58 In 1589, Tucci
added several periphrases: doctrina tutior, solidior, magis approbata, commu-
niter recepta, melior, convenientior.59 The notion of “sententia/doctrina com-
munis” became a frequent qualification, yet it was never defined in precise
terms.60
Formulas such as “novel, dangerous, and less certain opinions” (novae, pe-
riculosae et minus certae opiniones) mark the counterpart of “solid doctrine.”61
In this vocabulary, “novelty” was particularly directed against “common
doctrine.”62 Even if an opinion was not novel, it could still contradict the com-
mon doctors of the church or simply be controversial among Catholics.63 All
three kinds of opinions were to be avoided, Tucci recommended. At the same
time, Jesuits were aware that the “safety of doctrine” was a continuum consist-
ing of various degrees.64
With regard to education, the Constitutions required that “those books
should be lectured on which are found to be of more solid and safe doctrine.”65
The affinity to a doctrina communis made it an obvious choice to follow
56 For a comprehensive account of the notion of “doctrina” according to the Constitutions,

see Mancia, “Dottrina,” 8–16; Friedrich, “Theologische Einheit.”
57 For the case of admission, see e.g. Const 3, 8 (= 1.2.1), 13 (= 1.3.11); Institutum 2:277.
58 See Nadal 1976, 387–88; Mon. paed. 3;78.
59 Mon. paed. 7:37. See also Appendix B.1.2.
60 Mon. paed. 4:746. See also Appendix B.1.2.1.
61 Mon. paed. 2:477; 4:281; C5. On “novitas,” see Appendix B.1.2.2; Romano, “Pratiques.” The
notions of “mala doctrina” or “heresy” do not appear prominently in the Society’s censor-
ship documents on which this chapter is based.
62 Cf. Leinsle, Dilinganae disputationes, 53n132.
63 Mon. paed. 7:34.
64 Ibid., 7:36; Schmitz, “Probabilismus.”
65 See n. 14.
44 Sander
Aquinas, the doctor communis, in theology.66 In philosophy, it was Ledesma’s

efforts, once again, that prefigured the Jesuits’ notion of a “pious philosophy,”
as will be discussed below.
The Jesuits’ discussion over the libertas opinionum, which here means the
liberty to defend any opinion in lectures or publications, was not about wheth-
er or not this liberty should be granted, but the extent to which it should be
granted.67 Thus, this discussion directly concerned the extent to which a uni-
form and solid doctrine could or should be enforced, which directly affected
the teachers’ pedagogical approach: Were they allowed to defend their own
position when it was novel or not commonly accepted? Some Jesuits, like
Ledesma, argued for very narrow limits, whereas others, such as Paul Hoffaeus
(1530–1608), argued for more freedom.68 Both the proponents of a higher de-
gree of liberty and their opponents employed practical and more ideological
reasons in their arguments. Ledesma, for instance, argued that without the
prescription of certain doctrines to be taught, problems would arise in class,
as pupils may misunderstand certain things and be drawn to the edge of het-
erodoxy.69 Moreover, the free choice of opinion paralleled religious freedom,
which no Catholic supported.70 Hoffaeus, on the other hand, remarked that if
the teachers’ freedom was restricted too sharply, they would lose their will to
teach entirely.71
Jesuit censorship in philosophy aimed to ensure that philosophy was not
only in agreement with Christian doctrine but served as preparation for the
study of theology. In order to apply the principle of uniformity and solidity in
doctrine in this context, the Jesuits pursued three strategies: prescribing single
philosophical doctrines, providing more general guidelines for teaching rules,
and drafting a standard course book for philosophy.
The Constitutions and the first statutes of the Jesuit colleges declared that
philosophy consists in reading the works of Aristotle.72 Aristotle’s philosophy
was thus seen as the most common philosophy, and it was viewed as e specially
66 Cf. Bartlett, “Evolution,” 33. On Aquinas’s “communitas,” see Elizabeth Lowe, The Contest-
ed Theological Authority of Thomas Aquinas: The Controversies between Hervaeus Natalis
and Durandus of St. Pourçain (New York: Routledge, 2003), 132.
67 For some references to statements on the libertas, see Appendix B.1.3.
68 Mon. paed. 4:196–204, 744–46.
69 Sander, “In dubio pro fide,” 53–5. On Ledesma’s pedagogical efforts, see John M. Belmonte,
“To Give Ornament, Splendor and Perfection: Diego de Ledesma and Sixteenth-Century
Jesuit Educational Administration” (PhD diss., Loyola University Chicago, 2006).
70 Mon. paed. 4:199; Sander, “In dubio pro fide,” 52.
71 Mon. paed. 4:745; Leinsle, Dilinganae Disputationes, 53.
72 See n. 16, and 18. See also Appendix B. 2.3.
useful as preparation for studying Scholastic theology.73 Yet, in the Renais-

sance, there were various forms of Aristotelianism, and the Jesuits had to find
their own pious reading of the Corpus Aristotelicum.74 Their Aristotelianism
was influenced most importantly by the papal bull Apostolici regiminis of
1513, which required that philosophers should always defend the position of
Christian faith in matters philosophical.75 The piety-rule for Jesuit philoso-
phers read: philosophers must not deviate (recedere) from Aristotle save for
cases where his doctrine contradicted Christian faith.76 However, this rule
did not go unquestioned. Perera and Alfonso Salmerón (1515–85), for exam-
ple, voted against an overly rigid commitment to Aristotle, because the truth,
they argued, was not bound to one particular authority.77 Moreover, in Perera’s
opinion, Aristotle failed to demonstrate the position of Christian faith in many
cases.78 On the other hand, for pedagogical reasons, Ledesma sought to estab-
lish a tight connection between the pious doctrine and Aristotle’s position. In
his view, identifying the conformity of Aristotle with the Christian faith wher-
ever this was possible would render philosophy teaching more efficient and
safe.79 Mutatis mutandis, the same debate also concerned Aristotle’s commen-
tators.80 The Constitutions only demanded the selection of commentaries (on
Aristotle), yet no specific authors were recommended or excluded.81 However,
as it turned out, the role of Averroes, who was highly popular, especially in
sixteenth-century Italy, was a matter of dispute, as some of his doctrines were
considered heterodox, and thus his entire authority was discredited for Jesuits
like Ledesma.82 It became an often repeated rule that Averroes must not be
praised in philosophy, and in some cases it was forbidden to read his works
73 See Appendix B.2.1.1.

74 See Lohr, “Jesuit Aristotelianism”; Craig Martin, Subverting Aristotle: Religion, History, and
Philosophy in Early Modern Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014);
Christoph Sander and Cristiano Casalini, “Benet Perera’s Pious Humanism: Aristote-
lianism, Philology, and Education in Jesuit Colleges; An Edition of Perera’s Documenta
quaedam perutilia.” History of Universities 30, no. 1 (2017): 1–42.
75 See Appendix B.2.1.2. See also Sander, “In dubio pro fide.”
76 See C7a/b, C8, C9; Mon. paed. 6:6, 262, 269, 78, 283. The phrase was extended in 1591 as fol-
lows: “[Non recedere ab Aristotele] nisi quid incidat a doctrina, quam academiae ubique
probant, alienum.”
77 Cf. Sander, “Debate,” 45–6.
78 Cf. Cristiano Casalini, “Pererio ‘cattivo maestro’: Su un cold case nella storia della peda-
gogia gesuitica,” Noctua 2 (2014): 59–110; Sander, “Debate”; Sander and Casalini, “Pious
Humanism.”
79 Cf. Sander, “Debate,” 41.
81 See Const. 3, 151 (= 4.14.3).
82 Cf. Sander, “Debate,” 36–8.
46 Sander
at all.83 On the other hand, Aquinas, as the main authority of Jesuit Scholastic
theology, was not to be (severely) criticized by philosophers.84
The rules mentioned above are mirrored in several censorship documents.
When Ledesma drafted his lists of propositions, he prescribed that most philo-
sophical doctrines ought to be taught as “according to Aristotle and true phi-
losophy” in order to leave almost no leeway for different interpretations.85
Moreover, he also provided general rules on the “modus docendi” (method of
teaching), which related to the esteem of Aristotle’s commentators as well.86
Ledesma’s overarching rule, according to which Jesuits should always favor the
position that is more in agreement with Christian doctrine, is clearly present in
the first rule of the Decretum Borgianum.87 This principle echoes the require-
ment of “solid doctrine.” The decree’s stipulation of certain axioms and “sen-
tentia communes” for philosophers echoes the general requirement to adhere
to a “common doctrine.”88
While these general rulings had a strong position in many censorship docu-
ments, the prescription of single propositions was a much more delicate issue.
Such lists were issued several times and related to various fields of Aristote-
lian philosophy, such as logic, ontology, metaphysics, psychology, physics, and
cosmology.89 The seventeen tenets of the Decretum Borgianum were in fact
a condensation of Ledesma’s two much longer lists.90 When Ledesma com-
mented on the decree several years later, he proposed omitting a few more.91
The seventeenth proposition, for example, was not even copied into all of the
manuscripts of the Decretum Borgianum that were sent to the various prov-
inces.92 The rule stated that heaven is composed of matter and form. Ledesma
83 See appendix B.2.3.2.1. Even the private reading of Averroes is permitted in C7a. Greek
commentators were suspected, too. See Sander and Casalini, “Pious Humanism.”
84 This rule first appears in Ledesma’s documents, see ibid. It was first added in the Ratio
1586B (C7a). It was allowed to deviate from Thomas in philosophical matters. See Mon.
paed. 5:13; 6:76, 269, 276.
85 Mon. paed. 2:496–502; ibid., 1901, 568–69.
86 Ibid., 2:487–88.
87 See Appendix C.
90 Mon. paed. 2:487–88.
91 Ibid., 1901, 548–69.
92 Ibid., 3:385 (apparatus). This proposition was added at a later stage to MS arsi FG 656 A
i, 3r. This proposition is unknown to scholarship on Jesuit cosmology; see Robert Bellarm-
ine, The Louvain Lectures (Lectiones Lovanienses) of Bellarmine and the Autograph Copy
of His 1616 Declaration to Galileo: Texts in the Original Latin, ed. Ugo Baldini and George V.
Coyne (Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1984); Michael Weichenhain, “Ergo perit coelum”:
Die Supernova des Jahres 1572 und die Überwindung der aristotelischen Kosmologie (Stutt-
gart: Steiner, 2004).
commented on it, stating that it could be left out as it does not concern faith,
though he would prefer to keep it since the opposing position of Averroes
would pave the way for the doctrine of the eternity of the world (parat viam
ad aeternitatem mundi).93 When, in 1582, a committee revised the Decretum
Borgianum, they decided to omit this proposition as well, among many others,
but in 1586 the Jesuits of Upper Germany noticed that “proposition seventeen”
was missing.94 Later on, the Jesuits observed that some propositions were pre-
scribed at one time but later the contrary was prescribed, or that some proposi-
tions were considered more probable in some places and improbable in other
places.95 Two propositions of 1586 were considered to contradict Aquinas.96 In
general, such catalogs of propositions were declared useless or ineffective by
some Jesuits, yet they were requested and appreciated by others.97 However,
the fact that the Ratio of 1599 offered none seems to suggest the view that the
prohibitions were not considered necessary or effective.
Another project eventually failed, namely the creation of a standard course
book for philosophy teachers.98 The first explicit and elaborate attempt to es-
tablish uniformity in philosophy teaching was undertaken by Ledesma in 1564,
who called both for unity among the teachers and among the colleges or prov-
inces of the Society.99 A course book was considered effective in both regards
and could perhaps have led to the desired “unitas in aristotelica doctrina.”100
As a first effort in this direction, in 1561–62 Roman philosophy teachers se-
lected the questions that ought to be discussed in connection with Aristotle’s
works.101 Later, additional advice was given to avoid certain topics in Aristotle’s
works or in those of his commentators.102 These selections of material pursued
two different goals, and both of them were considered to raise the efficiency
of teaching. On the one hand, those quasi-philosophical topics that were not
necessary for theologians were to be omitted.103 On the other, in certain cases
93 Mon. paed. 1901, 567–68.

94 Ibid., 6:3–6, 283.
95 Ibid., 6:105.
96 Ibid., 6:266.
97 See Appendix B.2.2.2.1.
98 See Appendix B.2.4. Also see Astrain 1913, 57–8; Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 25–9; Paul Rich-
ard Blum, Philosophenphilosophie und Schulphilosophie: Typen des Philosophierens in der
Neuzeit (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998), 158–81.
99 Mon. paed. 2:474.
100 Ibid., 6:269.
101 Ibid., 2:436–59.
103 One example are medical topics; see Christoph Sander, “Medical Topics in the De anima
Commentary of Coimbra (1598) and the Jesuits’ Attitude towards Medicine in Education
and Natural Philosophy,” Early Science and Medicine 19, no. 1 (2014): 76–101.
48 Sander
more theological topics were to be left to the Scholastic theologian and thus
postponed in the curriculum.104 In fact, printed philosophical works, such as
those by Francisco de Toledo (1515–82) or Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99), were
used in class in some colleges.105 The Jesuits of Coimbra, commissioned by the
Jesuit administration, wrote a multi-volume commentary on some of Aristo-
tle’s works, which was occasionally used in classes too.106 However, none of
these attempts led to the commitment to one standard cursus for all Jesuits.
The main reason for this was probably that they could not agree on one work
to be selected or one author to be commissioned to write a textbook.107
A further aspect of Jesuit censorship concerns the Jesuits’ system of ap-
pointing teachers. In order to ensure the best philosophical preparation for
theology, all philosophy teachers had to be approved theologians.108 Moreover,
the educational background of a philosophy teacher could be checked.109 For
example, some of Perera’s pupils had immediately come under suspicion be-
cause of their teacher’s reputation.110 Teachers who violated certain rulings
could even be removed from office.111
A final aspect concerns the hierarchical structure of competence within the
Society.112 Several of the prohibitions for teachers outlined above were in fact
further qualified by the constraint “inconsulto superiore” (without consulting
the superior).113 This meant that new opinions could indeed be introduced, yet
not without the permission of the superior (the rector, the prefect of studies,
the provincial or the general superior, depending on the document), who was
104 See, e.g., Mon. paed. 5:105. See also Appendix B.2.1.3. The converse case also occurred; see
Christoph Sander, “For Christ’s Sake: Pious Notions of the Human and Animal Body in
Early Jesuit Philosophy and Theology,” In Human and Animal Cognition in Early Modern
Philosophy and Medicine, ed. Roberto Lo Presti and Stefanie Buchenau (Pittsburgh: Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), 55–73, here 67.
105 See appendix B.2.4.2.
106 On the Coimbra Jesuits and Manuel de Góis, see Josué Pinharanda Gomes, Os Conim-
bricenses (Lisbon: Instituto de Cultura e Língua Portuguesa, 1992). See also Mon. paed.
3:317–20; 4:307–8; 6:41, 272.
107 Some Jesuits also pointed to the immense efforts to be taken to write such a cursus or
pointed out that this kind of restriction is harmful for teachers and the Society in general.
See n. 98.
108 See Appendix B.4.2.
109 On Gagliardi’s case, see Sander, “Debate,” 37.
110 Cf. Leinsle, “Der Widerstand.”
111 This rule appears in C8.
112 Cf. Adrien Demoustier, “La distinction des fonctions et l’exercice du pouvoir selon les
règles de la Compagnie de Jésus,” in Les jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif et pro-
duction du savoir, ed. Luce Giard (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995), 3–33.
113 See Appendix B.4.1.
in turn required to supervise the teaching in Jesuit colleges.114 Thus, the liber-
tas opinionum only reached as far as a superior wanted it to reach; hence, the
flexibility of the doctrinal system depended very much on the attitude of the
individual superior. At the same time, the teacher’s obedience to his superior
was a key feature of this system and was prefigured in Loyola’s famous commit-
ment to the Roman Church.115
3 The Impact of Censorship on Jesuit Philosophy
“The Delectus opinionum,” as Tucci emphasized in 1589, “is a certain medicine

by which not some abstract Platonic idea is cured but [concrete] persons,” that
is, members of the Society.116 This holds true for the entire project of Jesuit cen-
sorship, which affected the individual works of Jesuit philosophers by means
of their lectures and publications.117
In the 1550 version of the Constitutions, censorship applied only to printed
books; however, in the 1556 version, sermons and public lectures were also
added.118 Nadal wanted this passage to apply to all Jesuit writings, regardless
of whether they were published, but this measure was not approved by the
congregation of 1573,119 although lectures and disputations were to be checked
(censura opinionum or thesium).120 As well as the orthodoxy of a work’s con-
tent, its style could also be subject to censorship.121 In Germany, in particular,
academic theses or disputations were often printed and therefore received
114 Mon. paed. 5:77–8, 244, 251, 374.

115 Ibid., 2:128; Bartlett, “Evolution,” 59–63; Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 184; Hellyer, Catho-
lic Physics, 19; Silvia Mostaccio, Early Modern Jesuits between Obedience and Conscience
during the Generalate of Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615) (Burlington: Ashgate, 2014).
116 Mon. paed. 7:36: “Iste delectus opinionum est quoddam remedium, quo medicamur non
abstractae cuidam ideae Platonis, sed personis, qualis Societas habere solet.”
117 See Appendix B.2.5.1/2.
118 See Const. 2, 356–57; Baldini, Legem impone subactis, 79.
119 See Nadal 1976, 188–89; Institutum 2:265; Lucio Biasiori, “Il controllo interno della produ
zione libraria nella Compagnia di Gesù e la formazione del Collegio dei Revisori generali
(1550–1650),” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 5
(2010): 223–49, here 234.
120 Cf. Baldini, Legem impone subactis, 83.
121 See Jacobus Pontanus, Akademische Reden an der Universität Dillingen 1572–1582, ed. Ul-
rich G. Leinsle (Münster: Monsenstein/Vannerdat, 2014), xivn40. This was also explicitly
demanded in 1606; see Karl Theodor von Heigel, “Zur Geschichte des Censurwesens in der
Gesellschaft Jesu,” Archiv für Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels 6 (1881): 162–67, here
163.
50 Sander
careful examination.122 The censorship or control of oral teachings was prac-

ticed, but it was not officially advised in normative documents.123
Although there is only limited evidence, it is clear from some particular cas-
es that the lectures of sixteenth-century Jesuit philosophers were checked and
criticized by their superiors.124 The first instance of such measures appeared
when Ledesma and one of his fellow Jesuits, Achille Gagliardi (1537–1607),
drafted notes on Perera’s lectures in order to expose his dangerous approach
in philosophical matters.125 Ledesma collected several of Perera’s doctrines by
means of his students’ notes, but he also referred to the replies Perera had per-
sonally given him in class.126 One of Perera’s pupils, Antonius Balduin (1543–
85), was suspected by the rector of the Jesuit college in Dillingen and required
to deliver copies of his lectures one year in advance, so that they could be
checked pre-emptively.127 Joannes Vicus (Wyk [1545–88]) was even dismissed
from the Society due to his Averroism in philosophy and his repeated disobe-
dience.128 In other cases, superiors acted less drastically.129 Nadal, for example,
allowed some Portuguese professors of theology to study probable opinions
privately while instructing them to follow the most approved and common
doctrine in their public lectures.130 Perera even received a promotion to the
chair of Scholastic theology so that the quarrels around his philosophy teach-
ing could be brought to an end once and for all.131
Control over printing was a common practice in the sixteenth-century, one
that was explicitly demanded by the Lateran Council in 1515 and refined at
122 Mon. paed. 4:703–11; Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 35–8; Leinsle, Dilinganae disputationes,
42–3.
123 Baldini, Legem impone subactis, 83.
124 The Rationes studiorum demand that the superiors do so; see n. 114. For all references, see
the following notes.
125 Gagliardi’s record is lost; see Mon. paed. 2:479, 502–3; Sander, “Debate,” 38.
126 On the students’ notes, see Paul Grendler’s contribution in this volume.
127 Mon. paed. 2:494–95; Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 30–2.
128 See pcae 6:136–37; Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 18.
129 Other Jesuit trouble-makers were Alfonso de Pisa (1528–98), Francisco de Toledo (1532–
96), Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), Gregory of Valencia (1550–1603), among many more;
see Mon. paed. 4:641–42, 646–48, 809–11; 5:8*–9*; pcea 6:60, 136, 142; Ricardo García Vil-
loslada, Storia del Collegio romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione della Compagnia
di Gesù (1773) (Rome: Apud aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954), 75–6, 77–80; Bartlett,
“Evolution,” 99; Mancia, “Dottrina,” 27; Hellyer, Catholic Physics, 18; Leinsle, Dilinganae
disputationes, 53.
130 Mon. paed. 4:9*.
131 This reason for his promotion is assumed by Villoslada, Storia, 52.
the Council of Trent in 1564.132 Therefore, it goes without saying that all Jesuit
publications needed the imprimatur of one or more Catholic organs of cen-
sorship.133 The Jesuit Constitutions, as mentioned above, clearly require the
superior’s approval as well.134 The Jesuits also expurgated books of other au-
thors for their own use.135 Some Jesuits, such as Antonio Possevino (1533–1611)
and Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), were employed at the Holy Office to censor
books.136 Yet, a centralized Jesuit institute for internal censorship was not an-
nounced until as late as 1597 and was only founded in 1601.137 Before that time,
only local censorship was conducted.138
The traces of this censorial work mostly appear on the title pages of vari-
ous sixteenth-century Jesuit publications in philosophy (cum privilegio et fac-
ultate superiorum). For example, the first volume of the Cursus Conimbricensis
(Coimbra, 1592) on Aristotle’s Physica was approved by Fonseca, while the vol-
ume on De anima (Coimbra, 1598) was approved by João Correia (1543–1616),
132 Cf. Saverio Ricci, Inquisitori, censori, filosofi sullo scenario della Controriforma (Rome:
Salerno, 2008); Sabina Brevaglieri, “Editoria e cultura a Roma nei primi tre decenni del
Seicento: Lo spazio della scienza,” in Rome et la science moderne: Entre Renaissance et
Lumières, ed. Antonella Romano (Rome: École française de Rome, 2008), 257–310; Ugo
Baldini and Leen Spruit, eds., Catholic Church and Modern Science: Documents from the Ar-
chives of the Roman Congregations of the Holy Office and the Index; Vol. 1; Sixteenth-Century
Documents (Rome: Libreria Ed. Vaticana, 2009), 54; Nelson H. Minnich, “The Fifth Lateran
Council and Preventive Censorship of Printed Books,” Annali della Scuola Normale Supe-
riore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 5 (2010): 67–104, here 103.
133 Minnich, “Lateran Council,” 68n7; Biasiori, “Controllo,” 224.
134 See n. 12.
135 Cf. Pierre-Antoine Fabre, “Dépouilles d’Egypte: L’expurgation des auteurs latins dans les
collèges jésuites,” in Giard, Les jésuites à la Renaissance, 3–33; Karl Schmuki, “Spuren je-
suitischer Zensurmassnahmen im Kloster St. Gallen im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” Schriften
des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung 117 (1999): 179–206; Ulrich
G. Leinsle, “Wie treibt man Cardano mit Scaliger aus? Die (Nicht-)Rezeption Cardanos
an der Jesuitenuniversität Dillingen,” in Spätrenaissance-Philosophie in Deutschland 1570–
1650: Entwürfe zwischen Humanismus und Konfessionalisierung, okkulten Traditionen und
Schulmetaphysik, ed. Martin Mulsow (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2009), 258–60.
136 Cf. Peter Godman, The Saint as Censor: Robert Bellarmine between Inquisition and Index
(Leiden: Brill, 2000); Baldini and Spruit, Catholic Church, 270–73. On Possevino as censor,
see Mon paed. 7:597n8. For the Jesuits as subject of Catholic censorship, see José Luis
González Novalín, “La Inquisición y la Compañía de Jesús,” Anthologica annua 37 and 41
(1990 and 1993): 11–56 and 77–102; Guido Mongini, “Ad Christi similitudinem”: Ignazio di
Loyola e i primi gesuiti tra eresia e ortodossia; Studi sulle origini della Compagnia di Gesù
(Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2011).
137 Cf. Baldini, Legem impone subactis, 84–5; Biasiori, “Controllo,” 230, 236.
138 A document advising provincial censorship after 1600 is edited in Heigel, “Geschichte.” On
various references to censorship, see Appendix B.3.1.
52 Sander
among others.139 Fonseca’s own Isagoge philosophica (Lisbon, 1591) received

approval from Correa as well. In Francisco Suárez’s (1548–1617) Disputationes
metaphysicae (Salamanca, 1597), Cristóbal de Ribera (d.1607) appears as ap-
prover.140 All these examples suggest that it was the duty of the provincial gen-
eral to approve publications.141 Yet, these title pages do not provide the histori-
an with any information about the actual practice of censorship or the censors’
influence on the content of the work.
A clue of the censor’s influence can, however, be derived from the Roman
Jesuits.142 In 1573, Toledo’s commentary on the Physica was printed for the first
time, followed by his commentary on De anima in 1575. Both volumes were
censored by Ledesma and both show some traces of his influence. Toledo’s
Physica opened with an extensive anonymous preface that referred to almost
all of Ledesma’s rules for philosophers, particularly his fight against Averroes
and other impious commentators.143 The way in which Aristotle has to be
studied according to this preface leaves no doubt about Ledesma’s alleged co-
authorship. In Toledo’s De anima, the actual commentary is preceded by a list
of propositions regarding the pious account of philosophical psychology.144
Both the preface and the syllabus refer to the normative status of the papal
bull of 1513 for philosophy teachers.
In 1565, Perera’s Institutio logica was about to be printed in Dillingen, but
Borja required it to be checked beforehand.145 It was never printed. Later, in
1576, one year after Ledesma’s death, a debate over the printing of Perera’s
handbook on physics (De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis)
139 On the publications of the Cursus Conimbricensis, see Gomes, Os Conimbricenses, 56–8.
Fonseca served as provincial (Lusit.) from 1572 to 1582, and proposed the project of the
Cursus; see Mon paed. 3:317–20. Correa was rector of the Coimbra College in 1596 and
served as provincial from 1588 to 1592 and from 1600 to 1604. See Synopsis 1950, ad loc.;
Mon paed. 7:188n1.
140 Ribera served as provincial (Castell.) from 1597 to 1599.
141 Whether the provincials were the actual censors is open to question.
142 A different example would be Antonio Possevino’s Bibliotheca selecta, which outlines the
“pious study of Aristotle” to some extent and also presents a medieval syllabus of cen-
sored (mostly Averroistic) doctrines. See Antonio Possevino, Bibliotheca selecta (Rome:
Typographia Apostolica Vaticana, 1593), 2:59–136; Gregorio Piaia, “Aristotelismo, ‘heresia’,
e giurisdizionalismo nella polemica di Antonio Possevino contro lo Studio di Padova,”
Quaderni per la storia dell’Università di Padova 6 (1973): 125–45.
143 Francisco de Toledo, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in octo libros Aristotelis de
physica auscultatione (Venice: Giunta, 1573); Sander and Casalini, “Pious Humanism,”
14–6.
144 Francisco de Toledo, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros Aristotelis de ani-
ma (Venice: Giunta, 1575), 6v–8r; Sander, “In dubio pro fide,” 57.
145 See pcea 5:165.
arose.146 Superior General Everard Mercurian (1514–80, in office 1573–80) was

consulted, and a board of censors, among them also Fonseca and formerly
Ledesma, pointed to the danger of Perera’s Averroism. However, the general
replied that laws that were too narrow should not be imposed on the human
mind in philosophical matters of probability and that Perera’s book could be
printed after adding a “pious preface” (pia praefatio). Perera met this require-
ment and wrote a strategically cautious preface to silence his critics and even
received the imprimatur of the pope.147
The case of Toledo shows that even the prefect of studies could exert sig-
nificant influence on the composition of a philosophical work. Perera’s case,
on the other hand, reveals the limits of such control. Without the superior’s
approval, Ledesma and his colleagues were powerless in their attempts to pre-
vent the printing of the book or to modify its content.
4 Conclusion
Despite the Jesuits’ search for unity within their order, their doctrinal system,
and their institutionalized form of censorship, there was a great deal of dis-
agreement over the question of what the desired unity should look like and
how it could be achieved.148 The libertas opinionum of Jesuit philosophers
had certain limitations. However, these limitations applied to their work as
members of a religious society, and as such the teaching or publishing of their
ideas was voluntarily subjected to the rulings of the order. Moreover, these
limitations were not set in stone, but changed over time as various normative
documents were issued and discussions took place that realigned the Society’s
attitude toward censorship. Finally, these limitations were enforced very differ-
ently, depending on the persons involved and other local circumstances.
The principle governing most measures of Jesuit censorship in philosophy
concerned the demanded agreement between faith and philosophical learn-
ing. This seems to be an obvious agenda for an order that aimed to educate
Catholic theologians. Although there was a debate over how this agreement
was to be defined, no Jesuit philosopher openly questioned this principle. Yet,
146 Mon paed. 4:664–65; Paul Richard Blum, Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism (Leiden:
Brill, 2012), 140.
147 Cf. Sander and Casalini, “Pious Humanism,” 26. Perera’s commentary on Genesis was sub-
mitted to the Holy Office voluntarily before publication; see Baldini and Spruit, Catholic
Church, 2266–71.
148 On disagreements within the Society, see Michela Catto, La Compagnia divisa: Il dissenso
nell’ordine gesuitico tra ’500 e ’600 (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2009).
54 Sander
from an institutional point of view, the Society needed to provide a system of

control in cases where Jesuits failed to uphold this principle. On the one hand,
this control prevented individual Jesuits from defending dangerous positions;
on the other hand, it limited the harm that could be caused to pupils or read-
ers. Thus the question of how far censorship should reach within the order
remained a matter of dispute, and it is equally true that critics of the order
accused it of a totalitarian and rigid apparatus of censorship.149
What, therefore, is the significance of the Jesuit censorship of philosophy
as a subject of study? The censorial practice and its underlying doctrinal and
pedagogical system provide an important background to assess the works of
individual Jesuit philosophers. This does not only invoke the question of the
conformity of particular Jesuits with the rulings of the Society but also the
ways in which they should seek to cope with the given limitations of philoso-
phy in general.150 Second, documents of philosophical censorship are also of
philosophical interest in their own right, as censors often explicitly justified
their reasons for certain measures by recourse to philosophical arguments.
Moreover, in many cases, the mere occurrence of some prescribed doctrine or
rule is based on a philosophical or theological but mostly implicit argument.
Such an argument concerns why a certain doctrine poses a danger to Christian
faith and needs to be subject to censorship in the first place. The discovery
of this implicit justifying relation is a philosophical or theological effort to be
undertaken by scholars. Why was Averroes so dangerous? Why did his works
contradict faith, when teachers defended the proposition that blood is no part
of the animal body?151 Third, and finally, censorship documents and practices
are an interesting subject of study as they are aspects of an institutionalized
form of learning. They not only provide an insight into the institutional appa-
ratus necessary to put censorship into practice but also reveal certain patterns
that define the existence of an institution and, as such, intrinsically inform
the ways in which learning, education, and publishing are conceived.152 In
this perspective, Jesuit censorship within its own logic and legitimization can
149 On the question of judgment, see Reichmann, “Ordenszensur”; Dinis, “Censorship”; Bi-
asioli, “Controllo.”
150 See case studies in Dinis, “Censorship”; Marco Forlivesi, “Francisco Suárez and the Ratio-
nes studiorum of the Society of Jesus,” in Francisco Suárez and His Legacy: The Impact of
Suárezian Metaphysics and Epistemology on Modern Philosophy, ed. Marco Sgarbi (Milan:
Vita e Pensiero, 2010), 77–90; Leinsle, “Der Widerstand”; Sander, “In dubio pro fide,” 58–9;
Sander, “Pious Notions,” 68.
151 Cf. Sander, “Pious Notions.”
152 On this aspect, see also Friedrich, “Theologische Einheit,” 322–24.
erhaps also be seen as a form of “quality control,” in much the same way as the
p
modern practice of peer-review, which continues to govern scientific learning
and academic up to the present day.153
Appendix
The material gathered in Appendix A and B does not claim to be exhaustive, but rather
provides the collected evidence to support many of the chapter’s conclusions. Refer-
ences focus on sources of the Monumenta paedagogica, but in some cases they are
enhanced with further volumes of the mhsi.
A separate row in Appendix A provides explicit references to the respective censor-
ship document or its part dealing with censorship (C#). In the case of Appendix B, the
index can easily be enhanced or refined with the aid of the excellent indexes of the
respective volumes of the mhsi. However, these indexes often follow another ratio-
nale and do not focus on the issue of censorship. It goes without saying that several
lemmata of Appendix B clearly overlap or cannot be delimited sharply from one an-
other. Therefore, in many instances, the same documents will be listed under various
lemmata.
In order to render the references more informative, all indications are qualified
through information about the type of document (according to the abbreviations
given below), author/province (and recipient in case of letters), and date (year). All
references to documents of Appendix A (C1–9) will be referred to as such, adding the
year for a better recognition and the source reference for longer documents.
CG = General congregation
CO = Constitutions
CP = Provincial congregation
DE = Official decree
EP = Letter from one person to another person
RS = Rationes studiorum and similar pedagogical documents
TR = Treatise, survey, memorandum, list, or commentary on a document
153 See Daniel Stolzenberg, “Utility, Edification, and Superstition: Jesuit Censorship and
Athanasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts,
1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 1:336–54, here
343–44. Mario Biagioli, “From Book Censorship to Academic Peer Review,” Emergences:
Journal for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures 12, no. 1 (2002): 11–45.
Appendix A
Supra-provincial Guidelines and Decrees, 1550–99
Date Title Author/ Content/Themes Source

Issuer
C1 1550–58 Constitutiones Loyola/ (a) Censorship of (a= iii.1.18), Const.

Societatis Iesu Polanco publications, ii, 356–57; iii,
unity of doctrine; 86 (b= iv.14.1;
(b) commitment to iv.14.3), Const.
Aristotle, solidity of ii, 474–76; iii,
doctrine 150–151; Mon.
paed. i, 294–99
a= TR, Nadal, 1556–68 (Nadal 1976, 72–73) | TR, Polanco, 1565 (Pol.
compl. i, 560) | EP, Hoffaeus to Canisius, 1572 (pcae vii, 55) | CP, Upper
Germany, 1573 (Mon. paed. iv, 238–239) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574
(Mon. paed. iv, 199) | TR, Several Jesuits, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 665) | EP,
Hoffaeus to Mercurian, 1578 (Mon. paed. iv, 745) | CP, Upper Germany,
1579 (Mon. paed. iv, 309) | EP, Salmerón to Acquaviva, 1582 (Mon. paed.
vi, 22) | C5, 1582 (Institutum iii, 8) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1585 (Mon. paed.
vi, 36) | TR, Roman and Milanese Jesuits, 1586 (vi, 47) | TR, French Jesuits,
1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 105, 106) | TR, Tucci, 1589 (Mon. paed. vii, 33) | CG,
S.J., 1593–94 (Institutum ii, 265, 277)
b= TR, Nadal, 1556–68 (Nadal 1976, 126–27) | TR, Ledesma et al., 1564–65
(Mon. paed. ii, 478) | C4, 1573 | C5, 1578–80 (Institutum iii, 79; Mon. paed.
iv, 21) | EP, Salmerón to Acquaviva, 1582 (Mon. paed. vi, 23) | C7a, 1586
(Mon. paed. v, 98) | TR, Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 269)
C2 1565 Decretum Borja/ Five general Mon. paed. iii,

Borgianum Ledesma rules; seventeen 382–85
prescribed doctrines
(philosophy and
theology)
TR, Polanco, 1565 (Pol. compl. i, 560; ii, 651) | CP, Naples, 1568 (Mon. paed.
iii, 27) | TR, Nadal (regarding Dillingen), 1566 (Mon. paed. iii, 105) | TR,
Nadal (regarding Ingolstadt), 1566 (Mon. paed. iii, 115) | DE, Borja to

Issuer
ortuguese Jesuits, 1567 (Mon. paed. iii, 396) | CP, Upper Germany, 1568
P
(Mon. paed. iii, 40–41) | EP, Ferrer to Borja, 1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 439) | TR,
Ledesma, 1574? (Mon. paed. 1901, 548–69) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian,
1574 (Mon. paed. iv, 197) | DE, Hoffaeus to all German provinces, 1577
(Mon. paed. iv, 706) | EP, Hoffaeus to Mercurian, 1578 (Mon. paed. iv, 744,
746) | TR, Maldonado (regarding Paris), 1579 (iv, 433) | CP, Naples, 1581
(Mon. paed. vii, 288) | EP, Acquaviva to Bader, 1583 (Mon. paed. vii, 563) |
TR, Roman Jesuits, 1582 (Mon. paed. vi, 3–6) | EP, Salmerón to Acquaviva,
1582 (Mon. paed. vi, 24) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 6, 19) | TR, Jesuits from
Castile, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 91) | TR, Jesuits from France, 1586 (Mon.
paed. vi, 105) | TR, Jesuits from Poland, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 115) | TR,
Jesuits from Upper Germany, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 283) | EP, Davila to
Acquaviva, 1587 (Mon. paed. vii, 610)
C3 1565–1570 Ratio Borgiana Nadal? Few general rules for Mon. paed. ii, 254
philosophy teachers
C4 1573 Congregatio S.J. Against impious Mon. paed. iv,
generalis tertia commentators 248; Institutum ii,
228–29
EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574 (Mon. paed. iv, 199) | C6, 1582 | C7a, 1586
(Mon. paed. v, 100)
C5 1577–1582 Regulae Soci- Mercurian/ Unity of doctrine Mon. paed. iv, 21;
etatis Iesu Acquaviva (including C1a); Institutum iii, 8, 79
Against impious
commentators
(identical with C4)
[EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574 (Mon. paed. iv, 199)]

C6 1582 De ratione Acquaviva Six general rules for Mon. paed. vi,
studiorum teachers (philosophy 25–26
and theology)
CP, Naples, 1581 (Mon. paed. vii, 288) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 19)
58 Sander

Issuer
C7a (a) 1586/ Ratio Acquaviva Eleven general rules a= Mon. paed. v,
(b) 1591 studiorum for teachers 19, 95–109
(philosophy and b= Mon. paed. v,
theology; overlapping 271, 283–84
with C6). For
philosophy teachers:
15 (b: 10) prescribed
doctrines; several
general rules
C8 1594 Congregatio ge- S.J. For philosophy Mon. paed. vii,
neralis quinta teachers: 249; Institutum ii,
five general rules 273–274
C9 1599 Ratio Acquaviva For philosophy Mon. paed. v,
studiorum teachers: 397–401; Institutum
General rules iii, 189–92
(similar to C8)
a The Rationes of 1586A/B and 1591 are taken together since they are very similar and the rules
of the 1586 Ratio were never put into practice.
Appendix B
Analytical Index
1 Principles
1.1 Unitas/uniformitas doctrinae

See all references to C1a, 1550–58 | TR, Polanco, 1547–48 (Const. i, 275–76) | C1b,
1550–58 | EP, Polanco to Fernandes, 1551 (Epp. ign. iii, 502–3) | TR, Ledesma,
1564–65 (Mon. paed. ii, 474, 477, 478) | TR, Polanco, 1565 (Pol. compl. i, 560) |
CP, Naples, 1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 27) | CP, Sicily, 1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 29) | EP,
Mercurian to Borja, 1569 (Mon. paed. iii, 455) | CP, Rome, 1572–73 (Mon. paed.
iv, 220–21) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574 (Mon. paed. iv, 196–204) | CP, Upper
Germany, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 281) | DE, Hoffaeus to all German provinces, 1577
(Mon. paed. iv, 703–4) | CP, Naples, 1581 (Mon. paed. vii, 288) | TR, Roman Jesu-
its, 1584 (Mon. paed. vi, 29, 30) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 13, 22) | TR, Tapia, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 75, 80) | TR, Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 269) | TR, Pr. Aragon, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 276) | TR, Pr. Rhenana, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 285)
1.2 Doctrina secura, solida, magis approbata

TR, Polanco, 1548–50 (Reg. 230; Mon. paed. i, 41) | C1b, 1550–58 | CO, i.2.1; i.3.11;
X.3, 1550–1558 (Const. iii, 8, 86, 272) | RS, Polanco, 1551 (Mon. paed. i, 75–76) | RS,
1555–56 (Mon. paed. i, 343) | TR, Nadal, 1556–68 (Nadal 1976, 387–88) | RS, Perera,
1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 667, 677) | TR, Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed. ii, 478) | TR,
Polanco, 1565 (Pol. compl. i, 560) | TR, Nadal (regarding Évora), 1561 (Mon. paed.
iii, 78) | EP, Canisius to Borja, 1567 (Mon. paed. iii, 416) | CP, Upper Germany,
1573 (Mon. paed. iv, 238–39) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574 (Mon. paed. iv,
196–204) | CP, Upper Germany, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 282) | CP, Naples, 1581 (Mon.
paed. vii, 288) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1584 (Mon. paed. vi, 29) | TR, Roman Jesuits,
1585 (Mon. paed. vi, 41) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 22, 77) | TR, Pr. Rhenana, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 285) | TR, Tucci, 1589 (Mon. paed. vii, 33–39)
1.2.1 sententia communis

TR, Nadal (regarding Évora), 1561 (Mon. paed. iii, 78) | RS, Ledesma, 1564
(Mon. paed. ii, 487) | TR, Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed. ii, 477, 478) | RS,
Perera, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 667) | C2, 1565 | TR, Morales (regarding Rome),
1578 (Mon. paed. iii, 324) | C6, 1582 | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1585 (Mon. paed. vi,
41) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 77, 107) | TR, Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 75) | TR,
Neapolitan Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 60) | TR, Tucci, 1589 (Mon. paed. vii,
33–39)
60 Sander
1.2.2 novitas
RS, 1555–56 (Mon. paed. i, 343) | RS, Nadal, 1563 (Mon. paed. ii, 128) | RS,
Ledesma, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 488) | RS, Perera, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 667) | TR,
Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed. ii, 477) | C2, 1565 | TR, Polanco, 1565 (Pol. com-
pl. i, 560; ii, 651) | EP, Perez to Borja, 1566 (Mon. paed. iii, 396) | CP, Rome, 1568
(Mon. paed. iii, 24) | CP, Naples, 1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 27) | CP, Upper Germa-
ny, 1573 (Mon. paed. iv, 238–39) | CP, Upper Germany, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 282)
| EP, Loeffius to Mercurian, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 641–42) | EP, Mercurian to
Maggio, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 646 (n. 2)) | EP, Maggio to Mercurian, 1576 (Mon.
paed. iv, 646–48) | DE, Hoffaeus to all German provinces, 1577 (Mon. paed. iv,
703–4) | C6, 1582 | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1585 (Mon. paed. vi, 39) | C7a, 1586 (Mon.
paed. v, 6, 22) | TR, Neapolitan Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 60) | TR, Pr. Sicula,
1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 61) | TR, Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 75) | TR, Tucci, 1589
(Mon. paed. vii, 34) | CG, S.J., 1593–94 (Institutum ii, 277) | C8, 1593–94
1.3 Libertas opinionum (statements and discussions)

RS, Ledesma, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 487) | TR, Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed.
ii, 478) | EP, Balduin to Borja, 1570 (Mon. paed. ii, 494–95) | TR, Ledesma,
1574? (Mon. paed. 1901, 549) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574 (Mon. paed. iv,
196–204) | EP, Hoffaeus to Mercurian, 1578 (Mon. paed. iv, 744–46) | TR, Ro-
man Jesuits, 1582 (Mon. paed. vi, 3–6) | EP, Salmerón to Acquaviva, 1582 (Mon.
paed. vi, 21–24) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1584 (Mon. paed. vi, 29) | C7a, 1586 (Mon.
paed. v, 13) | TR, Venetian Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 66) | TR, French Jesuits,
1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 105) | TR, Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 269) | TR, Pr. Aragon,
1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 276) | TR, Pr. Sardinia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 278) | TR, Je-
suits from Upper Germany, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 283)
2 Philosophy
2.1 Theological requirements

2.1.1 Philosophy as handmaiden
C1b, 1550–58 | RS, Ledesma, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 488) | TR, Ledesma, 1564–1565
(Mon. paed. ii, 476, 478) | C3, 1565–70 | C4, 1573 | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian,
1574 (Mon. paed. iv, 196–204) | C5, 1577–82 | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 101) | TR,
Venetian Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 70) | C9, 1599
2.1.2 References to the bull Apostolici regiminis (1513)

TR, Nadal, 1556–68 (Nadal 1976, 126–27) | C3, 1565–70 | CP, Upper Germany,
1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 40–41) | TR, Ledesma, 1574? (Mon. paed. 1901, 550–53,
557) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574 (Mon. paed. iv, 196–4) | C7a, 1586 (Mon.
paed. v, 101, 105) | TR, Pr. Aragon, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 275–276) | C7b, 1591
(Mon. paed. v, 283) | C8, 1593–94 | C9, 1599
2.1.3 Relations and boundaries between theology and philosophy

TR, Maldonado (regarding Paris), 1578 (Mon. paed. iv, 433) | C7a, 1586 (Mon.
paed. v, 13, 30, 105) | TR, Venetian Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 66, 67) | TR,
Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 75) | TR, Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 269) | TR, Pr.
Aragon, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 276) | TR, Balmesius, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 292)
2.2 Philosophical doctrines

2.2.1 Axioms and “sententiae communes”
C2, 1565 | EP, Hoffaeus to Mercurian, 1578 (Mon. paed. iv, 744–46) | TR, Roman
Jesuits, 1582 (Mon. paed. vi, 6) | TR, Neapolitan Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi,
60) | TR, French Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 105) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 262)
2.2.2 Lists of propositions

RS, Ledesma, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 488) | TR, Ledesma, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii,
496–503) | C2, 1565 | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 108) | C7b, 1591 (Mon. paed. v, 284)
2.2.2.1 Discussions of/references to propositions

See references to C2, 1565 | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574 (Mon. paed. iv,
196–204) | CP, Upper Germany, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 282) | TR, Roman Jesu-
its, 1582 (Mon. paed. vi, 4–6) | TR, French Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 105)
| TR, Roman Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 262) | TR, Neapolitan Jesuits, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 266) | TR, Pr. Aragon, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 276) | TR, Pr. Sar-
dinia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 278) | TR, Pr. Rhenana, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 285)
2.3 Aristotle
2.3.1 Commitment to Aristotle/Aristotle’s conformity with faith
C1b, 1550–58 | TR, Ledesma, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 496–503) | RS, Perera, 1564
(Mon. paed. ii, 667) | TR, Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed. ii, 477, 478) | C2, 1565
| C3, 1565–70 | CP, Upper Germany, 1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 40–41) | C4, 1573 | EP,
TR, Ledesma, 1574? (Mon. paed. iv, 568–69) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian, 1574
(Mon. paed. iv, 196–204) | C5, 1577–82 | EP, Salmerón to Acquaviva, 1582 (Mon.
paed. vi, 23) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1584 (Mon. paed. vi, 29) | C7a, 1586 (Mon.
paed. v, 98, 107) | TR, Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 75, 77) | TR, Escudero, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 96) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 260, 262) | TR,
Tapia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 269) | TR, Pr. Aragon, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 275) | TR,
Pr. Sardinia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 278) | TR, Jesuits from Upper Germany, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 281, 283) | C7b, 1591 (Mon. paed. v, 283) | C8, 1593–94 | C9, 1599
62 Sander
2.3.2 Aristotle’s interpreters

C1b, 1550–58 | RS, Perera, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 677) | CP, Rome, 1568 (Mon.
paed. iii, 24) | C4, 1573 | CP, Upper Germany, 1573 (Mon. paed. iv, 238–39) |
TR, Ledesma, 1574? (Mon. paed. iv, 549–57) | C5, 1577–1582 | C6, 1582 | C7a,
1586 (Mon. paed. v, 100) | C7b, 1591 (Mon. paed. v, 283) | C8, 1593–94 | C9, 1599
2.3.2.1 Averroes in particular

TR, Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed. ii, 478) | EP, Th. Canisius to Borja, 1567
(pcea vi, 60–62) | EP, Vicus to Th. Canisius, 1567 (pcea vi, 136–137) | EP,
Pastelius to Borja, 1567 (pcea vi, 142) | EP, Canisius to Borja, 1567 (Mon.
paed. iii, 414–16) | CP, Upper Germany, 1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 40–41) | TR,
Ledesma, 1574? (Mon. paed. 1901, 550–53, 557) | EP, Ledesma to Mercurian,
1574 (Mon. paed. iv, 551–53, 568) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1585 (Mon. paed. vi,
39) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 100, 101) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed.
vi, 261) | TR, Venetian Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 267–68) | TR, Pr. Aragon,
1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 274) | C7b, 1591 (Mon. paed. v, 283) | C8, 1593–94 | C9,
1599
2.3.3 Selections of Aristotle’s works or their topics

TR, Ledesma and Roman Jesuits, 1561–62 (Mon. paed. ii, 436–459) | RS, Per-
era, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 677) | C3, 1565–70 | TR, Maldonado (regarding Paris),
1578 (Mon. paed. iv, 433) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 30, 105–6) | TR, Milanese
Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 263–64) | TR, Venetian Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed.
vi, 267–68) | TR, Jesuits from Upper Germany, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 281, 283) |
C7b, 1591 (Mon. paed. v, 279–81) | C9, 1599 (Mon. paed. v, 398–99)
2.4 Course book for philosophy

2.4.1 Course book is discussed, demanded, or commissioned
TR, Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed. ii, 474) | EP, Torres to Laínez, 1562 (Mon.
paed. iii, 317) | EP, Fonseca to Nadal, 1562 (Mon. paed. iii, 317–20) | CP, Upper
Germany, 1576 (Mon. paed. iv, 281) | EP, Tucci to Acquaviva, 1582 (Mon. paed.
vi, 20) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1585 (Mon. paed. vi, 34–43) | TR, Pr. Baetica, 1586
(Mon. paed. vi, 277) | TR, Pr. Sardinia, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 278)
2.4.2 Jesuit philosophy books (to be) used in class

CP, Pr. Rhenana/Aquitania, 1573 (Mon. paed. iv, 242, 244) | CP, Castile, 1579
(Mon. paed. iv, 303) | CP, Portugal, 1579 (Mon. paed. iv, 307–8) | EP, Loeffius
to Mercurian, 1575 (Mon. paed. iv, 580) | EP, Mylius to Harlemius, 1577 (Mon.
paed. iv, 686–87) | TR, Roman Jesuits, 1585 (Mon. paed. vi, 41) | C7a, 1586
(Mon. paed. v, 100) | TR, Milanese Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 263) | TR, Vene-
tian Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 267–68) | TR, Portuguese Jesuits, 1586 (Mon.
paed. vi, 272) | TR, Pr. Aragon, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 273) | TR, Perez, 1586 (Mon.
paed. vi, 278) | TR, Jesuits from Upper Germany, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 281) | TR,
Pr. Rhenana, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 285) | TR, French Jesuits, 1586 (Mon. paed.
vi, 288) | TR, Jesuits from Poland, 1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 291) | TR, Leopolitanus,
1586 (Mon. paed. vi, 292) | C7b, 1591 (Mon. paed. v, 279–80) | C9, 1599
2.5 Impact of censorship

2.5.1 Teachings
TR, Ledesma, 1564 (Mon. paed. ii, 502–3) | TR, Gagliardi, 1564–65 (Mon. paed.
ii, 479) | EP, Vicus to Th. Canisius, 1567 (pcea vi, 136–137) | EP, Balduin to
Borja, 1570 (Mon. paed. ii, 494–95)
2.5.2 Publications
EP, Borja to Th./P. Canisius, 1566 (pcea v, 165) | TR, Several Jesuits, 1576 (Mon.
paed. iv, 664–65) | CP, Portugal, 1579 (Mon. paed. iv, 307–8)
3 Book censorship
3.1 General comments/rules regarding censorship

TR, Polanco, 1547–48 (Const. i, 287) | C1a, 1550 | CO, vii.4.11, 1550–1558 (Const.
iii, 215) | TR, Nadal, 1556–68 (Nadal 1976, 73–72, 188–90, 387–88, 404) | CP,
Upper Germany, 1573 (Mon. paed. iv, 238–39) | DE, Hoffaeus to all German
provinces, 1577 (Mon. paed. iv, 706) | C4, 1577–82 (Mon. paed. iv, 22) | CP, Up-
per Germany, 1579 (Mon. paed. iv, 309) | ep, Mercurian to Hoffaeus, 1579 (Mon.
paed. iv, 781–83) | EP, Priscanensis to Mercurian, 1580 (Mon. paed. iv, 822–26)
| EP, Leo to Acquaviva, 1585 (Mon. paed. vii, 593–94) | CG, S.J., 1593–94 (Insti-
tutum ii, 265, 277)
4 Hierarchy, supervision, and competence
4.1 Permission of superior

TR, Polanco, 1547–48 (Const. i, 287) | RS, 1555–56 (Mon. paed. i, 343) | TR,
Nadal, 1556–68 (Nadal 1976, 188–90, 404) | TR, Ledesma, 1564–65 (Mon. paed.
ii, 477) | C2, 1565 | TR, Polanco, 1565 (Pol. compl. ii, 651) | C4, 1577–82 (Mon.
paed. iv, 22) | CP, Upper Germany, 1579 (Mon. paed. iv, 309) | C6, 1582 | CG, SJ,
1593–94 (Institutum ii, 265)
4.2 Theological qualification of philosophers

CP, Naples, 1568 (Mon. paed. iii, 27) | EP, Maldonado to Mercurian, 1579 (Mon.
paed. iv, 789) | C7a, 1586 (Mon. paed. v, 101) | C7b, 1591 (Mon. paed. v, 234)
Appendix C
Translation of the Decretum Borgianum (1565)
General Borja’s decree (C3) has already been translated into English and French.154
However these translations are incomplete, partly incorrect, and not easily accessible.
Therefore, a complete translation is provided here. The translation is based on the
Latin text as edited in Mon. paed. iii, 382–85, but follows the manuscript preserved in
arsi, Fondo Ges. 656/A, 1r–2v, which can be reconstructed by means of the critical ap-
paratus of the Latin edition. Any differences from the edited text, however, are printed
in italics. This codicological choice is justified by the fact that this version of the text
was obviously used for further revisions by later Roman theologians.155 Moreover, this
version contains longer formulations of some propositions and a seventeenth proposi-
tion that was sometimes omitted in non-Roman copies.
Decretum R.P.N. Generalis Praepositi Decree of Superior General Francisco de

Francisci Borgiae in mense novembri Borja of November 1565
1565 [383]
1. Nulla defendatur opinio quae 1. No opinion must be defended neither
adversetur vel deroget vel minus in philosophy nor in theology, which is
fidei faveat tam in philosophia quam against, derogates, or favors faith to a
in theolgia. lesser degree.
2. Nihil defendatur quod sit contra 2. Nothing must be defended, which is
axiomata recepta philosophorum; contrary to the received axioms of the
qualia sunt: tantum sunt quatuor philosophers; such are: there are only
genera causarum; tantum sunt quatuor four kinds of causes; there are only four
elementa, esse tria principia rerum elements and three principles of natural
naturalium. Ignis est calidus et siccus, things. Fire is hot and dry, air wet and
aer humidus et calidus etc. hot, etc.
154 See Camille de Rochemonteix, Un collège de jésuites aux xviie et xviiie siècles le collège
Henri iv de La Flèche (Le Mans: Leguicheux, 1889), 4: 4–8; Dennis A. Bartlett, “The Evo-
lution of the Philosophical and Theological Elements of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum: An
Historical Study, 1540–1599” (PhD diss., University of San Francisco, 1988), 88–90. See also
Schmutz, “Les normes,” 144–45; Roger Ariew, Descartes among the Scholastics, History of
Science and Medicine Library 20 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 20–22.
155 See Mon. paed. vi, 3–6, 283; Mon. paed. 1901, 548–69.
3. Nihil defendatur contra communis- 3. Nothing must be defended against the

simam philosophorum aut theologorum most common opinions of philosophers
sententiam, ut quod agentia naturalia and theologians, such as that natural
agant sine media, etc. agents act without a medium, etc.
4. Nulla opinio defendatur contra 4. No opinion must be defended against
communem, inconsulto superiore aut the common [opinion] without con-
praefecto. sultation of the superior or the prefect
5. Nulla nova opinio in philosophia aut [of studies].
theologia introducatur, inconsulto supe- 5. No novel opinion must be introduced
riore aut praefecto. in philosophy or theology, without con-
sultation of the superior or the prefect
[of studies].
Opiniones sustenendae a nostrisque Opinions that have to be held [and] to

docendae ut verae ac tenendae [384] be taught by our [teachers] as true and
to be held
De Deo- 1. Deus est infinitae virtutis Concerning God: 1. God has infinite
intensive, et agens liberum secun- power and is a free agent according to
dum v eram philosophiam et rationem true philosophy and natural reason.
naturalem. 2. God has providence over all inferior,
2. Deus habet providentiam omnium also [even] particular and human things,
inferiorum etiam singularium et and knows everything: past, present, and
humanarum rerum, et cognoscit future [events], according to true philoso-
omnia: praeterita, praesentia et futura, phy and natural reason.
secundum veram philosophiam. Concerning angels: 3. Angels truly fall
De angelis- 3. Angeli ponuntur vere into [the] category [of substance] and
in praedicamento, et non sunt purus are not pure act according to true
actus secundum veram philosophiam philosophy and natural reason.
et rationem naturalem. 4. Angels are in a place and are moved
4. Angeli sunt in loco et moventur locally, so that it must not be asserted
localiter, ita ut non sit asserendum, in that they are in no place and are not
nullo loco esse aut non moveri, ita ut moved, [and] so that a substance is
substantia sit praesens, modo aliquo first present in one [place] and later in
uni, postea alteri loco. another place.
5. Anima intellectiva non est assistens, 5. The intellective soul is not [a “forma”]
sed vere forma informans secundum “assistens,” but the true “forma infor-
Aristotelem et veram philosophiam mans,” according to Aristotle, true
et rationem naturalem. philosophy, and natural reason.
66 Sander
6. Anima intellectiva non est una numero 6. The intellective soul is not one in num-
in omnibus hominibus, sed in singulis ber in all human beings, but distinct and
hominibus distincta et propria secun- proper in single human beings, according
dum Aristotelem et veram philosophiam to Aristotle, true philosophy, and natural
et rationem naturalem. reason.
7. Anima intellectiva est immortalis 7. The intellective soul is immortal,
secundum Aristotelem et veram according to Aristotle, true philosophy,
philosophiam et rationem naturalem. and natural reason.
8. Non sunt plures animae in homine: 8. There are neither several souls in
intellectiva, sensitiva et vegetativa, man, namely an intellective, a sensitive,
nec in bruto sensitiva et vegetativa, and a vegetative soul, nor a vegetative
secundum Aristotelem et veram and sensitive soul in beasts, according to
philosophiam et rationem naturalem.a Aristotle, true philosophy, and natural
9. Anima in homine aut in brutis non est reason.
pilis aut capillis. 9. The soul in man or in beasts is not in
10. Potentiae sensitivae et vegetativae hair of the body or of the head.
in homine aut in bruto non subiectantur 10. The sensitive and vegetative faculty
in materia prima immediate. in man or in beasts is not immediately
11. Humores aliquo modo sunt partes based in the prime matter.
hominis seu animalis. 11. The humors are somehow parts of
12. Tota quidditas substantiae man and animals.
compositae non est sola forma sed 12. The total quiddity of a composite
materia et forma.[385] substance is not only the form, but mat-
13. Praedicabilia sunt tantum ter and form.
quinque. 13. There are only five predicables.
14. Essentia divina non habet unam 14. The divine essence has not one
subsistentiam communem tribus common subsistence for the three
personis, sed tantum tres subsistentias persons [of the trinity], but only three
personales. personal subsistences.
15. Peccatum et malum formaliter est 15. Sin and evil is formally a privation
privatio et non positivum quid. and not a positive entity.
16. Praedestinationis non datur causa 16. The cause of predestination is note
ex parte nostra. given from our part.
17. Caelum constare ex materia et forma, 17. That the heaven consists of matter
est communis, verius et conformius and form is common, more true, and more
philosophis et theologis; et oppositum non conform to philosophers and theologians;
teneatur secundum Aristotelem and the opposite [position] must not be
held according to Aristotle.
Hic ordo praescriptus a praeceptoribus This prescribed order must be completely

nostris omnino servetur, neque contra maintained by our teachers, and they
propositiones hic scriptas, neque publice must not speak against the proposi-
neque privatim ullo modo loquantur, tions written here, neither publicly nor
neque pietatis neque veritatis neque privately in whatever way, and they must
alterius rei praetextu aliter doceant quam not teach anything differently from what
constitutum et definitum est. Haec enim has been ordered and defined, whatever
docenda atque defendenda a nostris non pretext of piety, truth, or anything else
solum admonemus sed etiam statuimus. [there is]. That those [propositions] have
to be taught and to be defended by our
[teachers] we do not only advise but
decree, too.
a The addition of “nec in bruto sensitiva et vegetative” appears only in Ms. Paris, BN, Fond. lat.
ms. 10.859, fol. 87r–v. It also appears in Ledesma’s commentary (see Mon. paed. 1901, 550) and
therefore is also included here.
Bibliography
Ariew, Roger. Descartes among the Scholastics. History of Science and Medicine Library
20. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011.
Baldini, Ugo. Legem impone subactis: studi su filosofia e scienza dei gesuiti in Italia,
1540–1632. Rome: Bulzoni, 1992.
Baldini, Ugo, and Leen Spruit, eds. Catholic Church and Modern Science: Documents
from the Archives of the Roman Congregations of the Holy Office and the Index; Vol. 1;
Sixteenth-Century Documents. Rome: Libreria Ed. Vaticana, 2009.
Bartlett, Dennis A. “The Evolution of the Philosophical and Theological Elements of
the Jesuit Ratio studiorum: An Historical Study, 1540–1599.” PhD diss., University of
San Francisco, 1988.
Bellarmine, Robert. The Louvain Lectures (Lectiones Lovanienses) of Bellarmine and
the Autograph Copy of His 1616 Declaration to Galileo: Texts in the Original Latin. Ed-
ited by Ugo Baldini and George V. Coyne. Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1984.
Belmonte, John M. “To Give Ornament, Splendor and Perfection: Diego de Ledesma
and Sixteenth-Century Jesuit Educational Administration.” PhD diss., Loyola Uni-
versity Chicago, 2006.
Biagioli, Mario. “From Book Censorship to Academic Peer Review.” Emergences: Journal
for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures 12, no. 1 (2002): 11–45.
Biasiori, Lucio. “Il controllo interno della produzione libraria nella Compagnia di Gesù
e la formazione del Collegio dei Revisori generali (1550–1650).” Annali della Scuola
Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 5 (2010): 223–49.
68 Sander
Blum, Paul Richard. Philosophenphilosophie und Schulphilosophie: Typen des Philoso-

phierens in der Neuzeit. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998.
Blum, Paul Richard. Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
Bräuer, Siegfried, and Heiner Lück. “Zensur.” Theologische Realenzyklopädie. Vol. 36.
Cols. 633–634. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2004.
Brevaglieri, Sabina. “Editoria e cultura a Roma nei primi tre decenni del Seicento: Lo
spazio della scienza.” In Rome et la science moderne: Entre Renaissance et Lumières,
edited by Antonella Romano, 257–310. Rome: École française de Rome, 2008.
Casalini, Cristiano. “Pererio ‘cattivo maestro’: Su un cold case nella storia della pedago-
gia gesuitica,” Noctua 2 (2014): 59–110.
Catto, Michela. La Compagnia divisa: Il dissenso nell’ordine gesuitico tra ’500 e ’600. Bres-
cia: Morcelliana, 2009.
Demoustier, Adrien. “La distinction des fonctions et l’exercice du pouvoir selon les
règles de la Compagnie de Jésus.” In Les jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif
et production du savoir, edited by Luce Giard, 3–33. Paris: Presses universitaires de
France, 1995.
Dinis, Alfredo. “Censorship and Freedom of Research among the Jesuits (xvith–xviiith
Centuries): The Paradigmatic Case of Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671).” In Je-
suítas, ensino e ciência: Séc. xvi–xviii, edited by Luís Miguel Carolino and Carlos
Ziller Camenietzki, 27–57. Casal de Cambra: Caleidoscópio, 2005.
Feldhay, Rivka. Galileo and the Church: Political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue? Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Forlivesi, Marco. “Francisco Suárez and the Rationes studiorum of the Society of Je-
sus.” In Francisco Suárez and His Legacy: The Impact of Suárezian Metaphysics and
Epistemology on Modern Philosophy, edited by Marco Sgarbi, 77–90. Milan: Vita e
Pensiero, 2010.
Forlivesi, Marco. “The Ratio studiorum of the Conventual Franciscans in the Baroque
Age and the Cultural–Political Background to the Scotist Philosophy Cursus of Bar-
tolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto.” Noctua 2 (2015): 253–384.
Friedrich, Markus. “Theologische Einheit und soziale Kohärenz. Debatten um die
Homogenität von doctrina im Jesuitenorden um 1600.” In Vera doctrina: Zur Beg-
riffsgeschichte der Lehre von Augustinus bis Descartes, edited by Philippe Büttgen,
297–324. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009.
Ganss, George E. Saint Ignatius’s Idea of a Jesuit University. Milwaukee: Marquette Uni-
versity Press, 1954.
Giard, Luce. “Le rôle secondaire de Petrus Canisius dans l’élaboration de la Ratio stu-
diorum.” In Petrus Canisius S.J. (1521–1597): Humanist und Europäer, edited by Rainer
Berndt, 77–106. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000.
Gilbert, Paul. “La preparazione della Ratio studiorum e l’insegnamento di filosofia di
Benet Perera.” Quaestio 14 (2014): 1–30.
Godman, Peter. The Saint as Censor: Robert Bellarmine between Inquisition and Index.
Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Gomes, Josué Pinharanda. Os Conimbricenses. Lisbon: Instituto de Cultura e Língua
Portuguesa, 1992.
von Heigel, Karl Theodor. “Zur Geschichte des Censurwesens in der Gesellschaft Jesu.”
Archiv für Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels 6 (1881): 162–67.
Hellyer, Marcus. Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Germany.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Höpfl, Harro. Jesuit Political Thought the Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630. Cam-
Inauen, Andreas. “Stellung der Gesellschaft Jesu zur Lehre des Aristoteles und des hl.
Thomas vor 1583.” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 40 (1916): 201–37.
Knebel, Sven K. Wille, Würfel, und Wahrscheinlichkeit: Das System der moralischen Not-
wendigkeit in der Jesuitenscholastik, 1550–1700. Hamburg: Meiner, 2000.
Le Plat, Josse, ed. Monumentorum ad historiam Concilii Tridentini. Leuven: Typographia
Academica, 1781.
Leinsle, Ulrich G. Remains. Dilinganae disputationes: Der Lehrinhalt der gedruckten
Disputationen an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Dillingen 1555–1648.
Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2006.
Leinsle, Ulrich G. “Wie treibt man Cardano mit Scaliger aus? Die (Nicht-)Rezeption
Cardanos an der Jesuitenuniversität Dillingen.” In Spätrenaissance-Philosophie
in Deutschland 1570–1650: Entwürfe zwischen Humanismus und Konfessionalisier-
ung, okkulten Traditionen und Schulmetaphysik, edited by Martin Mulsow, 258–60.
Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2009.
Leinsle, Ulrich G. “Der Widerstand gegen Perera und seine Physik in der oberdeutschen
Jesuitenprovinz.” Quaestio 14 (2014): 51–68.
Lohr, Charles H. “Jesuit Aristotelianism and Sixteenth-Century Metaphysics.” In Para-
dosis: Studies in Memory of Edwin A. Quain, edited by Fletcher Harry George iii and
Mary Beatrice Schulte, 203–20. New York: Fordham University Press, 1976.
Lowe, Elizabeth. The Contested Theological Authority of Thomas Aquinas: The Contro-
versies between Hervaeus Natalis and Durandus of St. Pourçain. New York: Routledge,
2003.
Lukács, László. “De prima Societatis Ratione studiorum sancto Francisco Borgia prae-
posito generali constituta (1565–1569),” AHSI 27 (1958): 209–32.
Mancia, Anita. “La controversia con i protestanti e i programmi degli studi teologici
nella Compagnia di Gesù, 1547–1599.” AHSI 54, no. 107–8 (1985): 3–43 and 210–66.
Mancia, Anita. “Il concetto di ‘dottrina’ fra gli esercizi spirituali (1539) e la Ratio studio-
rum (1599).” AHSI 61 (1992): 3–70.
Martin, Craig. Subverting Aristotle: Religion, History, and Philosophy in Early Modern
Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
70 Sander
Minnich, Nelson H. “The Fifth Lateran Council and Preventive Censorship of Printed
Books.” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 5
(2010): 67–104.
Mongini, Guido. “Ad Christi similitudinem”: Ignazio di Loyola e i primi gesuiti tra ere-
sia e ortodossia; Studi sulle origini della Compagnia di Gesù. Alessandria: Edizioni
dell’Orso, 2011.
Mostaccio, Silvia. Early Modern Jesuits between Obedience and Conscience during the
Generalate of Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615). Burlington: Ashgate, 2014.
Novalín, José Luis González. “La Inquisición y la Compañía de Jesús.” Anthologica an-
nua 37 and 41 (1990 and 1993): 11–56 and 77–102.
Pachtler, Georg Michael, ed. Ratio studiorum et institutiones scholasticae Societatis Jesu.
Berlin: Hofmann, 1887.
Padberg, John W. “Development of the Ratio Studiorum.” In The Jesuit Ratio studiorum:
400th Anniversary Perspectives, edited by Vincent J. Duminuco, 81 (New York: Ford-
ham University Press, 2000), 80–100.
Piaia, Gregorio. “Aristotelismo, ‘heresia’, e giurisdizionalismo nella polemica di Anto-
nio Possevino contro lo Studio di Padova.” Quaderni per la storia dell’Università di
Padova 6 (1973): 125–45.
Pontanus, Jacobus. Akademische Reden an der Universität Dillingen 1572–1582. Edited by
Ulrich G. Leinsle. Münster: Monsenstein/Vannerdat, 2014.
Possevino, Antonio. Bibliotheca selecta. Vol. 2 Rome: Typographia Apostolica Vaticana,
1593.
Rasco, Emilio. “‘Idem sapiamus, idem dicamus omnes’: ¿una cita de Pablo?” AHSI 46
(1977): 184–90.
Reichmann, Matthias. “Ordenszensur und persönliche Verantwortlichkeit in der Ge-
sellschaft Jesu.” Stimmen aus Maria-Laach 87 (1914): 151–60.
Ricci, Saverio. Inquisitori, censori, filosofi sullo scenario della Controriforma. Rome:
Salerno, 2008.
Romano, Antonella. “Pratiques d’enseignement et orthodoxie intellectuelle en milieu
jésuite (deuxième moitié du xvie siècle).” In Orthodoxie, christianisme, histoire, ed.
Susanna Elm, Éric Rebillard, and Antonella Romano, 241–60. Rome: École française
de Rome, 2000.
Sander, Christoph. “In dubio pro fide: The Fifth Council of the Lateran Decree Apostolici
regiminis (1513) and Its Impact on Early Jesuit Education and Pedagogy.” Educazione:
Giornale di pedagogia critica 3, no. 1 (2014): 39–62.
Early Science and Medicine 19, no. 1 (2014): 76–101.
Sander, Christoph. “The War of the Roses: The Debate between Diego de Ledesma and
Benet Perera about the Philosophy Course at the Jesuit College in Rome.” Quaestio
14 (2014): 31–50.
Sander, Christoph. “For Christ’s Sake: Pious Notions of the Human and Animal Body in
Early Jesuit Philosophy and Theology.” In Human and Animal Cognition in Early Mod-
ern Philosophy and Medicine, ed. Roberto Lo Presti and Stefanie Buchenau 55–73.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017.
Sander, Christoph, and Cristiano Casalini. “Benet Perera’s Pious Humanism: Aristote-
lianism, Philology, and Education in Jesuit Colleges; An Edition of Perera’s Docu-
menta quaedam perutilia.” History of Universities 30, no. 1 (2017): 1–42.
Schmitz, Philipp. “Probabilismus: Das jesuitischste der Moralsysteme.” In Ignatianisch:
Eigenart und Methode der Gesellschaft Jesu, ed. Michael Sievernich and Günter Swi-
tek, 355–68. Freiburg: Herder, 1990.
Schmuki, Karl. “Spuren jesuitischer Zensurmassnahmen im Kloster St. Gallen im 16.
und 17. Jahrhundert.” Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner
Umgebung 117 (1999): 179–206.
Schmutz, Jacob. “Les normes théologiques de l’enseignement philosophique dans le
catholicisme romain moderne (1500–1650).” In Philosophie et théologie: anthologie,
edited by Philippe Capelle-Dumont, 3:129–50. Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 2009.
Stolzenberg, Daniel. “Utility, Edification, and Superstition: Jesuit Censorship and Atha-
nasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus.” In The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the
Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John W O’Malley, 1:336–54. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1999.
Suárez, Francisco. Disputationes de censuris in communi, excommunicatione, suspensio-
ne, et interdicto, itemque de irregularitate. Opera omnia 18. Mainz: Birckmann, 1617.
de Toledo, Francisco. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in octo libros Aristotelis de
physica auscultatione. Venice: Giunta, 1573.
de Toledo, Francisco. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros Aristotelis de
anima. Venice: Giunta, 1575.
Villoslada, Ricardo García. Storia del Collegio romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppres-
sione della Compagnia di Gesù (1773). Rome: Apud aedes Universitatis Gregorianae,
1954.
Weichenhan, Michael. “Ergo perit coelum”: Die Supernova des Jahres 1572 und die Über-
windung der aristotelischen Kosmologie. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2004.
Part 2
The Disciplines
∵
Section 2.1
Knowledge
∵
Chapter 3
From Probability to the Sublime(s): Early

Modern Jesuit Rhetoric; an Anti-philosophy or an
Alternative Path to a Modern Idea of “Truth”?
Anne Régent-Susini
Philosophy has often been conceived as opposed to rhetoric; indeed, the sup
posed tension between the active and the contemplative life has become a
truism in Western thought. This apparent tension is reflected in the percep
tion of the early modern humanists, who inherited the Greek Sophists’ view of
the importance of speech and rhetoric, which seemingly stood opposed to the
importance medieval thinkers attached to dialectics and Scholasticism. And
as they primarily considered themselves ministers of the Word, this particu
larly applies to the Jesuits and the emphasis they placed on the importance of
preaching and the emotional effects of their speeches.1 In doing so, the Jesuits
seemingly rejected Scholasticism’s opposition to the use of rhetoric: indeed, in
the Jesuit Constitutions, good preaching is primarily defined by contrast to the
Scholastic method: “[The Jesuits] will exercise themselves in preaching and
in delivering sacred lectures in a manner suitable for the edification of the
people, which is different from the scholastic manner.”2
The main sign of the preeminence of rhetoric over philosophy in the Jesuit
tradition is contained in the widely influential curriculum the order designed
for use in its colleges. The curriculum that was taught in the powerful network
of Jesuit colleges established at the instigation of Popes Gregory xiii (r.1572–85)
and Sixtus v (r.1585–90)3 not only shared in common Ignatius of Loyola’s
(c.1491–1556) Spiritual Exercises but also two major pagan authorities: first, Ar
istotelian science and philosophy, at the very moment when Aristotelianism
1 See, for instance, the long and influential Orator Christianus (1612) by Jesuit professor of
rhetoric at Rome, Carlo Reggio (1540–1612), which, like so many post-Tridentine preaching
manuals, emphasizes the importance of emotional persuasion.
2 Ignatius of Loyola, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans. George E. Ganss (St. Louis:
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), 201.
3 See, for instance, Oskar Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia: Jesuit
Educational Strategy, 1553–1622 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 159–60.

78 Régent-Susini
was undergoing a major reconfiguration in Europe;4 and second, the Cice

ronian rhetorical model, since unlike the Oratory and what historian Marc
Fumaroli calls its strict Christian “attic writing” (a style characterized by cor
rectness and elegance rather than its emotional power), the Jesuits (like most
Renaissance humanists) retained an accommodating attitude toward pagan
auctoritates, and especially Cicero. In the words of historian Robert Maryks:
“Nothing was more characteristic of the Ratio than the […] fascination with
the Ciceronian rhetoric: its civic values, its principle of accommodation, and
its epistemic probability.”5 In their colleges, the Jesuits devoted the fifth and fi
nal year to “rhetoric” (classic oratory) after three years of “grammar” and a year
of “humanities.” Only a small number of students would progress further to
study logic, ethics, and metaphysics (among other disciplines), as well as the
ology. Thus classical rhetoric was at the heart of Jesuit education. Even those
students who excelled and would eventually progress to the next class of phi
losophy were usually encouraged to devote a second year to rhetoric in order
to “lay down a more solid foundation.”6 The advanced students would then go
on to receive training directly inspired by the medieval curriculum of dialec
tic, logic, astronomy, physics, psychology, ethics, and metaphysics, directly or
indirectly based on Aristotle’s texts. As a result of this curriculum, the educa
tional identity of the Jesuits was defined first by being masters of rhetoric, and
second as the masters of a philosophy of the past—at a time when a specific
idea of modern philosophy was being born. No wonder, then, that a legenda
nigra of the Jesuit order had become widespread as early as the mid-sixteenth
century, especially in France, in which the Jesuits were depicted as treacherous
sophists, enemies of common sense, of scientific progress, of genuine ethics,
and last but not least, of philosophy itself.7
4 On the reconfiguration of the status of Aristotle in this epistemological and philosophical

mutation, or even crisis, see Charles B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).
5 Robert A. Maryks, “A Jesuit’s Education in the Age of Fr. Matteo Ricci,” in Scienza, ragione,
fede: Il genio di Padre Matteo Ricci, ed. Claudio Giuliodori and Roberto Sani (Macerata: Ed
izioni università di Macerata, 2012), 103–11.
6 The Ratio studiorum of 1599: The Official Plan of Studies for Jesuit Education ed. Claude Pavur,
S.J. (Saint Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005), 14.
7 About this dark legend, which combines political accusations of despotism and regicide,
moral accusations of dishonesty, moral laxity, and accusations of questionable pastoral and
apologetic methods, see Pierre-Antoine Fabre and Catherine Maire, eds., Les Antijésuites: Dis-
cours, figures et lieux de l’antijésuitisme à l’époque moderne (Rennes: Presses universitaires de
Rennes, 2010). The main themes of this anti-Jesuitism were codified and stabilized as early as
the 1550s.
From Probability to the Sublime(s) 79
However powerful its impact may have been in previous centuries, this
polemical representation of the relationship between Jesuit rhetoric and phi
losophy can and must be reconsidered given that the importance of Renais
sance rhetoric in general—and of Jesuit rhetoric(s) in particular—has now
been reappraised. Far from being limited to a fixed scholarly curriculum, the
early modern Jesuit rhetoric8 was not only a major source of practical tools
for preaching but also a hub of philosophical (in particular linguistic, ethical,
and epistemological) questions: Is language meant to represent, or to commu
nicate? What is the relationship between truth and verisimilitude, between
probability and certainty? To what extent, and according to what procedures,
can man access truth? Such questions were central to the early modern reflec
tion upon rhetoric and were investigated extensively by the Society. Indeed, as
direct inheritors of the humanist critique of Scholasticism and formal logic, Je
suit rhetorics were much more than a set of persuasive devices: “Far from being
a trite technique of manipulation or pretence, the rhetoric of the Humanists
and, later, the Jesuits, was the creative driving force of their ethics, spirituality,
exegesis, anthropology and theology.”9
Many of the philosophical and theological views that were characteristic of
the Society contained a fundamentally rhetorical element. It has been noted,
for instance, that Jesuit casuistic practices, such as the contextualization and
narrative description of sins, owed much to the “ethico-rhetorical investiga
tions of the Humanists.”10 This was evident in the controversy over the the
ology of grace—to which the name of Luis de Molina (1535–1600) remains
attached—that attributed to the divine Logos a kind of rhetorical skill allowing
it to gently lead the sinner to God’s path. The middle way that Molina traced
between freedom and grace shares certain features with the double source
8 The very prominence of their “rhetorical” principle of accommodation makes the exis
tence of a single “Jesuit rhetoric” highly questionable. More generally, on the problematic
definition of a “Jesuit style,” see, for instance, François de Dainville, “La légende du style
jésuite,” Études 287 (1995): 3–16; and Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “‘Le style jésuite n’existe
pas’: Jesuit Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and
the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John O’Malley et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999),
1:38–89. However, while emphasizing the tension between an appeal to the renovatio
spiritus and the desire of conquest, Jacques Le Brun still maintains that “what is striking
when studying the ‘Jesuit style’ is the apparent coherence and consistency of intentions
and realizations, the unity of the artistic project and the theological and philosophical
views”; Jacques Le Brun, “La rhétorique dans l’Europe moderne,” Annales 37, no. 3 (1982):
481–88, here 483 (my translation).
9 Marc Fumaroli, “The Fertility and the Shortcomings of Renaissance Rhetoric: The Jesuit
Case,” in O’Malley et al., Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1:90–106, here 91.
10 Ibid., 97.
80 Régent-Susini
Leonard Lessius (1554–1623) claimed for the Bible—which, in his view, was
not only the product of immediate inspiration but also human effort (humana
industria), which could only be rhetorical in nature.11 Similarly, Denis Petau’s
(1583–1652) theory of what was not yet called the disclosing of dogma in its
historical context12 (which John Henry Newman [1801–90] was to theorize fully
only several centuries later)13 can be seen as a transposition, in the field of
dogmatic theology, of “a rhetorical approach towards the divine utterance.”14
Hence the importance the Society attached to Aristotle’s works, which has
long been interpreted as a backward obsession with an outdated Weltanschau-
ung, should instead be viewed as providing the basis for a renewed philoso
phy centered on adaptation, one that successfully combined a belief in an
absolute truth with an acute consciousness of relativity.15 Even the Catholic
priest Henry Holden (1596–1662), who was hostile to the order, and indeed to
all regular orders, would later use the Jesuits’ explorations of verisimilitude
and probability to build a rational analysis of faith through what could be
called a pre-epistemology of belief—which had repercussions not only for the
history of apologetics but also for the history of philosophy proper. Not only
11 No wonder, then, that biblical exegete Richard Simon, one of the fathers of biblical criti
cism, who deeply questioned the nature of the “sacred authors’” authorship (especially
Moses), explicitly claimed what he owed to his Jesuit masters.
12 For Cardinal Newman, a dogma could be “kept in the background in the infancy of Chris
tianity, when faith and obedience were vigorous,” and only “brought forward at a time
when, […] its presence became necessary to expel an usurping idol from the house of
God” (see Ian Kerr, John Henry Newman: A Biography [Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010], 50).
13 Petau was not alone, though: this theory also appears in other contemporary works, such
as those by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704) or Claude Fleury (1640–1723)—to men
tion only French examples.
14 Fumaroli, “Fertility and the Shortcomings,” 97.
15 This fruitful tension can be linked to the first Jesuits’ ambivalent relationship with Scho
lasticism: while they tended to regard Scholastic theology as too intellectualized, and not
primarily aimed at pastoral efficiency (which led many of them, including Soares himself,
to be accused of departing too often from views attributed to Thomas Aquinas [1224/25–
74]), Loyola’s Constitutiones for the Society included a “general exhortation to follow”—or
at least “lecture on”—Aquinas (Constitutiones Societatis Iesu [Rome: Societatis Iesu, 1558],
Chapter 14, §1), and Nadal prescribed the study of Thomas for Jesuits in 1552. See Raoul
de Scorraille, François Suarez de la Compagnie de Jésus (Paris: Lethielleux, 1912–13), 1:248;
John O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 250–53;
and Daniel Schwartz, ed., Interpreting Suárez: Critical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 2012), 4. On the fluctuations in the different versions of the Ratio studiorum
regarding Jesuit teaching of Aquinas, see Marco Forlivesi, “Francisco Suárez and the Ra-
tiones studiorum of the Society of Jesus,” in Francisco Suárez and His Legacy: The Impact of
Suárezian Metaphysics and Epistemology on Modern Philosophy, ed. Marco Sgarbi (Milan:
Vita e pensiero, 2010), 77–90.
was the Jesuits’ intense practice of rhetoric not opposed to their genuinely
philosophical investigations; it also served to nurture them in an innovative
and fruitful way.
1 Rhetoric vs. Philosophy: To prepon and To eikos
The central status the Society gave to rhetoric originated in the Jesuits’ early
engagement with the philosophical role Aristotle assigned to the art of
persuasion. In his seminal book The First Jesuits, and against the prevailing
“Counter-Reformation” or “baroque” hermeneutical schemes associated with
early modern Jesuits, John O’Malley emphasizes the Society’s Renaissance
humanist origins, and the way in which it inherited what has been called
the Jesuits’ fundamentally “rhetorical” character from Aristotle. O’Malley
describes this as the Jesuit habit of adapting “what they said and did to times,
circumstances and persons,” a strategy that became the “basic principle in all
their ministries, even if they did not explicitly identify it as rhetorical.”16 For
O’Malley, this principle of accommodation shaped and characterized every
aspect of the first Jesuits’ ministries (preaching, political lobbying, teaching,
spiritual direction, and missionary strategy in general). Indeed, the idea of
accommodation was already present in Ignatius’s Exercises, which were written
in such a way that they could be adapted to the reader’s specific situation, “to
his age, education and talent,”17 in order to facilitate a truly individual choice
about his vocation in life.18
O’Malley’s approach, as historian of philosophy Stephen Schloesser has
argued,19 echoes philosopher Stephen Toulmin’s view in his Cosmopolis,20 in
16 O’Malley, First Jesuits, 255.

17 Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, trans. Ludovico J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Newman Press, 1951),
1.18.
18 Though, from another perspective, the Jesuits’ philosophy was all but ultimately ground
ed on individual decisions. Not only was the individual supposed to submit (if a Jesuit) to
his superior, or (if a layman) more broadly speaking to religious authorities, but auctori-
tates were at the very heart of Jesuit science and casuistry.
19 About this turn in Jesuit studies, and for a discussion of O’Malley’s link with Toulmin’s
schemes of modernity in Cosmopolis, see Stephen Schloesser, “Recent Works in Jesuit
Philosophy: Vicissitudes of Rhetorical Accommodation,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 1 (2014):
105–26. For a more general revaluation of early modern rhetoric, see Marc Fumaroli, L’âge
de l’éloquence: Rhétorique et ‘res literaria’ de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque moderne
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1980).
20 Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago: Chicago Uni
versity Press, 1992).
82 Régent-Susini
which Toulmin contrasts the so-called modernity of the early seventeenth-

century quest for timeless universality with another, perhaps more genuine or
far-reaching element of modernity: the Renaissance concern with the particu
lar and with various forms of cultural hybridity. For Toulmin, the seventeenth-
century turn to Newtonian and Galilean science and to “Cartesian” philosophy
was less the start of a triumphant modernity than a step back or a kind of
defensive “Counter-Renaissance,” born from a context of general instability
created by religious dissent, the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), and widespread
political insecurity. In this quest for stability and for reunion, rhetoric, con
cerned with particulars, was suspected of fostering division. As such, for many
European thinkers, rhetoric needed to be replaced by (preferably written) uni
versal logic or universal utterances that were supposedly more able to unite
people. Ultimately, the flourishing of a persuasive style during the Renais
sance would be replaced by various kinds of rhetorical analytic “attic” style,
be it Port-Royal rhetorical “miserabilism” (Fumaroli), or dry “expositions” that
would supposedly gain the audience’s consent by their very “clarity” and the
apparent absence of their speaker.21
This adaptability was undoubtedly a key element in the first Jesuits’ initial
achievements and in the rhetorical curriculum they implemented. And this
trend was not only Aristotelian. In fact, Aristotle’s prepon complemented,22 in
the first Jesuits’ view, Cicero’s convenientia. Both “the Philosopher” and “the Or
ator” helped them draw the appropriate conclusions from the fact that to per
suade always involves persuading someone (to pithanon tini pithanon esti)—as
the teachings of Pedro Juan Perpiña (1530–66) exemplify. Perpiña—who taught
at the Roman College between 1561 and 1565 and was heavily involved in the
elaboration of the future Jesuit curriculum, as well as being in charge of revis
ing Cipriano Soares’s (1524–93) Rhetoric (De arte rhetorica)23—is a major figure
in the history of Jesuit rhetoric, with such an influence that Fumaroli grants
21 On the (anti-)rhetoric of exposition in the French context, see Anne Régent-Susini,

“Le ‘glaive nu’: Rhétorique de l’évidence et autorité religieuse dans la France de la pre
mière modernité,” Mots: Les langages du politique 107 (2015): 49–66; and “La rhétorique
d’exposition dans la controverse anti-protestante du second xviie siècle: Irénisme ou
violence? L’exemple de Bossuet,” in Concordia discors, ed. Benoît Bolduc and Henriette
Goldwyn (Berlin: Günter Narr, 2011), 55–63.
22 Aristotle’s to prepon is generally translated as “appropriateness” or “propriety”; it is the
main Greek basis for the later Latin concept of decorum. See Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3, 7.
23 For an explanation of how Perpiña came to acquire “the reputation of being the maître à
penser of Roman eloquence,” see Stefania Tutino, Shadows of Doubt: Language and Truth
in Post-Reformation Catholic Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 115–16. On
Perpiña’s first reception in France, which reconciles Ciceronianism and Catholic Refor
mation, see Marc Fumaroli, “Cicero pontifex romanus: La tradition rhétorique du Collège
him a “rhetorical pontificate, only comparable to that of a Bembo at the time

of Leo x, or a few years later, a Chapelain at the time of Richelieu.”24 As histo
rian Stefania Tutino has demonstrated, the synthesis he produced in his Ora-
tiones duodeviginti (eighteen orations), edited by Marc-Antoine Muret (1526–
85) and published for the first time in Rome in 1587, reshaped the r elationship
between rhetoric and philosophy. Indeed, by blending the Aristotelian view
on the role of rhetoric with Cicero’s insistence on the epistemological value
of probability, Perpiña opened the way for a radical revaluation of rhetoric’s
philosophical value.
Nevertheless, to prepon was not the only principle of inventio that the Je
suits borrowed from Aristotle and Cicero and that allowed them to emanci
pate themselves from Scholastic dialectics. Particularly important in Aristotle’s
dramatic theory (and the Jesuits were of course men of theater too), to eikos
(probabile; “likely” or “probable”) was also of prime value for the orator, since
far from operating by deduction and induction from supposedly certain prem
ises, the orator had to use enthymemes and examples. The orator, however, was
not the only one who had to use to eikos. To eikos was also at the core of the
Jesuits’ probabilistic system of moral theology25—and the moral philosophy
it implied. From that perspective, not only could two opposite moral truths
possibly coexist but truth could not always be a suitable goal for man, who can
almost never reach perfect knowledge and therefore has no choice but to grant
probability a certain epistemological and ethical value. This epistemological
value was coupled with a pragmatic value: the more an argument resembles
truth, the more it is probable and the more it can persuade; hence the deeply
rhetorical nature of Jesuit argumentation in general. Hence, too, the Jesuits’
rhetorical practices in moral debates: to be evaluated, a sin had to be precisely
contextualized, and this could most often be done through a narration that
was also rhetorical in nature. This rhetorical aspect of all argumentation also
meant that, while not all arguments were equal, none of them was final. By tak
ing up Cicero’s concept of probabile, the Jesuits thus adopted his intermediary
position between Pyrrhonism and dogmatism.26
romain et les principes inspirateurs du mécénat des Barberini,” Mélanges de l’École fran-
çaise de Rome: Moyen-Age, temps modernes 90, no. 2 (1978): 797–837, here 804–5.
24 Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence, 190.
25 Tutino, Shadows of Doubt, 128.
26 See Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral
Reasoning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 87–8, 164–75; and Robert A.
Maryks, Saint Cicero and the Jesuits: The Influence of the Liberal Arts on the Adoption of
Moral Probabilism (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 83ff.
84 Régent-Susini
It would be simplistic to view Jesuit rhetoric as purely based on relativist

frames that were opposed to (classical) philosophy and imply pure skepticism.
Not only did the pragmatic principles of accommodation and probabilism not
jeopardize the absolute reverence toward divine Truth; the very importance
of the rhetorical Ciceronian model for the Jesuits was inseparable from their
strong belief in human ingenium, which the great Orator embodied. And this
human ingenium, which is quite close to Aristotelian prudentia, was in no way
opposed to the philosophical ratio, but was instead viewed as its form here be
low. At the end of his Prolusiones academicae (Academic prolusions), Famiano
Strada (1572–1649)27 thus praised the human ingenium, so brilliantly embodied
by Cicero: while pure philosophical ratio devotes itself to the contemplation
of the immutable order of the superior world, rhetoric has the difficult task
of embodying this ratio in the sub-lunar world. In this world of obstacles and
confusion, the difficult yet irreplaceable function of rhetoric was always to find
the form and manner perfectly suited to the multiplicity of subjects, objects,
and circumstances. In other words, for the early modern Jesuits, rhetoric was
not simply linked to the philosophical and epistemological development of
Renaissance skepticism, as was the case for other sixteenth-century authors.28
Rather, for the Jesuits, even if there ultimately existed one intangible and uni
versal truth (which distinguished the Jesuits from complete relativists), this
truth could be approached (if not necessarily reached) and communicated in
ways so varied that they seemed to renounce, at least momentarily, the univer
sality of truth. Here below, man, a creature of flesh and blood, was only able to
reach the universal through particulars.
2 Appropriating the Truth: the Jesuit Sublime(s)
Yet for the early modern Jesuits, communication was not limited to carefully
crafted human techniques, involving man’s intellect, emotions, and imagina
tion. In fact, they viewed rhetorical devices as nothing but a last resort, a kind
of persuasive ersatz in the absence of divine inspiration. For the Jesuits, a truly
27 On Strada’s importance in the history of Renaissance rhetoric, see Fumaroli, “Cicero pon
tifex romanus,” 808–9, 818–20; and Christian Mouchel, Cicéron et Sénèque dans la rhéto-
rique de la Renaissance (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1990), 271–96. More specifically, on Strada in
historiography, see Florian Neumann, Geschichtsschreibung als Kunst: Famiano Strada S.J.
(1572–1649) und die ars historica in Italien (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013).
28 On that aspect of the role of rhetoric in the Renaissance episteme, see Zachary Schiffman,
On the Threshold of Modernity: Relativism in the French Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1991), 9–52.
gifted and generous soul, inhabited by God, was able to express truth beyond
all human rhetoric, in the highest of styles (i.e., the sublime style), the energy
of which was that of God himself, in a perspective that was more Platonist than
Aristotelian and that focused on enthusiasm and inspiration as the sources of
any revealed speech. As Fumaroli writes:
The more this participation to the divine is intense, the more the rhe
torical technique is invigorated, the more the outward speech is inflated
with the inner energies that circulate through the soul. Sublime is thus
certainly the epitome of grand style, but it is also, and above all, the pres
ence in style of a soul inhabited by the divine.29
From as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, the teachers of rhet
oric in the Roman College, and especially Francesco Benci (1542–94), praised
the Longinian sublime30 as the rhetorical ideal of Catholic “grand style.” Most
of the work produced by Jesuit rhetoricians in France subscribed to this model,
from Nicolas Caussin’s (1583–1651) Parallela (Parallels [1619]) to the Reginæ pa-
latium eloquentiæ (Palace of eloquence) (1641), via Louis de Cressoles’s (1568–
1634) Vacationes autumnales (Fall vacations) (1620).
This model not only influenced Jesuit preaching but also the Jesuits’ polemi
cal discourses in general. In much the same way that the Jesuit approach to
philosophy broke with the systematic approach of Scholasticism, this new ver
sion of the Longinian sublime was intended to replace the dryness that had
previously prevailed in theological and philosophical debates. Indeed, Juan Al
fonso de Polanco (1517–76) was not the only Jesuit who reproached the Scho
lastics for being unable to persuade.31 In a letter to Tomás de Pedroche (d.1565),
another close friend of Ignatius, Jerónimo Nadal (1507–80), made a similar
point: though he would be able to speak a Scholastic language, he did not wish
to do so; while in the early church a simple style showed that the Gospel’s
power does not lie in human persuasion, it was now fair to celebrate with all
human means what is divinely grounded.32 Nevertheless, it was Perpiña who
29 Fumaroli, Héros et orateurs (Geneva: Droz, 1996), 345 (my translation).

30 On the Sublime is a Roman-era Greek work of literary criticism dated to the first century
ce. Its unknown author, conventionally referred to as Longinus, describes sublimity as
a process that includes moments of expropriation and alienation of the orator: the sub
lime enunciation overwhelms the speaker or speaks through him. See Suzanne Guerlac,
“Longinus and the Subject of the Sublime,” New Literary History 16, no. 2 (Winter 1985):
275–90, here 275.
31 See Monumenta Ignatiana, 1st series, 2:446.
32 Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal, 4:831–33.
86 Régent-Susini
delivered, as early as 1565, the most significant version of this Jesuit stylistic
credo. In his memorandum written for the Roman Jesuit leaders, he explained
that, though the naked truth is capable of winning agreement, men are more
bound to be persuaded if the sublimity of the style, echoing the sublimity of
the matter, fires their minds, thus justifying the importance Jesuit rhetoricians
attached to rhetorical devices and emotions.33
However, in seventeenth-century France, another kind of Jesuit sublime de
veloped, one characterized by a deliberately “excessive” Asianism that aimed
to suggest the ineffable by way of an efflorescence of metaphors and, more
broadly speaking, the accumulation of stylistic ornaments. After their return
following the Edict of Rouen in 1603, the French Jesuits sought to please the
court, the members of which were less well read than the old parliamentary
bourgeoisie and more attracted to highly ornamental prose than to measured
Roman Ciceronianism. The French Jesuits’ expressionist eloquence had a pow
erful visual element and used a number of figures to increase the discourse’s
enargeia—thus creating what Fumaroli has described as a “rhetoric of paint
ings” (rhétorique des peintures), an efflorescent sophistic, the central figure of
which was ekphrasis and whose main effects were surprise and admiration.
Étienne Binet (1539–1639) exemplified this style in his Essai des merveilles de
nature et des plus nobles artifices (Essay on nature’s wonders and the most
noble devices), an encyclopedic inventory of the Creation aimed at nourish
ing the preachers’ eloquence, which was reprinted no fewer than twenty-four
times between 1621 and 1658. In its depictions of natural realia, a number of
figures, such as interrogation, prosopopeia, ethopeia, and hypotyposis,34 were
paradoxically supposed to enhance both the limitations of the human word
and the ineffability of the divine greatness. In the same period, in Louis Riche
ome’s (1544–1625) Tableaux sacrez, exclamations and apostrophes dramatized
the “tableau,” while comparisons, similes, and metaphors increased the im
pression of visual presence with the aim of recapturing divine sympathies and
correlations between things35 in order to recreate the delight God himself felt
for his Creation, the love for unity through the spectacle of multiplicity.
In fact, those adepts of the “rhetoric of paintings” did not abandon the
logical categories or the vocabulary of Aristotle. Rather, inside this well-
established system, a Platonist enthusiasm combined with Ignatius’s mystical
33 Monumenta paedagogica Societatis Jesu, new ed., 2:661–63.

34 Prosopopeia refers to a figure of speech in which an imaginary, absent, or deceased person
is represented as speaking or acting; ethopeia refers to the representation of a person’s
manners or morals; hypotyposis refers to a figure of speech by which something not pres
ent is represented as though it is present.
35 See Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence, 262, 268–69.
fervor transformed the analytic and deductive rigor of Scholasticism and its
concise definitions into a powerful dynamism of metaphors and descriptions,
thus rending the orthodox content of the Tridentine church delightfully per
ceptible. The Platonist doctrine of the projection of the intelligible into the
perceptible could therefore reconcile Scholasticism and rhetoric, dogmatic
truth and oratory credibility, as well as the two traditional aims of rhetoric,
teaching (docere) and pleasing (delectare).36 While the humanist erudites or
lawyers still favored a “rhetoric of quotations” (rhétorique des citations), the
Jesuits implemented a rhetoric of metaphorical translatio, which suggested an
uninterrupted continuity between heaven and earth, Creator and creatures.
In this perspective, art was conceived as a continuation of the nature created
by God: it revealed its potentialities. Its power of seduction came less from the
pure contemplation of unity than from the fascinating glittering and shimmer
ing of unity through the multiplicity of the sensitive experiences; much like in
the second Roman Renaissance, baroque and classicism play complementary
rather than opposed roles, thus creating a double dynamic, both centripetal
and centrifugal, of expansion toward the diversity of the world and of a return
to the unity and simplicity at the immutable heart of all things. As Schloesser
emphasizes, this complementary duality already appeared in Soares following
Duns Scotus (c.1266–1308) “in affirming the univocity of being (a precondition
for the possibility of science) while simultaneously embracing analogy (so as
to maintain an orthodox distinction between Creator and creatures).”37
Hence the new function the early modern Jesuit images acquired, be they
visual pictures or verbal similes; they not only aimed at “making visible,” nor
even at emphasizing the links and relations that structure the world (from the
sensitive to the intelligible, or from the visible to the invisible). As art histo
rian Ralph Dekoninck has shown, instead of such a binary process, Jesuit im
ages represented and recreated a ternary universe where senses, reason, and
affects constantly crossed and interacted with one other.38 Numerous opposi
tions and paradoxes produced images that did not fit or were not coherent
with how they were usually represented, thus forcing the reader/spectator to
go through—and past—appearances, in order to discover the significationes
translatæ (i.e., an intelligible meaning beyond all senses), which was supposed
to lead, ultimately, to the invisibilia. Paradoxically, images became abstract
36 Marc Fumaroli, “Définition et description: Scolastique et rhétorique chez les jésuites des
xvie et xviie siècles,” Travaux de linguistique et de littérature 18 (1980): 37–48, here 39.
37 Schloesser, “Recent Works in Jesuit Philosophy,” 111.
38 Ralph Dekoninck, Ad imaginem: Statuts, fonctions et usages de l’image dans la littérature
spirituelle jésuite du xviie siècle (Geneva: Droz, 2005), 127–28.
88 Régent-Susini
signs that were able to elevate the soul, liberate it from the human senses, and
open it to intellectual and spiritual vision. At a time when the status of reli
gious images was being fiercely debated, the Jesuits, like other humanists, pro
moted images aimed at the soul, not the eye.
3 Communication and Co-building of Truth: the Jesuit Orator and

the Epistemological Value of Rhetoric
Accordingly, the task of the Christian orator—who saw himself as poet,

prophet, logician, and rhetorician—was neither to base an explanation for the
world on God’s Word nor to merely show the beauty of Creation, but rather
to use rhetorical devices and figures to collaborate with God in the world’s
redemption.39 By doing so, the Christian orator aspired to serve as what Causs
in, in his Eloquentiæ sacræ et humanæ parallela (Parallels of sacred and hu
man eloquence), called a “theorhetor” (i.e., a “divine orator”; book 14 is entitled
“Theorhetor sive de sacræ eloquentiæ maiestate” [Theorhetor, or the sovereign
authority of sacred eloquence]), who completes and perfects Christ’s work.40
As such, the order truly saw itself as the “Company of Jesus,” his follower in the
story of salvation.41
As a result, the sublime as defined by Longinus and more or less loosely
reinterpreted by the Jesuits in the context of the Catholic Reform became the
supreme link between literature and religious discourse, allowing language
to be used as an instrument of redemption. This Jesuit “rhetorical turn” was
inseparable from the order’s trust in the power of affects and from their be
lief that only through emotions could man fully appropriate and communi
cate the divine truth. Indeed, if there was one point in early modern Europe
on which “Borromean” rhetorics42 and Jesuit rhetorics agreed, it was on the
39 Fumaroli, Héros et orateurs, 104.

40 On Caussin and his “devout Ciceronianism,” see Sophie Conte, ed., Nicolas Caussin: Rhé-
torique et spiritualité à l’époque de Louis xiii; Actes du colloque de Troyes (13–17 septembre
2004) (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007).
41 However, this Christian Platonism and the theory of image and analogy that underpins
it are not specific to the Jesuits: in France, Capuchins such as Yves de Paris (1588–1678)
or Carmelites such as Léon de Saint-Jean (1600–71) share this sensitive approach, which
combines contemplation and assimilation of the unique via the multiplicity. But it is
probably the Jesuits who went the furthest in that direction.
42 For Fumaroli, there existed throughout Europe a relatively homogeneous group of rheto
rics inspired by the Borromean ideal of the Christian orator, educated but humble and re
strained, ready to spread the ideology of the Counter-Reformation all over the continent.
This influential thesis has been questioned, at least for the Spanish context, by Manuel
orator’s importance as the mediator of divine truth, according to the prescrip

tions of the Council of Trent (1545–63). In other words, truth was not viewed as
something that should merely be found or demonstrated by philosophy or the
ology but also, and perhaps above all, as something that had to be announced,
shared, and spread; hence the importance of rhetoric. If the Jesuits viewed the
Christian orator, just as Jesus Christ or his apostles, as the agent par excellence
of salvation history,43 that is because they viewed him, rather than the theolo
gian or the philosopher, as the main spokesman for truth—and even, as Strada
exemplifies, as the man through which truth could “happen” in the world, de
spite the weaknesses and limitations of human language.
The precise role assigned to the orator was reevaluated in the course of
the development of the Jesuits’ rhetorical teaching in the Collegio Romano—
always in connection with the above-mentioned tension between unity and
multiplicity. As Tutino has demonstrated, while Perpiña began to invent a de
vout neo-Ciceronianism based on the differentiation between the content of a
speech and the multiple possible forms of this speech, Strada would later push
this approach further, so as to establish language “as the only possible mediator
between fixed and certain abstract knowledge and the concrete and mutable
world of men.”44
For Perpiña, whose work was informed by a well-established tradition of Ar
istotelian commentaries, the Christian orator did not have to be vir bonus to be
a good orator, since his task was only to communicate a truth provided by the
ology; whatever its stakes, rhetoric was mostly an instrumental conjectural ars,
which did not deal directly with truth, but rather with the probabile—which
is why it was not a scientia, an organized body of recorded knowledge. But far
from belonging to the realm of falsehood, this probabile (a concept which, for
Perpiña, encompassed the persuasive, the verisimilar, and the probable) could
only be recognized as such by men able to know the truth. In other words, for
Perpiña, the verisimilar was not merely something that had the deceptive ap
pearance of truth, as in Plato’s texts, but rather something that, according to
Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1.1.11), resembled the truth even though it was not prop
erly true—and also, according to a more Ciceronian inspiration, as something
that possessed some kind of epistemological validity in uncertain situations
or matters. In this perspective, rhetoric did not produce any genuine science
of things, but was a sort of creative method that could assist man in shaping,
López-Muñoz (see, for instance, his edition of Agostino Valier’s Retórica eclesiástica [Alm
ería: Editorial Universidad de Almería, 2014], 26).
43 See Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence, 140.
44 Tutino, Shadows of Doubt, 137.
90 Régent-Susini
formalizing, and transmitting knowledge. This privilege was therefore no lon

ger reserved solely to dialectics, as the medieval Scholastic tradition of com
mentators on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (such as Giles of Rome [1247–1316]) wanted
it to be. And rhetoric was also much more than a set of ornamental devices
aimed at arousing emotions and passions, as Petrus Ramus (1515–72),45 Omer
Talon (c.1510–62), and their followers seemed to claim while reserving to dia
lectics the task and power of rationally building, sorting out, and arranging
arguments.46
Strada’s Prolusiones academicae (Academic introductory lessons), as well
as his manuscript treatise De elocutione (On elocution), drew the appropriate
conclusions from the new status given to rhetoric as a means for reconciling, in
Roman Catholic unity, the multiplicity and diversity of human expressive forms.
According to this revaluation, the Christian orator was viewed as someone
who could face the numerous centrifugal challenges of the post-Reformation
(namely individualism, nationalism, and heresy) without betraying the
fundamental wholeness and unicity of the Catholic Logos. The fully developed
devout Ciceronianism of the second Renaissance thus aimed to embrace and
reconcile the past and the present, humanist culture and ecclesiastic culture,
to rehabilitate, against the defenders of ingenium (notably Joost Lips [Justus
Lipsius 1547–1606)] and Juan Huarte [1529–88]), the powers of ars rhetorica
and its active memoria. As a matter of fact, memoria, far from being opposed
to judgment, was for Strada a truly philosophical faculty, able to select and
associate elements of knowledge in a fruitful and critical way, and thus to
reconcile the individual and the tradition, the particular and the universal.47
However, memoria was not sufficient: in order to allow the Christian orator to
mediate between the atemporal and immutable truths of philosophical ratio
and the infinitely varied, unpredictable, and mutable world of humans, it had
to be combined with iudicium and ingenium.
One of the main means of ingenium was metaphor, which Strada not only
viewed as an ornamental simile (thus departing from the Roman tradition in
spired by Quintilian [35–100 ce]), but rather as a very efficient and creative
auxiliary in shaping, understanding, and communicating knowledge, and thus
45 Nevertheless, for a qualification of the opposition between dialectic and rhetoric in Ra
mus’s works, see Kees Meerhoff, “Agricola et Ramus, entre dialectique et rhétorique,”
Rodolphus Agricola Phrisius, 1444–1485: Proceedings of the International Conference at the
University of Groningen (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 279 (and Meerhoff, Rhétorique et poétique au
xvie siècle en France: Du Bellay, Ramus et les autres [Leiden: Brill, 1986]); and Véronique
Montagne, “Savoir(s) et rhétorique(s) à la Renaissance,” Noesis 15 (2010): 45–68, here 53.
46 See Tutino, Shadows of Doubt, 123ff.
47 See Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence, 193–94.
as a useful philosophical tool. Learning though metaphors, he wrote, is quick,

easy, and pleasant because it “is the most consonant with human nature” and
combines placere with docere by providing concrete representations for ab
stract notions and by condensing a variety of meanings into one phrase. But
there was more to it than a mere pedagogical strategy. For Strada, the very dy
namic “modus” of constructing metaphors was a genuine cognitive and heu
ristic activity.48 In his view, metaphors exemplified the quintessential powers
of language, which is both mediation and creation. What metaphors proved
was that, far from being only referential, language could become “an ‘event’
insofar as it expressed the dialectic relationship between reality and thought
and between objectivity and subjectivity.”49 Through language, both divine
and deeply rooted in human nature, men could not only inhabit their world
but also partake in its creation.
Therefore, while it brought absolute values from universal, abstract, and
timeless abstractions to “the more lowly human reality of time, places,
and circumstances,”50 such a rhetorical reflection on language’s functions and
creative powers also opened the ground for what could be called a “multidi
mensional” idea of truth, where several partial truths could coexist and even
interact. Truth, then, would not only appear as a unified and rationally con
structed whole (which could be contemplated) but also as the shimmering
horizon of the discourse (which could be approached and represented), and
as a dynamic process of representations creatively shaped by language (which
could be communicated).
4 Conclusion
At the heart of the first Jesuits’ thought was thus a subtle and challenging
double questioning, which actually is philosophical: To what kind of truth can
man have access? What should man do with it? Those questions far exceed the
teleological claims so often associated with the retrograde character, or con
versely, the modernity, attributed to the Jesuits’ early modern thinking. Indeed,
the philosophical value of the early modern Jesuit rhetorical explorations may
not actually rest on whatever content can be considered “modern”; instead, it
rested on their specific approach to the situation and action of man on earth,
48 See Tutino, Shadows of Doubt, 141.

49 Ibid., 143–44.
50 O’Malley, First Jesuits, 144.
92 Régent-Susini
on their attention to the particular and the local, on the deeply syncretizing51
and accommodating power of their practices, and finally on their assessment
of the human world as a fundamentally unstable and uncertain set of experi
ences. All of which was counterbalanced by their fascination with the power of
language and their questioning of its limits,52 which their rhetorical approach
es both exemplified and reflected upon.
Bibliography
Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. “‘Le style jésuite n’existe pas’: Jesuit Corporate Culture and
the Visual Arts.” In The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by
John O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy,
1:38–89. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Conte, Sophie, ed. Nicolas Caussin: Rhétorique et spiritualité à l’époque de Louis xiii;
Actes du colloque de Troyes (13–17 septembre 2004). Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007.
Dainville, François de. “La légende du style jésuite.” Études 287 (1995): 3–16.
Dekoninck, Ralph. Ad imaginem: Statuts, fonctions et usages de l’image dans la littéra-
ture spirituelle jésuite du xviie siècle. Geneva: Droz, 2005.
De Scorraille, Raoul de. François Suarez de la Compagnie de Jésus. Paris: Lethielleux,
1912–13.
Fabre, Pierre-Antoine, and Catherine Maire, eds. Les Antijésuites: Discours, figures et
lieux de l’antijésuitisme à l’époque modern. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes,
2010.
Forlivesi, Marco. “Francisco Suárez and the Rationes studiorum of the Society of Je
sus.” In Francisco Suárez and His Legacy: The Impact of Suárezian Metaphysics and
Epistemology on Modern Philosophy, edited by Marco Sgarbi, 77–90. Milan: Vita e
pensiero, 2010.
Fumaroli, Marc. “Cicero pontifex romanus: La tradition rhétorique du Collège romain et
les principes inspirateurs du mécénat des Barberini.” Mélanges de l’École française
de Rome: Moyen-Age, temps modernes 90, no. 2 (1978): 797–837.
51 Even if it was not perceived as such, this hybridizing trend, or what Schloesser, recall
ing Lévi-Strauss, names bricolage, could be a continuation of Aquinas’s eclecticism. See
Schloesser, “Recent Works in Jesuit Philosophy,” 113, citing Benjamin Hill, “Introduction,”
in The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, ed. Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 1–22, here 3–5.
52 For a remarkable attempt to connect early modern Jesuit investigations about the rela
tionship between language, human truths and the theological Truth to postmodernist
hermeneutics and philosophy, see Tutino, Shadows of Doubt.
Fumaroli, Marc. L’Âge de l’éloquence: Rhétorique et ‘res literaria’ de la Renaissance au

seuil de l’époque moderne. Paris: Albin Michel, 1980.
Fumaroli, Marc. “Définition et description: Scolastique et rhétorique chez les jésuites
des xvie et xviie siècles.” Travaux de linguistique et de littérature 18 (1980): 37–48.
Fumaroli, Marc. Héros et orateurs. Geneva: Droz, 1996.
Fumaroli, Marc. “The Fertility and the Shortcomings of Renaissance Rhetoric: The Je
suit Case.” In The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John
O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, 1:90–106.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Garstein, Oskar. Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia: Jesuit Educational
Strategy, 1553–1622. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1992.
Hill, Benjamin. “Introduction.” In The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, edited by
Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 1–22. Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 2012.
Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises. Translated by Ludovico J. Puhl, S.J. Chicago:
Newman Press, 1951.
Ignatius of Loyola. The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Translated by George E.
Ganss. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970.
Jonsen, Albert R., and Stephen Toulmin. The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Rea-
soning. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
Le Brun, Jacques. “La rhétorique dans l’Europe moderne.” Annales 37, no. 3 (1982):
481–88.
Maryks, Robert A. Saint Cicero and the Jesuits: The Influence of the Liberal Arts on the
Adoption of Moral Probabilism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
Maryks, Robert A. “A Jesuit’s Education in the Age of Fr. Matteo Ricci.” In Scienza, ra-
gione, fede: Il genio di Padre Matteo Ricci, edited by Claudio Giuliodori and Roberto
Sani, 103–11. Macerata: Edizioni università di Macerata, 2012.
Meerhoff, Kees. Rhétorique et poétique au xvi e siècle en France: Du Bellay, Ramus et les
autres. Leiden: Brill, 1986.
Meerhoff, Kees. “Agricola et Ramus, entre dialectique et rhétorique.” Rodolphus Agricola
Phrisius, 1444–1485: Proceedings of the International Conference at the University of
Groningen. Leiden: Brill, 1988.
Montagne, Véronique. “Savoir(s) et rhétorique(s) à la Renaissance.” Noesis 15 (2010):
45–68.
Mouchel, Christian. Cicéron et Sénèque dans la rhétorique de la Renaissance. Marburg:
Hitzeroth, 1990.
Neumann, Florian. Geschichtsschreibung als Kunst: Famiano Strada S.J. (1572–1649) und
die ars historica in Italien. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2013.
O’Malley, John. The First Jesuits. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
94 Régent-Susini
Régent-Susini, Anne. “La rhétorique d’exposition dans la controverse anti-protestante

du second xviie siècle: Irénisme ou violence? L’exemple de Bossuet.” In Concordia
discors, edited by Benoît Bolduc and Henriette Goldwyn, 55–63. Berlin: Günter Narr,
2011.
Régent-Susini, Anne. “Le ‘glaive nu’: Rhétorique de l’évidence et autorité religieuse
dans la France de la première modernité.” Mots: Les langages du politique 107, no. 1
(2015): 49–66.
Schiffman, Zachary. On the Threshold of Modernity: Relativism in the French Renais-
sance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Schloesser, Stephen. “Recent Works in Jesuit Philosophy: Vicissitudes of Rhetorical Ac
commodation.” Journal of Jesuit Studies 1 (2014): 105–26.
Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA, and London: Har
vard University Press, 1983.
Schwartz, Daniel, ed. Interpreting Suárez: Critical Essays. Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Toulmin, Stephen. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: Chicago
Tutino, Stefania. Shadows of Doubt: Language and Truth in Post-Reformation Catholic
Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Chapter 4
Jesuit Logic
E. Jennifer Ashworth
1 Background
1.1 Sixteenth-century Logic and the Ratio studiorum

In the sixteenth century, the study of logic underwent big changes, largely ow-
ing to the impact of humanism. New emphases on classical language and the
study of rhetoric led to a changed style of writing in which the very sophis-
ticated technical language used by medieval logicians was abandoned, along
with their use of sophismata or puzzle cases designed to test the use of logical
rules. At the same time, specifically medieval contributions to logic such as
supposition theory, consequences, and insolubles or semantic paradoxes were
either simplified or excluded. Some of the new logic texts in this tradition were
brief and insubstantial, but others, especially those by Jesuit authors, were also
influenced by scholarly humanism, which paid careful attention to the recov-
ery of Greek commentators and to the study of works by Aristotle in the origi-
nal Greek. Aristotle’s Organon had always formed the core of medieval logic
teaching, but in many ways Aristotle came to play an even more important
role for early modern authors, as is abundantly illustrated by the work of Jesuit
logicians.1
This work has to be seen in the context of an educational system that saw
logic as a prolegomenon to other studies, and as a guide to the key educational
tool of disputation, in which arguments for and against particular theses had
to be produced. The Jesuit Ratio studiorum set out the kind of logic to be taught
in Jesuit educational institutions during the first year. First of all, the teaching
1 For developments in logic, see E. Jennifer Ashworth, Language and Logic in the Post-medieval
Period (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1974); Ashworth, “Developments in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Centuries,” in Handbook of the History of Logic 2: Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic, ed. Dov
M. Gabbay and John Woods (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2008), 609–43. For Jesuit logic, see
Wilhelm Risse, Die Logik der Neuzeit: 1. Band 1500–1640 (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich
Frommann Verlag [Günther Holzboog], 1964), 359–439. All the original texts cited that are
not available in modern editions or reproductions are available on the internet in digitized
versions.

96 Ashworth
of Aristotle was to be followed in logic and other areas.2 Students were to start
with an overview. In the version of 1586, the Summula of Pedro da Fonseca
(Petrus Fonseca [1528–99]) was recommended, as being broader, clearer, and
closer to Aristotle, and without the useless perplexities (tricae) that deter be-
ginners. In the 1599 version, the recommendation was to use either Francisco
de Toledo (Franciscus Toletus [1533–96]) or Fonseca to explain what was most
necessary.3 The next step was the study of Aristotle’s Organon, and here some
material had to be excluded, or treated only briefly.4 As an introduction, the
student would consider the nature of logic, whether it was a science, and what
its subject was, before considering second intentions. The main discussion of
universals would be left to metaphysics. In other words, consideration of the
Isagoge by Porphyry (c. 233–309) was to be curtailed. Only the easier parts of
the Categories were to be considered, though attention should be paid to anal-
ogy and relations, since these issues frequently came up in disputations. The
second book of De interpretatione and both books of the Prior Analytics were to
be gone over briefly, except for the first eight or nine chapters of the first book
of the Prior Analytics (that is, those dealing with basic syllogistic). Questions
arising from these chapters were to be expounded, though future contingents
were to be treated briefly, and the problem of free will was not to be discussed.
So far as the Topics and Sophistical Refutations were concerned, their material
was better left to the orderly treatment found in the Summulae. At the end of
the first year, more time was to be devoted to matters that formed the prole-
gomena to the study of physics.
1.2 The Jesuit Logicians and Their Works

In what follows, I focus on a small group of authors, notable for the number
of editions their works received well into the first half of the seventeenth cen-
tury.5 In chronological order, these are the Portuguese Pedro da Fonseca, the
guiding spirit behind the Conimbricenses, that is, the Coimbra commentaries
on Aristotle; the Spaniard Francisco de Toledo, who taught at the Collegio Ro-
mano; the Spaniard Antonio Rubio or Ruvio (Antonius Rubius [1548–1615]),
who taught in Mexico; the Polish Marcin Śmiglecki (Martinus Smiglecius
[1564–1618]); and the Portuguese Sebastião do Couto (Sebastianus de Couto
2 G.M. [Georg Michael] Pachtler, ed., Ratio studiorum et institutiones Societatis Jesu: Tomus ii
(Berlin: A Hoffman & Co., 1887), 129–30 (1586 version).
3 Ibid., 131 (1586), 332 (1599).
4 Ibid., 332–34.
5 For bibliographical and biographical information about all those mentioned, see Charles H.
Lohr, Latin Aristotle Commentaries: ii; Renaissance Authors (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1988).
Jesuit Logic 97
[1567–1639]), who was responsible for the Coimbra commentary on Aristotle’s

logic.
Three other authors will be mentioned in my subsequent discussion. The
most widely published, well into the eighteenth-century, was the Fleming
Philippe du Trieu (Philippus du Trieu [1580–1645]). His works were elementa-
ry, and aimed at beginners. Much more substantial authors were the Spaniard
Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (Petrus Hurtadus de Mendoza [1578–1651]) and
the Italian Paolo Valla (Paulus Vallius [1561–1622]), who taught the philosophy
course at the Collegio Romano from 1587 to 1590, though his logical work was
published only once, at the end of his life in 1622. There are yet other Jesuit
authors whose works survive either in manuscript or in printed form, but it
is impossible to list them all here. One worth noting, however, is the largely
unknown Portuguese Hieronymus de Paiva, who published a summary of the
Coimbra logic in London in 1627.6 The title page describes him as a Lusita-
nian who had been a Jesuit but was now a member of the reformed church. In
his short book, he gives brief summaries of Aristotle’s material, followed by a
number of short questions. Here, we should note that the sections known as
questions (quaestiones) played a major role in all the Jesuit commentaries on
Aristotle. In them, a question was raised and arguments for and against an af-
firmative answer were produced, before a definitive solution was reached by
means of responses to these arguments.
The authors listed above produced two kinds of books. On the one hand,
there are Summulae, introductory compendia covering all the logic that an in-
troductory student ought to know. This was taken to include at least some of
the specifically medieval material, especially supposition theory, and covered
terms and their signification, propositions and the relations between them
such as opposition and contradiction, argumentation, including the syllogism,
topics, and fallacies. Du Trieu covered this material in a very short introductory
work, his Manuductio ad logicam (Guide to logic), which became a popular
text, published as late as 1748. In his introduction, he states that he will focus on
what is less difficult and more necessary, and therefore there is nothing about
modal propositions, exponibles, that is, propositions containing terms such as
“except,” which call for a special kind of analysis, or how to find the middle
term.7 Who, he went on to ask, would expose adolescents not yet skilled in
logic to such topics as beings of reason and relations? He does, however, dis-
cuss supposition theory, which examines the type and range of reference that
6 Hieronymus de Paiva, Brevissimum totius Conimbricensis logicae compendium (London: I.

Dawson, 1627).
7 Philippe du Trieu, Manuductio ad logicam (Oxford: Typis et Impensis Guil. Hall, 1662).
98 Ashworth
terms have in propositions. Fonseca’s8 and Toledo’s9 Summulae are much more
substantial, and, contrary to du Trieu, include discussions of modal proposi-
tions, exponibles, and how to find the middle term of a syllogistic argument.
Summaries of logic might also be included as an introduction to work on
Aristotle. This is the case for both Hurtado de Mendoza and Valla. Volume 1 of
Hurtado de Mendoza’s Disputationes a summulis ad metaphysicam (Disputa-
tions on issues from the Summulae [and other subjects] up to metaphysics)
is devoted to logic and starts with a discussion of material belonging to the
Summulae, such as terms and their properties, including supposition, and dif-
ferent types of proposition, including exponibles, before providing a series of
disputations on various points in Aristotle’s logic.10 Valla’s enormously lengthy
Logica of 1622 opens with a general introduction to logic, which includes a
brief discussion of terms and their supposition before moving on to a detailed
discussion of Aristotle’s Organon.11 He provides short paraphrases of Aristotle’s
text and annotations, before raising a series of questions.
Other works dealt solely with Aristotle, although of course references to
medieval contributions were often included in the course of the discussion. A
very brief treatment is that by du Trieu in his little work on the definitions and
rules for logic and physics drawn from Aristotle that was published as late as
1738. In the 1670 edition, each book of the Organon is covered in the first thirty-
eight pages, and material from Aristotle’s Physics up to his De anima is covered
in the remaining eighteen pages.12
More substantial work is found in the commentaries by Toledo,13 Couto,14
and Rubio.15 They start with general introductory questions about the nature
8 Pedro da Fonseca, Instituições dialécticas: Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo, ed. and
trans. Joaquim Ferreira Gomes (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1964).
9 Francisco de Toledo, Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis (Seville: Apud Alfonsum a
Barreda, 1577).
10 Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, Disputationes a summulis ad metaphysicam (Valladolid:
Apud Ioannem Godinez de Millis, 1615).
11 Paolo Valla, Duobus tomis distincta quorum primus artem veterem secundus novam com-
prehendit (Lyon: Ludovici Prost Haeredis Rouille, 1622).
12 Philippe du Trieu, Definitiones, divisiones ac regulae ex logica et physica Aristotelis (Liège:
Apud Joannem Mathiam Hovium, 1670).
13 Francisco de Toledo, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in universam Aristotelis Logi-
cam (Venice: Apud Iuntas, 1580).
14 [Sebastião do Couto], Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis e Societate Jesu: In universam
dialecticam Aristotelis (Cologne: Apud Bernardum Gualtherium, 1607; repr. Hildesheim,
New York: Georg Olms, 1976).
15 Antonio Rubio, Commentarii in universam Aristotelis Dialecticam (London: Typis Tho.
Harper, Impensis Rich. Whitaker, 1641). There are different editions with three slightly
different titles, including Logica Mexicana, and at least some differences in content.
Jesuit Logic 99
of logic or dialectic (using these terms interchangeably16) and its object. After a
presentation and discussion of Porphyry’s Isagoge, they then divide Aristotle’s
texts into chapters that more-or-less correspond to the sections in a modern
translation,17 and both Toledo and Couto give a full translation of each passage
chosen. The text is accompanied by commentary, followed, in most cases, by
questions on particular points. Rubio, on the other hand, gives only a brief
extract that would allow the reader to locate the relevant passage elsewhere.
He then offers an exposition of the passage, usually followed by discussions of
notable points (notabilia), or by sections on questions, or on doubts (dubia).
He also provides treatises on particular topics, including one on beings of rea-
son and another on analogy.
Contrary to what one might expect, none of these commentaries includes a
complete coverage of Aristotle’s Organon. Toledo limits himself to treating Ar-
istotle’s Categories, De interpretatione, and Posterior Analytics, though at least
some editions (e.g., those of 1580 and 1597) also include the text of the Book
of Six Principles attributed to Gilbert of Poitiers (1085/90–1154). Rubio covers
the Categories, book 1 of De interpretatione (Barnes 1–9), which ends with the
discussion of future contingents, and parts of book 1 of the Prior Analytics, be-
fore turning to parts of the Posterior Analytics. He then gives some selections
from the Topics and Sophistical Refutations. The fullest commentary is that
produced by Couto as part of the Conimbricenses. However, he too fails to pro-
vide complete coverage of Aristotle’s Organon. Having dealt with the Catego-
ries in volume 1, in volume 2 he covers De interpretatione before turning to the
first book of the Prior Analytics. Here, he deals with the first thirteen chapters
(Barnes 1–14), but has no questions on Chapters 4, 5, and 6. He also deals with
Chapter 29 (Barnes 28), but the remaining chapters of book 1 and all of book
2 are summarized. His treatment of the Posterior Analytics also includes sum-
maries of various parts, and the Topics and Sophistical Refutations are passed
over very quickly. In his preliminary letter to the reader, Couto explains that
short summaries are given lest the reader be led into the labyrinths of these
two works, and he recommends that they turn to Fonseca’s introduction to the
material they cover.
Finally, Śmiglecki confines himself to a series of lengthy questions on partic-
ular points relating to Aristotle’s logic.18 In Part 1, he discusses beings of reason
16 For discussion see, e.g., Fonseca, Institutiones, 20–2; Toledo, Introductio, fols. 3r–4r.
17 See Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Transla-
tion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). I give section numbers from Barnes in
parentheses.
18 Marcin Śmiglecki, Logica selectis disputationibus et quaestionibus illustrata (Oxford: Excu-
debat I.L. Impensis H. Crypps, E. Forrest, et H. Curteyne, 1634).
100 Ashworth
and the nature of logic before proceeding to the first operation of the intellect
(the formation of concepts), under which heading we find discussions of uni-
versals, of language, and of the categories. Part 2 covers the second operation
of the intellect (judgment) with more questions about language and different
types of proposition. Part 3 deals with the third operation (discourse) and in-
cludes syllogistic, demonstration, and science. There are no questions about
topics and fallacies, nor are there questions about the specifically medieval
contributions to logic.
2 Semantics
2.1 Signs and Signification

Logic had an explicitly cognitive orientation, since it was intended to help us
distinguish truth from falsehood and to enable us to reach knowledge of what
was known on the basis of what was already known. This made it essential to
the more important disciplines of physics and metaphysics, but it also meant
that logic, as the basis for rational investigation, had to start with an investiga-
tion of language taken in a broad sense as capturing both the way we speak
and the way we think. It was generally agreed that language had three levels:
written language, which was directly related to spoken language; and spoken
language, which in turn was related to mental language.19 Little attention was
paid to written language, but both the nature of spoken language and the rela-
tionship between spoken language, mental language, and the things that were
the objects of both speech and thought were the subjects of much discussion.20
It was also agreed that a compositionalist theory of language should be ad-
opted. Propositions were made up of terms, and their signification depended
on the signification of terms taken in their propositional context. In turn, in-
ferences were made up of propositions, and their validity depended on the
relationship between those propositions and their terms. At this point, the
semantic properties of significant terms, such as equivocation, analogy, and
supposition, became crucial, for a variation in these properties would invali-
date an inference. The starting point for semantic discussion, then, was indi-
vidual terms, and in particular, categorematic terms, those that can serve as the
19 See Fonseca, Institutiones, 32; Toledo, Introductio, fols. 19v–20r.

20 For fuller discussion and bibliography, see E. Jennifer Ashworth, “Medieval Theories of
Signification to John Locke,” in Linguistic Content: New Essays on the History of Philosophy
of Language, ed. Margaret Cameron and Robert J. Stainton (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2015), 156–75.
Jesuit Logic 101
subjects and predicates of propositions, rather than syncategorematic terms,

which are the quantifiers and other modifiers and connectives added to categ-
orematic terms in propositions.21
The most important property of categorematic terms was signification, and
significant terms were identified as signs since, as Toledo remarked, “for logi-
cians, to signify is to be the sign of something else.”22 This view had its origin
in Aristotle’s De interpretatione 16a3–8, which was read as saying that spoken
words were signs of concepts, and that concepts were the same for all and were
the similitudes of things. Aristotle did not say that concepts were signs, but by
the end of the Middle Ages the claim that they too were signs had become a
commonplace. As a result, Augustine’s definition of a sign in De doctrina chris-
tiana ii.i.1 as something that when presented to the senses led to a thought
(cogitatio) of something other than itself had to be supplemented, and signs
were divided into instrumental signs, to which Augustine’s definition applied,
and formal signs, which, as Fonseca put it, were the similitudes or species in
the cognitive powers by which we perceive the things signified. He added that
they were called formal because they form the cognizing power.23
Both kinds of sign were agreed to be representational, albeit in different ways.
Like earlier sixteenth-century authors, especially the very influential Dominican,
Domingo de Soto (1495–1560), Jesuit authors agreed that for something
to signify was for it to represent something to a cognizing power, whether
it did so directly or indirectly.24 The importance of this definition derives from
its focus on the psychological-causal nature of significant terms, which prevents
us from interpreting signification as exactly equivalent to meaning. Meanings
are not items to which terms are related in some way, whereas ordinary nouns
can signify or make known both individual things and concepts; and while
proper names do not have meaning, they are instituted to signify or make
known those who bear them. Moreover, while we might not want to say that
concepts have meaning, we can certainly say that they signify or make known
something.
The main focus of discussion for Jesuit and other logicians was the so-called
semantic triangle, the relationship between words, concepts, and things, but
21 See, e.g., Fonseca, Institutiones, 38.

22 Toledo, Introductio, fol. 21v: “Apud Logicos enim significare idem est, ac esse alterius
signum.”
23 Fonseca, Institutiones, 34.
24 Ibid.: “Significare nihil aliud est, quam potentiae cognoscenti, aliquid repraesentare.” Cf.
Couto, Commentarii 2, col. 7A. Couto’s long treatment of signs is available in translation:
John P. Doyle, The Conimbricenses: Some Questions on Signs (Milwaukee: Marquette Uni-
versity Press, 2001).
102 Ashworth
that discussion was preceded by a wide-ranging investigation of the distinc-

tion between natural and ad placitum signs. The latter phrase is often trans-
lated as “conventional,” but it has more to do with the belief that spoken words
were imposed, that is, instituted or made significant at the pleasure (placitum)
of an original impositor or impositors. Conventions could only arise when the
relevant community accepted that imposition. Formal signs were, as Aristotle
said, the same for all, and so were assumed to be natural without discussion,
but among instrumental signs two types of natural sign might be distinguished,
which I will call the sign as symptom or index, and the sign as a symbol. The
sign as symptom or index includes such standard examples as smoke and foot-
prints, which are causal effects of the things signified, while the sign as sym-
bol is something instituted to point the hearer to whatever it is a symptom of.
Thus a cock’s crow signifies its joy at finding food, and a man’s groan signifies
pain. Nonetheless, crowing and groaning are causally connected to what they
signify, and the actual sounds are not specially chosen but are the same for all.
How far such a distinction was justified was a matter of some dispute. Toledo
suggested that such sounds were instituted by nature to signify interior pas-
sions and should not be classed with smoke and footprints, and Rubio, who
only discussed human utterances, agreed that sighs and groans were instituted
by nature.25 On the other hand, Couto and Śmiglecki denied that these sounds
were anything more than symptoms, even though, Couto added, in the case of
human beings there may well be situations in which they voluntarily produce
groans and sighs in order to make their feelings known.26
The most important question raised was whether the articulate words ut-
tered by humans could be natural in the sense of involving sounds that some-
how mirrored the qualities of the things spoken about. This question was
usually linked with the passage in Genesis 2:19, which said that God brought
all the animals and birds to Adam to see what he would call them, and “what-
soever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof,” for this
suggested that there was a special link between Adam’s words and the na-
ture of the creatures he named. The claim that words could be natural in that
sense was rejected by Couto and Śmiglecki, except perhaps for a few cases of
onomatopoeia,27 and Couto took it that the best explanation of the remark in
Genesis was that the words Adam used were the words still used at the time
of Moses.28 Another theory, hinted at by Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–74) in his
25 Toledo, Commentaria, fols. 111vb–112ra; Rubio, Commentarii, 367A.

26 Couto, Commentarii 2, col. 56; Śmiglecki, Logica, 438.
27 Couto, Commentarii 2, cols. 54–9; Śmiglecki, Logica, 438–40.
28 Couto, Commentarii 2, col. 59. Moses was taken to be the author of Genesis.
Jesuit Logic 103
commentary In Peri hermeneias 1.4.47, had suggested that words could signify
naturally in the sense that their signification agreed with the natures of things
(quod eorum significatio congruit naturis rerum), but without any specifica-
tion of how this agreement came about. Toledo took this suggestion up and
suggested that when a skilled impositor produced names that agreed (conve-
niebant) with the natures signified, then we might call them natural through
exaggeration in the way that we call artefacts natural when they imitate nature
to the highest degree.29 Rubio, however, took Aquinas’s suggestion more seri-
ously, linking it to the view that God had endowed Adam with a special knowl-
edge of essences, but again without further explanation.30
2.2 Words, Concepts, and Things

Moving on to the main issue, we first have to ask what is meant by concepts
and things. Unlike earlier medieval authors, for whom “things” were common
natures, and the main issue had to do with the relationship between intelli-
gible species and common natures, the Jesuit logicians were happy to take it
that in ordinary cases the things spoken of were individual physical objects. If
I say “Some dogs are running,” I am not talking about concepts, even though
we have to have concepts for the words used to acquire signification, and even
though one of the purposes of speech is to make our thoughts known to other
people. Of course, as Couto noted, we might speak without thinking, inadver-
tently or while asleep, but what we utter will still signify because of common
usage.31
The notion of concept was a lot more complicated, as any explanation
involves important issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics that
can only be sketched briefly here. First of all, Jesuit logicians belonged in the
Thomistic tradition of moderate realism, according to which common natures
exist in two ways, either as characterizing individual objects without being
any kind of separable entity, or as universal concepts in the mind. Second,
concepts could be classified as formal, that is, as acts of mind, or as objec-
tive, that is, in Fonseca’s words, as “the thing which is understood insofar as it
is represented by the formal concept.”32 Third, the thing as understood could
29 Toledo, Commentaria, fol. 112ra–rb.

30 Rubio, Commentarii, 373B.
31 Couto, Commentarii 2, cols. 43–44.
32 Pedro da Fonseca, Commentariorvm in Metaphysicorvm Aristotelis Stagiritae Libros (Co-
logne, 1615; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms 1964), 1, col. 712: “Quia conceptus obiectivus
respondet conceptui formali, cum sit nihil aliud, quam res, quae intelligitur, quatenus per
formalem repraesentatur […].” References are to the volumes of the 1615 edition, the first
two of which are in vol. 1 of the 1964 edition.
104 Ashworth
be explained in terms of beings of reason (entia rationis), which only exist as

objects of thought. Beings of reason were defined as things whose being (esse)
depends on the operation of the intellect,33 though both Toledo and Couto
pointed out that not all things that have objective being can be called beings
of reason, for real things such as Socrates or his soul can also have objective
being insofar as they are cognized and thought about.34 They included those
things that either have a foundation in real things, as do genera and species, or,
like chimeras, exist only as objects of thought. They were particularly useful for
explaining how negations, such as “non-seeing,” privations, such as “blindness,”
and fictions, such as “chimera,” can have signification, though not all agreed on
a precise classification. Fonseca, for instance, made a sharp division between
non-beings (non-entia), beings of reason (entia rationis), and fictitious beings
(entia ficta),35 whereas Couto preferred the view that fictitious beings could be
included under either negation or relation, and so would fall under the tradi-
tional division of beings of reason into relations, negations, and privations.36
For present purposes, discussion will be confined to genera and species,
which were classified as relational beings of reason because they were reached
through a relational process of abstraction from individual entities.37 Given
the general agreement that the presence of concepts is a necessary condition
for significant speech, that concepts signify things directly, and that common
nouns are used to refer to individuals, the problem of the semantic triangle has
to do with the order of signification. That is, do spoken words such as “animal”
and “dog” primarily signify or make known the contents of our thought (i.e.,
common natures), or do they primarily signify or make known individual ani-
mals and dogs (albeit under a certain description)?38
Following Aristotle’s remark that words first signify concepts, in his dis-
cussion of supposition theory Fonseca spoke of common natures as the im-
mediate significates of spoken common nouns, whereas individuals were the
mediate significates.39 However, he also remarked that there was no need for
33 Toledo, Commentaria, fol. 8rb–va, fol. 15rb–va; Couto, Commentarii 1, col. 150.
34 Toledo, Commentaria, fol. 15va; Couto, Commentarii 1, col. 141.
35 Fonseca, In Metaphysicorvm 2, cols. 467–68, cols. 479–80.
36 Couto, Commentarii 1, cols. 155–58; but cf. 2, 50, which lists concepts of negation, beings of
reason, and fictitious beings (figmenta).
37 Toledo, Commentaria, fol. 14va, Couto, Commentarii 1, cols. 90–92.
38 The question whether these individuals should be taken to be past, present, future, or
possible existents depended on the propositional context, and was investigated in sup-
position theory: see Fonseca, Institutiones, 726–44.
39 Ibid., 2, 690–92.
Jesuit Logic 105
speakers to perceive their concepts, for the mind could fly directly to objects.40
Toledo enlarged on the idea that words have two significates by introducing a
further distinction, also used by Rubio and Śmiglecki, between signs that are
only manifestive, like smoke as a sign of fire, and signs that are both manifes-
tive and suppositive. Spoken words fall into the second group, for at one and
the same time they manifest or make known the concepts to which they are
subordinated, while they both manifest and supposit or stand for the things
signified.41 Thus if people say “A dog is running,” they show that they have a
concept of dogs but their reference is to a physical individual that is moving
in a certain way. Rubio added a further distinction when he argued that there
were two kinds of significate. The “significate by which” (quo) is the concept,
and the “significate which” (quod) is the thing. In relation to the first signifi-
cate, the spoken term signifies things at a remove, but in relation to the second
significate, it signifies things immediately.42
While Fonseca, Toledo, and Rubio presented a mainstream view, found in
ordinary school books such as that of du Trieu,43 both Couto and Śmiglecki
deviated. Couto, who gave a very thorough account of possible views of the
semantic triangle, argued that both the signification of concepts and the sig-
nification of things were immediate, because when words were instituted, the
impositors desired not only to convey their concepts but also to name things,
and these separate desires required different acts of imposition.44 Śmiglecki
argued that spoken words primarily and immediately signify things, and that
their relation to concepts is simply that of an effect to its cause. The interven-
tion of concepts is a necessary condition for the signification of things, since
no one can name a thing unless that thing is conceived, but unless I know
what things are being spoken of, I will never come to know what a speaker
has in mind. Hence words only signify concepts secondarily, by means of their
signification of things.45
2.3 Equivocation and Analogy

A very important problem relating to signification was how to explain the
use of words in different or extended senses. A background to the solution
was provided by Aristotle’s classification of terms in the opening words of
40 Ibid., 1, 36, 40.

41 Toledo, Commentaria, fol. 112ra–rb; Rubio, Commentarii, 367B–368A; Śmiglecki, Logica,
437.
42 Rubio, Commentarii, 367B–368A.
43 Du Trieu, Manuductio, 93–4.
44 Couto, Commentarii, cols. 34–45, especially col. 39.
45 Śmiglecki, Logica, 436–38.
106 Ashworth
the Categories, and the commentary by Boethius (c.480–525/26) on that pas-

sage, which included a distinction between purely equivocal terms that have
two unrelated significates and deliberately equivocal terms that have related
significates, such as “healthy” said of both an animal and its food. Deliberate
equivocation came to be called analogy, and both metaphysics and theology
used analogy to explain transcendental terms such as “being” (ens), which go
beyond Aristotle’s ten categories and which cannot be used in either exactly
the same sense or in totally different senses when applied to both substances
and accidents, God and creatures.46 The appeal to analogy also played a role
in philosophy of mind, for if the term “being” was used in different but related
senses, some account had to be given of the concepts that accompanied the
spoken word. The Ratio studiorum made it plain that logicians teaching the
Categories should discuss analogy in order to prepare students for disputa-
tions, and, one may assume, for advanced work in philosophy.
For the Jesuit logicians, the starting point for the discussion of analogy was
usually the framework provided by the short book on analogy by Thomas de
Vio, Cardinal Cajetan (Caietanus) (1468–1534), published in 1506 though writ-
ten earlier. Cajetan’s discussion arose out of fifteenth-century developments
and was novel in its emphasis on the analogy of proportionality, in which two
relations are compared to each other, and in which the properties signified,
notably being, are intrinsic. He claimed that this was the only proper kind of
analogy, and it formed his second division of deliberate equivocation. It also
embraced metaphor, if only as an improper subsection, because to say that
meadows are laughing is to say that flowering is to a meadow as laughing is to
a human being. Cajetan’s first division of deliberate equivocation was the less
important analogy of attribution.47 This had four types, corresponding to Ar-
istotle’s four causes, and involved only extrinsic properties, for a property like
health belongs to animals, but not to the food that causes their health.
Jesuit logicians responded to Cajetan in different ways. Toledo, whose dis-
cussion precedes that of Fonseca, confined the analogy of proportionality to
metaphor, and altered the divisions of the analogy of attribution.48 Fonseca
did not comment on the Categories, but his long discussion of analogy in his
commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics was influential.49 He rejected the claim
that attribution involved only extrinsic properties, and argued that in many
46 For discussion of analogy and full bibliography, see E. Jennifer Ashworth, Les théories de
l’analogie du xiie au xvie siècle (Paris: Vrin, 2008).
47 I omit reference to the division “analogy of inequality,” since everyone agreed that genus
terms were not genuinely analogical.
48 Toledo, Commentaria, fols. 44vb–45va.
49 Fonseca, In metaphysicorvm 1, cols. 701–10.
Jesuit Logic 107
cases, including “being,” the analogy of proportionality had to be based on at-

tribution. Couto followed Cajetan’s divisions quite closely, though he found it
“more probable” that the analogy of attribution could accommodate the view
that being was an intrinsic property on the grounds that attribution involves
only a dependence of the secondary analogate on the first.50 Rubio went fur-
ther and argued that the only true type of analogy was the analogy of attri-
bution, and he applied this claim to metaphor as well, explicitly disagreeing
with Toledo.51 Śmiglecki had an elaborate discussion of the general principles
behind attribution and proportionality, and accepted both kinds of analogy.52
3 Inference
3.1 Consequence and Argumentation

“Argumentation,” said Toledo, “is the chief instrument of dialectic, which we
use for proving unknown truths and warding off falsity.”53 The notion of argu-
mentation was closely related to the notion of consequence, though Toledo
tended to use the terms interchangeably.54 One of the main achievements of
medieval logicians had been the development of a theory of consequence that
provided sophisticated accounts of what constituted a formally valid conse-
quence and embraced not only syllogistic but also a wide variety of proposi-
tional and quantificational arguments. In their Summulae, both Fonseca and
Toledo gave the standard modal account of validity, whereby in a valid argu-
ment it is impossible to have a true antecedent and a false consequent,55 and
followed it by a straightforward substitutional account of formality whereby
an argument is formally valid if and only if all arguments of the same form are
valid.56 Materially valid consequences were those that held only because of a
relationship between the things signified. Thus “Man is an animal, therefore
he senses” is only materially valid because if we substitute “he neighs” we get
an invalid result.
50 Couto, Commentarii 1, cols. 305–24.

51 Rubio, Commentarii, 152A–153A.
53 Toledo, Introductio, fol. 15r [incorrectly numbered as 23].
54 See, e.g., Toledo, Introductio, fol. 87v: “Consequentia, seu Argumentatio.”
55 Fonseca, Institutiones, 332; Toledo, Introductio, fol. 16v, fol. 87v.
56 Fonseca, Institutiones, 334–38; Toledo, Introductio, fols. 87v–88v. For more discussion, see
E. Jennifer Ashworth, “The Scope of Logic: Soto and Fonseca on Dialectic and Informal
Arguments,” in Methods and Methodologies: Aristotelian Logic East and West, 500–1500, ed.
Margaret Cameron and John Marenbon (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 127–45.
108 Ashworth
The theory of consequence was regarded as problematic by some Aristote-

lians because Aristotle, according to later commentators, had divided all ar-
gumentation into four types, namely syllogism, enthymeme, induction, and
example,57 yet, as others argued, many consequences could not fall under this
classification. For instance, the rules of conversion might be regarded as en-
thymemes, and hence reducible to syllogisms. However, since they had to be
used in the validation of syllogisms in the second and third figures, they could
not be reduced to syllogisms and so had to form a separate group. Detailed
discussion of this and other issues had largely disappeared by the end of the
sixteenth century, but Fonseca, followed by Couto in his question “Whether All
and Only the Syllogism Is a Formal Argumentation,” were happy to agree that
the notion of consequence was wider than that of argumentation.58 They de-
scribed four kinds of consequence. First came consequences in which a state-
ment (enuntiatio) followed from itself or its equivalent. Following Boethius,59
Fonseca described this kind of consequence as ridiculous, even though it was
formally valid, and Couto said that it did not count as an example of discourse
(discursus). Śmiglecki, whose emphasis was always epistemic, argued that such
a consequence was not a true inference. A distinction between antecedent
and consequent was not only sufficient but necessary because knowledge of
the consequent had to stem from knowledge of the antecedent.60 Second came
consequences with the same categorical terms in the same order but different
syncategorematic terms, as in “Every man is an animal, therefore some man is
an animal.” Next came consequences in which the order of categorical terms
was reversed, as in simple conversion, and the syncategorematic terms may
vary (as in “It is necessary for all men to be animals, therefore it is necessary for
some animal to be a man”). Consequences of the second and third kinds could
be formally or materially valid. All these cases were grouped together by Couto
as embracing those consequences in which there is no categorical term in the
antecedent that does not appear in the consequent. The final case embraced
consequences in which the antecedent contained a categorical term that did
not appear in the consequent, as well as at least one that did.
Only this fourth type constituted genuine argumentation, and it was divided
into the usual four subspecies. Fonseca and Couto added that of these subspe-
cies only syllogisms are formal consequences, though perhaps some kinds of
57 See Topics (105a10–19) and Rhetoric (1355a4–8, 1356a36–b12).

58 Fonseca, Institutiones, 328–30, 338; Couto, Commentarii 2, cols. 265–70.
59 Boethius, De syllogismo categorico, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, in Patrologia Latina 64 (Paris,
1891), 822A: “Tales vero syllogismi quales nunc dicti sunt per ridiculi sunt, quod id quod
ante concessum est quasi dubium quiddam in conclusione colligitur.”
Jesuit Logic 109
induction are also formal. Here we need to note that “this fire” was regarded as
a singular term referring to an individual, whereas “fire” was a common term,
referring to a common nature, so the relevant conditions for a formal conse-
quence could be met in the argument “This fire burns, and this fire burns, and
this fire burns, and so for all the other fires [et ita reliqui ignes], therefore ev-
ery fire burns.” According to Fonseca, this argument, while formal, was not an
argumentation, because the premise is equivalent to the conclusion.61 Couto
preferred to say that it was a syllogism, and illustrated how not only induction
but enthymeme and example could be reduced to syllogisms.62 This type of
reduction, though popular, was opposed by Śmiglecki, who argued that the
reduction of enthymeme and induction to syllogistic form was unnecessary,
because they both had their own “force of concluding” (vim concludendi), en-
thymeme because of the evident connection between antecedent and conse-
quent, and induction because of its evident collection of particulars. Example,
however, was either an imperfect induction or a composite enthymeme.63
In light of the term-based approach to consequences and argumentation, it
is not surprising that one of the most discussed medieval problems was side-
lined, namely whether the derivation of any consequent whatsoever from an
impossible proposition, especially an explicit contradiction, was a formally
or materially valid consequence. By the mid-sixteenth century, discussion of
this issue had ceased, and the standard view, found in Fonseca and Toledo,
was simply that to say that an impossible antecedent implied anything merely
meant that an impossible proposition could imply either a necessary conse-
quent (“A man is a horse, therefore a man is an animal”) or a contingent con-
sequent (“A man flies, therefore a man moves”) or an impossible consequent
(“A man is a lion, therefore a man is a creature that roars [est rugibilis]”).64 As
the examples show, it was assumed that in each of these cases there would be
an obvious relationship between antecedent and consequent, and that at least
one term would appear in both antecedent and consequent.
It is also not surprising that the lists of acceptable consequences other than
those already mentioned were much simplified. In both Fonseca and Toledo,
we find short lists of principles and rules for consequence that focus on truth
(e.g., “If the antecedent is true, the consequent must be true”) and modal-
ity (e.g., “If the antecedent is necessary, the consequent must be necessary”),
though they did also include one or two more non-modal consequences such

62 Couto, Commentarii 2, col. 268.
63 Śmiglecki, Logica, 525.
64 Fonseca, Institutiones, 344; Toledo, Introductio, fol. 89v. The examples come from Toledo.
110 Ashworth
as “From the contradictory of the consequent, one may infer the contradic-
tory of the antecedent” and “What follows from the consequent also follows
from the antecedent.”65 Some more material is found in their discussions of
three types of hypothetical syllogisms, namely those for conditionals, conjunc-
tions, and disjunctions.66 Their presentation was much the same, though with
one important difference. Fonseca distinguished between the strong disjunc-
tion, which could only be true if one of the disjuncts was false, and the weak
disjunction, which was true when either one or both disjuncts were true, and
he gave rules for each kind, whereas Toledo only accepted the strong disjunc-
tion. The inference “(A or B) and A, therefore not-B” holds only for the strong
disjunction, whereas the inference “(A or B) and not-A, therefore B” holds for
both kinds.
3.2 Syllogistic
As we have seen in the previous section on argumentation, the categorical syl-
logism played a central role in medieval and early modern logic, but not quite
as it is found in twenty-first-century textbooks.67 All these sources agree that a
syllogism contains three terms, a middle term (M) that appears in each of two
premises, a major term (P) that appears in one premise and the c onclusion,
and a minor term (S) that appears in the other premise and the conclu-
sion. However, there is disagreement about how many are valid. In accordance
with medieval and early modern semantics, affirmative propositions with
non-referring subjects were said to be false, while their negative counterparts
were said to be true. This allowed all the inferences captured by the traditional
square of opposition to be valid, and it brought the number of valid categorical
syllogisms up to a possible twenty-four by allowing the validity of the subalter-
nate modes, those syllogisms with universal premises and a particular conclu-
sion that could be derived from valid syllogisms with universal premises and a
universal conclusion. Aristotle himself had focused on fourteen valid modes,
belonging to three figures. Later authors, following Theophrastus (c.372–c.287
bce), added five so-called indirect modes to the first figure, making nineteen
in all. Occasionally, medieval and early modern logicians brought the number
up to the full twenty-four by adding the five subalternate modes, but often they
were not mentioned.
One of the main subjects of discussion in the early modern period was
whether a fourth figure should be added to Aristotle’s three, and this problem
65 Fonseca, Institutiones, 342–50; Toledo, Introductio, fols. 89r–90v.

66 Fonseca, Institutiones, 430–38; Toledo, Introductio, fols. 113r–115r.
67 For full discussion, see Ashworth, Language and Logic, 224–52.
Jesuit Logic 111
was closely linked with two other questions: How is the major term to be de-
fined, and does each figure allow for indirect modes in which the major term
is the subject of the conclusion rather than its predicate? For a twenty-first-
century logician, the answer seems simple. The major term is to be defined as
the predicate of the conclusion, so no indirect modes are possible, and a fourth
figure is needed because figures are to be defined in terms of the position of
the middle term in two differentiated premises. That is, the case in which M is
the subject of the first premise and predicate of the second (first figure) must
be differentiated from the case in which M is the predicate of the first premise
and the subject of the second (fourth figure). Accordingly, the so-called indi-
rect modes of the first figure are in fact the incorrectly described direct modes
of the fourth figure, as can be seen if one transposes the premises and inter-
changes P (the major term) and S (the minor term). For instance, the first fig-
ure indirect syllogism Baralipton “All M is P and all S is M, therefore some P is S”
is rewritten as “All P is M and all M is S, therefore some S is P.” This rewriting
makes no logical difference, since the two conjunctions are equivalent, while
P and S are labeled as such only according to their position in the conclusion.
Thus, if the indirect conclusion was “All men are substances,” the new direct
conclusion will also be “All men are substances,” and we have a valid fourth
figure syllogism.
This kind of maneuver was foreign to the Jesuit logicians under consider-
ation, although it lies behind the process of syllogistic reduction. Couto and
Rubio explicitly dismissed the fourth figure, which Averroes (1126–98) had at-
tributed to Galen (129–c.210), as unnatural.68 Following Fonseca,69 Couto ex-
plained that, so far as the first figure was concerned, the major term should
be defined as that having the preeminent place. This meant that it had to be
predicated of the middle term, which would not be the case in the proposed
fourth figure. Rubio explained that, by making the major term subject of the
first premise, it would be wrongly put in the place of matter, and by making
the minor term predicate of the second premise, it would be wrongly put
in the place of form. We should note that the second and third figures were
allowable because at least one of the major and minor terms remained in its
appropriate position in the premises.
Fonseca, Toledo, Couto, and Rubio all accepted the indirect modes of the
first figure, but whether or not the second and third figures could have indi-
rect modes was a matter of discussion for Fonseca and Couto, especially as
the definition of the major term adopted for the first figure was not easily
68 Couto, Commentarii 2, cols. 355–62; Rubio, Commentarii, 421B–422A.

112 Ashworth
applicable.70 Toledo had used the common medieval definition, whereby the
major term was simply the subject or predicate of the first premise, for all three
figures,71 but this was not the preferred definition for Fonseca and Couto where
the second and third figures were concerned. They mentioned it as a possibil-
ity, along with another definition whereby the major term was the predicate
of the question that preceded the syllogism, but they adopted the definition
whereby the major term was the predicate of the conclusion. As they both
pointed out, this removed the possibility of indirect modes for those figures.
Although Toledo had adopted a definition that allowed for indirect modes
of the second and third figures, his interpretation only countenanced some
of the possible modes that Couto had listed before dismissing them.72 Toledo
started with the direct modes and then appealed to the conversion rules for
the universal negative and particular affirmative conclusions. That is, from “No
S is P” one can derive “No P is S,” and from “Some S is P” one can derive “Some
P is S.” These principles, together with the principle that what can be derived
from the conclusion can also be derived from the premises, validate just two of
the possible indirect modes for the second figure and just three for the third.
4 Influence
Judging by the printing history of Jesuit logical texts, they were widely used in
European institutions, not to mention the Spanish colonies in the New World,
and their far-reaching influence is clearly illustrated by a study of Oxford Uni-
versity, which was a Protestant institution in a firmly Protestant country. Two
Jesuit texts were published in Oxford, Śmiglecki’s Logica (1634, 1638, 1658), and
du Trieu’s Manuductio (1662, 1678), while Hieronymus de Paiva’s Compendium
(1627) and Rubio’s Commentarii (1641) were published in London. Jesuit texts
were recommended in student guides, principally one written about 1650 and
no later than 1652, which is probably by the Oxford dignitary Thomas Barlow
(1608/9–91). He listed du Trieu—whose Manuductio is “a short, & a rationall
Systeme of Logicke”— Śmiglecki, Rubio, Toledo, Hurtado de Mendoza, Couto,
and Valla as well as one Dominican and Jacopo Zabarella (1533–89).73 He noted
that the Dominican Diego Mas (Didacus Masius [1553–1608]) and Valla were
70 Fonseca, Institutiones, 368–70; Couto, Commentarii 2, cols. 362–66.

71 Toledo, Introductio, fol. 91v.
72 Ibid., fols. 97v–99v; Couto, Commentarii 2, cols. 362–63.
73 Alma de Jordy and Francis Fletcher Harris, eds., “A Library for Younger Schollers” Compiled
by an English Scholar-Priest about 1650 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1961), 1.
Jesuit Logic 113
best for beginners, “by reason of their perspicuitie,” and that Śmiglecki, Rubio,
and Toledo were for the more mature. Finally, he remarked that Hurtado de
Mendoza “hath more difficultie, & subtiltie then [sic] the rest,” and so demand-
ed readers of more understanding. A large part of Barlow’s work is copied in
one of the John Locke (1632–1704) manuscripts, though only the headings are
in Locke’s hand.74 The Locke manuscripts also include notes on du Trieu’s log-
ic, though probably not in Locke’s own hand,75 and in the lists of the books his
tutorial students bought between 1661 and 1662, we find the names of du Trieu
and Śmiglecki, the latter twice.76 Du Trieu also featured in Locke’s own library.
It would be going too far to suggest that these authors influenced Locke’s own
thought, and the use of Jesuit logicians seems to have been largely confined to
undergraduates; nor was this contrary to the principles of the Ratio studiorum,
which saw logic as to be studied in the first year. Nonetheless, it is obvious that
teachers appreciated the scholarly approach of the Jesuits along with their full
coverage of what were taken to be relevant issues. Indeed, the leading figures
still repay study today.
Bibliography
Ashworth, E. Jennifer. Language and Logic in the Post-medieval Period. Dordrecht and
Boston: D. Reidel, 1974.
Ashworth, E. Jennifer. “Developments in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” In
Handbook of the History of Logic 2: Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic, edited by Dov
M. Gabbay and John Woods, 609–43. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2008.
Ashworth, E. Jennifer. Les théories de l’analogie du xiie au xvie siècle. Paris: Vrin, 2008.
Ashworth, E. Jennifer. “The Scope of Logic: Soto and Fonseca on Dialectic and Infor-
mal Arguments.” In Methods and Methodologies: Aristotelian Logic East and West,
500–1500, edited by Margaret Cameron and John Marenbon, 127–45. Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2011.
Ashworth, E. Jennifer. “Medieval Theories of Signification to John Locke.” In Linguistic
Content: New Essays on the History of Philosophy of Language, edited by Margaret
Cameron and Robert J. Stainton, 156–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Barnes, Jonathan, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation.
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985.
74 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Locke e 17, 44–71.

75 MS Locke f 33, fols. 8r–25r and 175v–174v.
76 MS Locke f 11: fol. 8r and fols. 10v–11v.
114 Ashworth
Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus. De syllogismo categorico. In Patrologia Latina, ed-

ited by Jacques-Paul Migne. Vol. 64. Paris, 1891.
[Couto, Sebastião do]. Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis e Societate Jesu. In uni-
versam dialecticam Aristotelis. Cologne: Apud Bernardum Gualtherium, 1607; repr.
Hildesheim, New York: Georg Olms, 1976.
Doyle, John P. The Conimbricenses: Some Questions on Signs. Milwaukee: Marquette
Du Trieu, Philippe. Manuductio ad logicam. Oxford: Typis et Impensis Guil. Hall, 1662.
Du Trieu, Philippe. Definitiones, divisiones ac regulae ex Logica et Physica Aristotelis.
Liège: Apud Joannem Mathiam Hovium, 1670.
Fonseca, Pedro da. Commentariorvm in Metaphysicorvm Aristotelis Stagiritae Libros.
Cologne, 1615; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms 1964.
Fonseca, Pedro da. Instituições dialécticas: Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo. Ed-
ited and translated by Joaquim Ferreira Gomes. Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra,
1964.
Jordy, Alma de, and Francis Fletcher Harris, eds. “A Library for Younger Schollers” Com-
piled by an English Scholar-Priest about 1650. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1961.
Lohr, Charles H. Latin Aristotle Commentaries: ii; Renaissance Authors. Florence: Leo
S. Olschki, 1988.
Mendoza, Pedro Hurtado de. Disputationes a summulis ad metaphysicam. Valladolid:
Apud Ioannem Godinez de Millis, 1615.
Pachtler, G.M. [Georg Michael], ed. Ratio studiorum et institutiones Societatis Jesu: To-
mus ii. Berlin: A Hoffman & Co., 1887.
de Paiva, Hieronymus. Brevissimum totius Conimbricensis logicae compendium. Lon-
don: I. Dawson, 1627.
Risse, Wilhelm. Die Logik der Neuzeit: 1. Band 1500–1640. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fried-
rich Frommann Verlag (Günther Holzboog), 1964.
Rubio, Antonio. Commentarii in Universam Aristotelis Dialecticam. London: Typis Tho.
Harper, Impensis Rich. Whitaker, 1641.
Śmiglecki, Martcin. Logica selectis disputationibus et quaestionibus illustrata. Oxford:
Excudebat I.L. Impensis H. Crypps, E. Forrest, et H. Curteyne, 1634.
Toledo, Francisco de. Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis. Seville: Apud Alfonsum a
Barreda, 1577.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in universam Aristotelis logi-
cam. Venice: Apud Iuntas, 1580.
Valla, Paolo. Duobus tomis distincta quorum primus artem veterem secundus novam
comprehendit. Lyon: Ludovici Prost Haeredis Rouille, 1622.
Chapter 5
Jesuit Psychology and the Theory of Knowledge

Daniel Heider
1 Introduction
Although Jesuit philosophical psychology of the sixteenth and the first decades
of the seventeenth century was mostly united against secular Aristotelianism,
exemplified by “the sects” of the Alexandrists and the Averroists, doctrinal vari-
ety conflating the panoply of Scholastic streams with important ingredients of
the neo-Platonic and medical tradition can be seen as a typical feature of the
early Jesuits’ philosophical syncretism.1 Despite this doctrinal heterogeneity,
the goal of this chapter is to propose what I regard as an important “paradigm
shift” in the development of the early (Iberian) Jesuits’ psychology. It has been
claimed that Jesuit philosophers of the third generation, such as Pedro Hurta-
do de Mendoza (1578–1641), Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667), and Francisco de
Oviedo (1602–51), substantially revived the Scholastic via moderna.2 This histo-
riographical hypothesis about the crucial role of late medieval nominalism—
there are, as yet, very few studies on the matter—will be verified on two issues
typical of the period, both of which can be viewed as variants of the classical
problem of “the one and the many.” First, there is the query about the char-
acter of the distinction between the soul (the principle of unity) and its vital
powers (the principle of plurality). Famously, critiques of the Scholastic theory
of really distinct accidents (i.e., powers interceding between the soul and its
acts; henceforth, the real distinction thesis [rdt]) constituted a representative
piece of the philosophical agenda for early modern philosophers in general.3
1 For Jesuit syncretism, see Daniel Heider, “Introduction,” in Cognitive Psychology in Early
Jesuit Scholasticism, ed. Daniel Heider (Neunkirchen-Seelscheid: Editiones Scholasticae,
2016), 1–11.
2 For Hurtado, see Ester Caruso, Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza e la rinascita del nominalismo nella
Scolastica del Seicento (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1979); for Arriaga, see Stanislav Sousedík
and Tereza Saxlová, eds., Rodrigo de Arriaga (†1667): Philosoph und Theologe (Prague: Karo-
linum, 1998). For the influence of late medieval nominalism on Oviedo, see Daniel Heider,
“The Notitia intuitiva and Notitia abstractiva of the External Senses in Second Scholasticism:
Suárez, Poinsot and Francisco de Oviedo,” Vivarium 54, no. 2–3 (2016): 173–203, here 192–200.
3 For a critique of Descartes and John Locke (1632–1794), see Dominik Perler, “Faculties in Me-
dieval Philosophy,” in The Faculties: A History, ed. Dominik Perler (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2015), 97–139, esp. 97–100.

116 Heider
The second issue is the gradual elimination of the intentional species (species
intentionales).4 As is well known, mainstream Scholastic thinkers conceived
intentional likeness as a necessary principle in explaining the production of
cognitive acts. They were regarded as necessary “mediators” between sensible
objects and cognitive powers. The flat reduction of the intentional species to
their “mechanicized” counterparts epitomized the second important topos for
philosophers and scientists active in the era of the scientific revolution.5 Im-
portantly, proponents of both real identity between the soul and its powers
(the real identity thesis [rit]) and of (partial) elimination of the species are far
from restricted to traditional early modern philosophy. Not only can they be
found in late medieval nominalism and even before in medieval Augustinian-
ism and late ancient philosophy;6 both views were firmly established parts of
the early Jesuit philosophical curriculum on the eve of modernity.
This chapter compares Suárez’s rdt and his theory of the universal appli-
cability of the sensible species in the external senses with Mendoza’s rit and
his tenet of only partial applicability of the external senses’ sensible species.
The following (chronological) objection can immediately be raised. Although
Suárez wrote his commentary on De anima in the first half of the 1570s in
Segovia, it was not published until 1621, while Hurtado’s Universa philosophia
(Universal philosophy) was published for the first time six years earlier, in 1615.
If we (rightly) assume that no essential innovations were made by Hurtado in
the relevant parts of the Cursus, he could not react explicitly to Suárez’s views.
Three partial replies can be proposed to defend the historical and the system-
atic merit of this comparative project: (1) Although Hurtado does not quote
from the commentary on De anima, he cites Suárez’s psychological views from
4 For the process of elimination of the intelligible species, see Leen Spruit, Species intelligibi-
lis: From Perception to Knowledge, vol. 2, Renaissance Controversies, Later Scholasticism, and
the Elimination of the Intelligible Species in Modern Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1995); see also
Katharine Park, “The Organic Soul,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed.
Charles B. Schmitt et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 464–84.
5 For the Cartesian “mechanicized Aristotelianism” of the theory of visual perception, see Ce-
lia Wolf-Devine, Descartes on Seeing: Epistemology and Visual Perception (Carbondale: South-
ern Illinois University, 1993).
6 For the rit of William of Auvergne (c.1180/90–1249), see Perler, “Faculties in Medieval Philos-
ophy,” 100–5; regarding Ockham’s rit combined with his “soul–mind dualism,” see Dominik
Perler, “What Are the Faculties of the Soul? Descartes and His Scholastic Background,” in
Continuity and Innovation in Medieval and Modern Philosophy: Knowledge, Mind, and Lan-
guage, ed. John Marenbon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 9–38, esp. 25–31. Ockham’s
elimination of the intentional species is examined by Katherine H. Tachau, Vision and Cer-
titude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology and the Foundations of Semantics 1250–1345
(Leiden: Brill, 1988), 130–35.
Jesuit Psychology and the Theory of Knowledge 117
his Metaphysical Disputations. As we will see, Suárez’s position is often an im-

portant theoretical reference point for Hurtado. (2) Suárez’s manuscript of the
De anima commentary may have circulated in Jesuit schools before Balthasar
Álvarez (1534–80) “editio princeps” in 1621.7 (3) Suárez’s above-mentioned
theories were not unique in Iberian Jesuit philosophy but were advocated by
Francisco de Toledo (1515–82) and the Coimbran authors, among others.8
2 Vital Powers, the Soul, and Their Distinction
2.1 Francisco Suárez

Suárez analyzes the nature of the distinction between the soul and its powers
in the first question, “Whether the Powers of the Soul Are Distinct from Its
Essence,” of the third disputation, On the Powers of the Soul in General, of his
commentary on On the Soul (hereafter: DA 3, 1).9 The methodological signifi-
cance of the question is fundamental for Suárez since his entire psychology is
a psychology of the faculties. With the exception of DA 1 and DA 2, devoted to
the soul itself, and (the last) DA 14, on the separated soul, all the other disputa-
tions deal with “active (vital) potencies” and their acts.
The status quaestionis of DA 3, 1 is delimited by two opposing method-
ological/doctrinal statements. On the one hand, there is a formulation of
“Ockham’s Razor” (i.e., the heuristic idea that plurality must never be posited
without necessity). It is not an overstatement to say that this regulative prin-
ciple governs Suárez’s whole De anima commentary. If Aristotle characterizes
7 For the information about Álvarez’s edition, see Francisco Suárez, Commentaria una cum
quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis, ed. Salvador Castellote (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y
Publicaciones, 1978), 1:xxxix–xli.
8 For rdt, see Francisco de Toledo, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros de Ani-
ma, ed. Hermannus Mylius (Cologne: Officina Birckmannica, 1615; reprint: Hildesheim: Olms
Verlag, 1985), In ii de anima, cap. 4, q. 9, 69v: “Potentiae animae & inter se, & ab anima seu
subiecto, realiter distinguantur”; Collegium Conimbricensis, In tres libros de anima, In ii de
anima (Cologne: Impensis Lazari Zetzneri, 1609; reprint: Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2006), c. 3,
q. 4, art. 2, 152: “Amplectenda tamen est sententia D. Thomae [et] […] asserentium omnes
potentias distingui re ipsa ab anima […].” For the universal applicability of the sensible spe-
cies in external sense perception, see Toledo, In ii de anima, c. 12, q. 33, 109v: “Nullus sensus,
nec interior, nec exterior, potest obiectum suum exterius percipere, nisi recepta specie &
qualitate aliqua ab eo”; and the Conimbricenses, In ii de anima, c. 11, q. 3, art. 1–3, 333: “Omnes
enim sensus […] speciem requirunt, tanquam principium ad cognitionem necessarium.”
9 Francisco Suárez, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima, ed. Sal-
vador Castellote (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1981), 2:DA 3, q. 1, 54–83.
118 Heider
the soul as the principle of its operations,10 real distinction of the soul and
its powers does not seem to be necessary. On the other hand, Aristotle also
mentions the (ontological) imperfection of created souls and substantial
forms in general. Considering this limitation, the soul cannot be directly op-
erative as a principle. Its causal agency is “exhausted” by informing the body
(Aristotle’s first definition of the soul), according to which the soul is “the first
actuality of a natural body possessed of organs.”11 Without the really distinct
instruments, the (human) soul or the material composite of the soul and the
body could not exercise the various activities such as vegetative, sensitive, and
intellectual acts.12
Before arriving at the final (for Suárez, second) conclusion affirming the dis-
tinction in re between the soul and the powers as probable, Suárez first argues
for the weaker (Scotistic) ex natura rei distinction. Clearly, the vital powers
have a different definition than the soul. While the soul qua soul is essentially
related to the body, the powers qua powers are related to the operations. How-
ever, assuming the notion of real definition, Suárez argues that the character-
ization of the soul and the characterization of the powers entail the ex natura
rei distinction. Furthermore, if the powers and the soul were not (at least) for-
mally distinct, the intellect would love and the will would understand. If they
were not extramentally distinct, by the principle of transitivity of identity, the
powers of the soul would be mutually identical. The specifically different intel-
lectual and volitional operations would thus remain without explanation since
“the One would swallow the Many.”13
In the next step, Suárez argues for the real distinction in greater detail. De-
spite his lengthy reasoning, most of the paragraphs are related to a critique of
Thomas Aquinas’s (1224/25–74) arguments for rdt. Following the text of the
Summa theologiae 1, q. 77, art. 1, the model text for all Jesuit philosophers ana-
lyzing the issue, Suárez critically evaluates two arguments from the body of the
article.14 In the first one, Aquinas says:
10 In his De anima, book 2, Chapter 2, Aristotle says that “the soul is the origin of the
characteristics we have mentioned, and is defined by them, that is by the faculties of
nutrition, sensation, thought and movement” (Aristotle, On the Soul [Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2000], 413b11–13, 77). It is also the case that in the immedi-
ately preceding context (413b2–8) the above-mentioned characteristics can be taken as
operations.
11 Ibid., 412b5–6, 69.
12 DA 3, 1, 1, 56.
13 Ibid., 3, 1, 6, 62.
14 Suárez also presents Aquinas’s third argument from Summa theologiae 1, q. 54, art. 3. I will
not introduce it since it is not analyzed by Hurtado.
Since potency and act divide being and any genus of being, it is necessary
that they refer to the same genus. Hence, if act is not in the genus of sub-
stance, potency, which is related to this act, also cannot be in the genus
of substance. Operation of the soul is not in the genus of substance; only
in God does it hold that his operation is his substance. Hence, the power
of God, which is the principle of operation, is the divine essence. This can
be true neither for the soul, nor for any creature […].15
Every operation must be preceded by a categorially corresponding potency.

Since operation is part of the category of accident, its power must be an acci-
dent as well. This holds for all the souls and the substantial forms of creatures
in general. Only in God are we not obliged to posit rdt. In all other beings, rdt
is a necessary consequence of this (as Aquinas thinks, deductive or a priori)
argument.
Suárez unequivocally rejects this argument as demonstrative reasoning.
Aquinas’s crucial assumption (i.e., that no created substance or substantial
form can directly exercise efficient causality in its operations) is not true for
Suárez. “The common denominator” of Suárez’s rejoinder is based on the op-
posite claim of the proximate causal efficiency of the soul. Although he agrees
that the soul is primarily related to its body, in the same breath he adds that it
is secondarily related to its acts. Whereas concerning the former he agrees that
both “relata” must be parts of the same category—the soul and the body per-
tain (reductively) to the category of substance—categorial uniformity is not
required in the latter case.16 Suárez’s claim about the immediate efficiency of
the substantial form is demonstrated by the example of the substantial form
of water. In line with the qualitative physics of Aristotle, he says that the telos
of the substantial form of water is the (primary) quality of coldness. If water is
heated by fire, and “moved” outside its “teleological coldness,” and if the fire is
then removed from it, water returns to its natural telos. For Suárez, the restitu-
tion of the original quality is the result of the direct efficiency of water’s (sub-
stantial) form. Importantly, the substantial form of water not only generates
the formal but the efficient causality as well. Clearly, although the substantial
15 “ Cum potentia et actus dividant ens et quodlibet genus entis, oportet quod ad idem genus
referatur potentia et actus. Et ideo, si actus non est in genere substantiae, potentia quae
dicitur ad illum actum, non potest esse in genere substantiae. Operatio autem animae
non est in genere substantiae; sed in solo Deo, cuius operatio est eius substantia. Unde
Dei potentia, quae est operationis principium, est ipsa Dei essentia. Quod non potest esse
verum neque in anima, neque in aliqua creatura […]”; Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ed.
Leonina (Rome, 1889), 1, q. 77, art. 1, corp., 236 [my translation].
16 DA 3, 1, 7–8, 64–6.
120 Heider
form of water and the quality of coldness are parts of different categories, the
form of water is still related to the quality as cause to effect. If the soul can thus
produce acts of a different category, the in re distinction between the soul and
its powers is not necessary. The soul itself can be causally accountable for the
production of its operations.17
In his second argument, Aquinas says the following:
For the soul according to its essence is an act. If the soul were the immedi-
ate principle of its operations, it would always have to operate according
to every mode of living; as it always lives in an act. Insofar as [the soul] is
a form, it is not ordered to a further act; it constitutes the ultimate term
of generation. The fact that [the soul] is in potency to another act does
not belong to [the soul] according to its essence insofar as it is a form but
only according to its potency. As far as the various operations of life are
concerned, the soul is not always in act […]; the essence of the soul is not
its power. Nothing is in potency according to act insofar as it is an act.18
If the soul were the proximate principle of its operations, it would have to be
continuously active in all kinds of its vital operations. Since the soul as the first
act of an organic (living) body is continuously in act, if it were directly active
in its operations, the same would have to be said about its operations ad extra
as well. However, this is at odds with our experience. While living, we do not
exercise all our (possible) activities. Besides, contrary to the powers, which can
be perfected by operations and habits, the soul cannot be perfected by another
act since, as the terminus of generation, it is already perfect. It can acquire im-
provability only through really distinct powers.
Suárez is clear that this argument shows at most the formal distinction be-
tween the soul and the powers. It only shows that the soul is not a power in
the way in which it is the form of the body. It proves that the soul qua formal
17 Ibid., 3, 1, 8, 66. For this argument, see also Francisco Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae,
in Opera omnia, ed. Carol Berton (Paris: Apud Ludovicum Vives, Paris, 1861), 25:DM 15, 1, 8,
500.
18 “Nam anima secundum suam essentiam est actus. Si ergo ipsa anima esset immediatum
operationis principium, semper habens animam actu haberet opera vitae; sicut semper
habens animam actu est vivum. Non enim, inquantum est forma, est actus ordinatus ad
ulteriorem actum, sed est ultimus terminus generationis. Unde quod sit in potentia adhuc
ad alium actum, hoc non competit ei secundum suam essentiam, inquantum est forma;
sed secundum suam potentiam. […] Invenitur autem habens animam non semper esse in
actu operum vitae […] essentia animae non est eius potentia. Nihil enim est in potentia
secundum actum, inquantum est actus.” Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ed. Leonina (Rome,
1889), 1, q. 77, art. 1, corp., 236–37 [my translation].
cause differs formaliter from the soul qua efficient cause. The formal distinc-
tion is sufficient to explain the following state of affairs: while according to one
formality, namely the formality of the soul qua formal cause, the soul is con-
tinuously in actu, according to the second formality (i.e., the soul qua efficient
cause), the soul is in actu only at times.19 This can be confirmed by the follow-
ing two examples. One and the same accident of heat can formally heat up the
subject in which it inheres, and only at times heat up a different subject; one
habitus can be continuously in actu as informing its subject, and the same hab-
it can be in actu only at times if conceived as the principle of the operations.20
However, if from Suárez’s point of view Aquinas’s arguments are inconclu-
sive, how does the Jesuit actually argue for rdt? Surprisingly, given his exten-
sive critique of Aquinas’s arguments, Suárez has nothing else to present other
than one “probabilistic” argument, to which he appends one supportive ex-
ample. In a link to the spirit of Aquinas’s reasoning, in which the imperfection
and limitation of the substantial forms of created beings form the fundamen-
tal axiom, real compositionality of the soul and the powers must be posited.
Metaphysically speaking, this imperfection of created substantial forms is to
be explained by rdt. It is not that the soul as such is proximately operative.
It is proximately operative through really distinct instruments. Similarly, fire
can heat up water only by virtue of its necessary accident of heat, a stone can
fall only due to its quality of weight, and so on. Besides this general argument,
Suárez also points out the organic and operational variety in the external sens-
es. Their diversity can be taken as further supportive confirmation of real dis-
tinction among the external senses. Since sensory organs are given to humans
and brutes (by God or by nature) for the sake of the powers, the real organic
diversity evinces their real distinction. But if they differ realiter, they must be
realiter distinct from the soul as well.21
2.2 Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza

Suárez’s (admittedly weak) substantiation of rdt did not go unnoticed by
Hurtado: “Although they [Suárez and Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604)] say that
the powers are distinguished from the soul, they ingenuously admit that it is
far from easy to prove it.”22 At the same time, Hurtado is aware of the doc-
trinal and methodological tension in Suárez. In accordance with DA 3, 1 and
19 DA 3, 1, 10, 66–8.
20 DA, 3, 1, 11, 68.
21 DA, 3, 1, 14, 70–2.
22 Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, Universa philosophia, ed. Louis Prost (Lyon: Haeredis Rouillé,
1624), De anima, disp. 4, Sec. 4, §63, 525: “Suarez supra & Vazquez, licet aiunt potentias ab
anima distingui, fatentur tamen ingenue id haud facile posse probari.”
122 Heider
DM 18, 5, 2,23 Suárez on the one hand endorses the causal proximate concur-
rence of the soul in its acts, while on the other, he still advocates rdt.24 Like
Suárez, Hurtado rejects Aquinas’s arguments because of the thesis of the direct
active concurrence of the soul in its operations, which he, like Suárez, takes as
the fundamental reason for rdt. This censure can be found in the first section,
“Who Denies Active Concurrence of the Soul in Acts of the Intellect?,” in the
fourth disputation, On the Powers of the Soul, of his Universa philosophia.
Against Aquinas’s first argument, Hurtado employs an argument ad homi-
nem. At variance with the premise of categorial uniformity of potency and acts,
Aquinas states that only accident, not substantial form, proximately concurs
in the generation of a new substance.25 Hurtado adduces a popular example
about the production of fire from flax brought to the burning hearth.26 Shortly
after the flax is brought to the hearth, it bursts into flame and a new substan-
tial form of fire is produced. What causally concurs in the production of this
new substance? For Aquinas, it is the quality of heat.27 If it is the accident of
heat, which has the virtus to produce the new substance, then the premise
of Aquinas’s argument, namely that potency and its act must be “located” in
the same genus, cannot be generally true since the heat and the substance of
fire are not part of the same category. There is no a priori obstacle for the soul’s
direct causal concurrence in the operations. Consequently, cross-categorial ef-
ficiency is a possible state of affairs.28
While the upshot of his critique of Aquinas’s first argument does not differ
from that of Suárez, Hurtado’s reply to the second argument reveals an impor-
tant difference. In contrast to Suárez, Hurtado advocates only a conceptual
distinction between the powers and the soul. He rejects extramental distinc-
tion between the soul qua first act and the soul qua principle of operations.
If the soul is to be conceived adequately, it cannot be framed as a substantial
23 Suárez, DM 18, 5, 2, 628.

24 Hurtado, De anima, disp. 4, Sec. 4, §56, 524.
25 For this claim in Aquinas, see Summa theologiae 1, q. 77, art. 1, ad 4: “Forma accidentalis
est actionis principium, habet a forma substantiali. Et ideo forma est primum actionis
principium, sed non proximum.” This is the passus, to which Hurtado refers as well.
26 For this example, see also Suárez, DM 18, 2, 22, 606, where he employs the same example
in his argument for the proximate concurrence of the substantial form in its operations.
Cf. Hurtadoʼs same view in Universa philosophia, Physica, disp. 9, Sec. 3, subsectio 2, §28,
252, where he refers to Suárez DM 18, 2.
27 For Suárez’s interpretation of Aquinas, see Suárez, DM 18, 2, 9, 601.
28 In this connection, Hurtado also applies the same argument as Suárez, namely the self-
reduction of the substantial form of water to its original coldness. See Hurtado, Physica,
disp. 9, Sec. 3, subsectio 2, §25, 252.
form exercising its formal causality without at the same time being grasped
as the efficient principle of this or that operation ad extra.29 He agrees with
Aquinas that, while the soul continuously animates the body, it is not always
active ad extra. However, he explains this diversity not by endorsing rdt but
by simply recurring to the real distinction between the entity of form and the
entity of operation. While the entity of form is continuously animating the
body, it is not continuously operative ad extra since its operations are really
distinct from it.30
In the positive part, Hurtado opens with a couple of references to Augustine
and to medieval Augustinians, who “anticipated” his rit.31 In his systematical
argumentation, Hurtado starts from the conclusion of the first section in the
fourth disputation. If the soul concurs as the efficient cause directly in the acts
(in fact, he speaks of intellectual ones),32 and the subject of the immaterial op-
erations is the soul, then distinct powers are redundant. It is one and the same
soul that immediately understands and loves.33 Why introduce real distinction
between the intellect and the will if the proponents of rdt do not postulate
the same distinction between, say, the speculative and the practical intellect
or between the apprehending and the judging intellect? All that is necessary
for the production of intellection are the soul and the impressed (intelligible)
species. Since the indifference or indetermination of the soul is sufficiently
revoked by the species, there is no need to consider the power of intellect as a
really distinct power. While the vitality of cognitive acts is guaranteed by the
soul, the aspect of this or that intellection is provided by the species.34 Any
other entity beyond that is fully dispensable.35
29 Hurtado, Universa philosophia, De anima, disp. 1, Sec. 2, §8, 475: “Idem namque est esse ac-
tum primum corporis apti ad accipiendam vitam, ac esse primum principium talis vitae.”
See also Hurtado, De anima, disp. 4, Section 1, §10, 519.
30 Ibid.
31 Much space is devoted to the pseudo-Augustinian text Liber de spiritu et anima, from
which he quotes the passages supporting rit. This text was probably written by Alcher of
Clairvaux (d. c.1180), a Cistercian monk, in the second half of the twelfth century. For this
text and the author, see Teresa Regan, “A Study of the Liber de spiritu et anima: Its Doc-
trine, Sources and Historical Significance” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1948). Besides
Alcher, Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) are also cited by Hurtado.
32 This is also an argument ad hominem against Suárez. For this, see Hurtado, De anima,
disp. 4, s. 4, §56, 524.
33 Ibid., s. 4, §69, 526.
34 Ibid., §68, 526.
35 Ibid., §67, 526.
124 Heider
In the second argument, Hurtado refers to Summa theologiae 1, q. 77, art. 6,

corp.:
All the powers of the soul, whether their subject is only the soul or the
composite, flow from the essence of the soul as from its principle since,
as said, accidents are caused from the subject insofar as [this subject] is
in act, and received in it insofar as it is in potency.36
If at the outset the soul is the efficient principle of its powers—“flowing” must
be taken as an instance of efficient causality—a fortiori it must be the efficient
principle of its operations, since powers are more perfect than operations.
Suárez’s “probabilistic” argument from the imperfection of created beings is
pointless. Hurtado makes it clear that there is no imperfection in the soul’s
operation without really distinct powers.37
How does Hurtado evaluate Suárez’s supportive argument for rdt based
on the organic variety in the external senses? With the exception of touch, the
organ of which is spread all over the body, of course, Hurtado acknowledges
their distinction. The organ of vision is located in the pupil; the organ of hear-
ing is in the inner part of the ears, and so on. He also agrees with Suárez’s
inference that advocacy of real distinction of the material powers from the
material composite (their subject is not the soul but the material composite)
is (logically) connected with the espousal of real distinction between the im-
material powers and the soul.38 Nevertheless, at variance with Suárez, he is
convinced that both internal and external senses are identical with the whole
material composite, more precisely with the part in which a particular sense
inheres (the sense of sight is identical with the pupil, etc.). Unlike the pow-
ers of intellect and will, whose principle is simple, the material powers have a
composite principle. One part, namely the soul, is active, the other, the body,
is passive. This compositionality, not real distinction among material powers,
is the reason why the external senses and all the material powers are really dif-
ferent from the immaterial faculties of intellect and will.39
36 Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ed. Leonina (Rome, 1889), 1, q. 77, art. 6, corp., 246: “Unde
manifestum est quod omnes potentiae animae, sive subiectum earum sit anima sola, sive
compositum, fluunt ab essentia animae sicut a principio: quia iam dictum est quod ac-
cidens causatur a subiecto secundum quod est actu, et recipitur in eo inquantum est in
potentia.”
37 Hurtado, De anima, disp. 4, s. 4, §70, 526.
38 Ibid., §59, 524.
39 Ibid., §61, 525: “Sensus enim interni, & externi sunt idem adaequate cum toto composito
secundum eam partem, in qua resident: hoc enim differt intellectus a sensu, quod intel-
lectus est unum simplex principium activum & receptivum intellectionis: sensus vero est
3 The Sensible Species of the External Senses
3.1 Francisco Suárez

Suárez characterizes the intentional (impressed) species as follows: “[The in-
tentional species are] as if instruments of a kind, by virtue of which cognizable
objects are united with the cognitive power […].”40 The intentionality of these
species (i.e., their representational character) does not imply that they are not
real beings. They are real accidents (i.e., qualities of disposition).41 They are
not of the same kind as the objects of which they are likenesses. The visual spe-
cies of red color is not red. When emitted from the sensible object, the sensible
species of red color does not alter the medium of air realiter.42 Unlike the in-
telligible species, they are material and divisible.43 But despite this materiality,
Suárez still calls them formal likenesses of the sensibles.44 Although he often
speaks about the “spiritual” character of the species, literally speaking, they are
not immaterial. They are “spiritual” since they are more subtle than the quali-
ties they represent. They are traces (vestigia) of those qualities.45 Unlike the
species of phantasy, which can inhere in the power when the sensible is gone,
the species of the external senses, naturally speaking, in their esse and fieri, de-
pend upon the sensibles existing here and now.46 Though they are conceived
as formal likenesses, they are likened to semen.47 This ultimately makes them
virtual representations (i.e., the represented sensible object cannot be known
in them), rather than perfect formal likenesses reserved for the vital quality of
the cognitive act.48 Suárez conceives this vital quality as the expressed species
(species expressa).49
Concerning the existence of intentional species in general, Suárez’s conclu-
sion is clear: “The unity of an object with the power is necessary in all cogni-
tions [my italics].”50 As to the external senses, this (intentional) union holds
principium compositum, includens unam partem activam (quae est anima) & alteram
passivam (quod est corpus).”
40 Suárez, DA 5, 2, 1, 296: “Species sunt quasi instrumenta quaedam per quae communiter
obiectum cognoscibile unitur potentiae cognoscitivae […].”
41 Ibid., 5, 2, 2, 296; ibid., 5, 2, 23, 324.
42 Ibid., 5, 2, 8, 306–8.
43 Ibid., 5, 2, 17, 316–18.
44 Ibid., 5, 2, 21, 322–24.
45 Ibid., 6, 2, 6, 474–76.
46 Ibid., 6, 5, 4, 520.
47 Ibid., 5, 2, 21, 322.
48 Ibid., 5, 2, 9, 308.
49 For the expressed species, see ibid., 5, 5, 368–413.
50 Ibid., 5, 1, 3, 286: “Unio obiecti cognoscibilis cum potentia est necessaria in omni cog-
nitione.” For the necessity of the species in Suárez, see also Salvador Castellote, Die
126 Heider
not only for the “distal” external senses such as sight, hearing, and smell but
also for the “contact” senses (taste and touch).51 How does Suárez argue for
the sensible species in all the external senses? In line with the tradition of per-
spectivism, which stresses the visual experience, the Jesuit introduces several
visual experientiae. It suffices to mention the popular “mirror experience” to
give a sense of all of them. Ordinarily, we cannot see objects behind us. They
can be seen only if a mirror is set in front of us. How can the vision of an object
a tergo in the mirror be explained? The only way is to assume that something
(i.e., a visual likeness) is linearly emitted from the sensible to the mirror, in
which it gets reflected to our eyes. Suárez is sure that what can be seen in the
mirror are not visual species or images different from the sensible. It is the
sensible itself, and its cognition is mediated by the visual likeness emitted from
the visible object. Underlying the essential difference between true colors and
light (lumen)—the first is a secondary quality resulting from the mixture of
elements in the object including the real quality of light52—Suárez rejects the
interpretation reducing this phenomenon to the quality of light. The bare re-
flection of light cannot explain the vision of the object at the back.53
Although the spreading of sound in medio (for Suárez, its medium is not
only air but also water) is often accompanied by the vibration of air, intentional
multiplication is essential for the elicitation of an auditive act. Since there is
no other plausible explanation of the elicitation of an auditive experience, in
some cases we have to assume that sound in medio is multiplied only inten-
tionally. The first example is the hearing of remote sounds. It is not probable to
say that we can hear the voice of someone standing on a distant hill only by vir-
tue of a real and continuous alteration of the air. Hearing over such distances
is more likely to proceed through the multiplication of the audible species.
The audible species, being subtler entities than the represented qualities, can
reach remoter places than the quality of sound. The second phenomenon that
can only be explained by postulating intentional propagation is “the epistemo-
logical localizability of sounds.” If we embraced a purely naturalist explana-
tion (i.e., without the audible species), there would be only two ways in which
to make sense of the operation of hearing. Either we would say that numeri-
cally one and the same sound (i.e., one portion of vibrating air) “travels” from
nthropologie des Suarez: Beiträge zur spanischen Anthropologie des 16. und 17. Jahrhun-
A
derts (Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 1962), 112.
51 For this, see below.
52 DA 7, 2, 8, 582–86.
53 Ibid., 5, 1, 4, 288.
the sonorous objects to the ears, or that the sound reaches the ears by virtue
of the successive percussion of parts of the air leading continuously from the
sonorous object to the organ. If the first were the case, the numerically one and
the same sound could be heard in different places. However, naturally speak-
ing, this multi-location of one piece of air in different places is not possible. If
the second option were true, we would hear only the sound lying just next to
the ears, and the legitimate assumption of the substantial possibility of local-
izing sounds would have to be abandoned. As a result, the audible species are
necessary in explaining the process of auditive perception elicitation.54
Suárez shows the existence of odorous species by the same arguments as in
the case of audible species.55 Vultures can smell a carcass from a distance of
at least fifty miles. But it is not credible to claim that they perceive it by virtue
of a real diffusion of the smoky vapor. Even though, as the case of the bubonic
plague shows, vapor can be spread by wind to remote spots, the diffusion of
the real quality of odor does not explain how vultures can find the place where
the carcass is actually lying. It is improbable to say that the whole way from the
carcasses to the vultures is continuously “paved” by the carrion vapor. Besides,
if the real diffusion of odor up to the nose were the only principle, only smell
proximate to the nose could be perceived. The species would represent only
the odor lying next to the percipient’s nose. This would no doubt impede the
very possibility of localizing the odoriferous source.56 Besides these two argu-
ments, Suárez underlines that not only air but also water can be the medium of
smell diffusion. However, since odor is the quality in which the first qualities of
dryness and heat prevail, odor cannot be diffused underwater realiter. The only
way to explain the perception of fish is to posit the multiplication of odorifer-
ous species in water.57
Whereas the species of the “distal” senses seem to be posited because of
the distance to be “bridged” (actio in distans is impossible), the “contact” sens-
es of taste and touch seem to be different. When affected by the tasteable, a
secondary quality with the dominance of heat and moisture, and when “hit”
by the tangibles—for Suárez, primary and secondary qualities (hardness and
softness, etc.)—both sensory powers necessarily undergo material alteration.
54 Ibid., 7, 8, 7, 670–72.
55 Ibid., 7, 11, 3–4, 702–4: “Quod illa realis evaporatio [perveniat usque ad olfactum] non
tamen esse necessarium, sed [sufficere] species intentionales […] Et haec sententia est
mihi probabilior.”
56 Ibid., 7, 11, 4, 704–6.
57 Ibid., 7, 11, 2, 700.
128 Heider
Upon touching snow, our hands get cold; coming close to fire, our bodies are
heated up; while eating sweet food, our tongue gets a sweet coating, and so on.
Even though Suárez admits this material alteration as a necessary concomitant
feature,58 he argues for the inevitable application of the tasteable species and
the tangible species too. His crucial argument is based on the thesis that both
senses perceive not the qualities inherent in the tongue or in the flesh or skin
of the body (which constitutes the tactile organ), but only the qualities of ex-
ternal things tangential to the organs.59 The case of taste is clear. It is part of
our experience that taste does not perceive qualities inherent in the tongue
but those of food. The instance of tactus is more difficult. Suárez presents four
arguments for the non-perception of inherent qualities. First, touch does not
perceive qualities inherent in its organ because the other senses do not sense
them either. Second, if it perceived them, it would have to apprehend them all
the time since there always are some qualities inherent in a percipient’s body.
This is at odds with our dynamic experience, though. Third, touch perceives
the tangibles by being deflected from its “neutral setting.” Only if this setting
is deflected by, say, a thermal extreme, can it feel the quality of an external ob-
ject. Accordingly, we feel a greater heat better than that inherent in the body.
Coming close to fire, we quickly feel its heat. When removing our hand from it,
we quickly feel its lesser intensity. Lastly, touch does not perceive only the pri-
mary qualities of heat and cold or dryness and moisture. It is also affected by
secondary qualities such as hardness and softness. Apparently, these qualities
do not inhere in the organ. Since touch constitutes only one external sense for
Suárez, there must be the same mode of apprehension in all of its operations.
If our hand does not sense the quality of hardness inherent in it, the same has
to be said about the tactile perception of the first qualities of heat and cold as
well.60
If both “lower” powers do not perceive the qualities inherent in the organs
but only those of the external sensibles, it cannot be said that material alter-
ation is all that is needed to explain the production of gustatory and tactile
operations. Intentional affection is necessary too.61 It is only due to the imper-
fection of the two senses and their proper sensibles that intentional modifica-
tion must always be accompanied by the material alteration of the organs.62
58 Ibid., 7, 13, 6, 730–32.

59 Ibid., 7, 13, 3, 722: “Gustus et tactus non sentiunt qualitates suis organis [inhaerentes], sed
qualitates rerum afficientium ipsos.”
60 Ibid., 7, 13, 4, 722–28.
61 Ibid., 7, 13, 5, 728: “Hi duo sensus immutantur [a suis obiectis] per species intentionales.”
62 Ibid., 7, 13, 6, 730.
3.2 Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza

In line with Suárez, Hurtado defines the intentional (impressed) species as the
“quality which as vicar of the thing is given to the cognitive power so as to
concur with it [in the production] of a [cognitive] act.”63 It is the thing’s proxy
like a viceroy is a king’s deputy. The impressed species constitutes only virtual
representation.64 Virtual likeness means an obscure likeness of the thing. It
is obscure because the prototype cannot be recognized in its image.65 Perfect
(formal) likeness can be attributed only to the expressed species, the final vital
“product” of cognitive elaboration. The impressed species is not the likeness in
which the thing is at first apprehended. If it were, the external senses would
not trigger intuitive apprehension but only abstractive and discursive cogni-
tion.66 The species cannot be of the same kind as the sensible object since
one color cannot be seen through another one.67 As against the sensibles, the
species are conceived as less perfect entities ontologically dependent on the
sensibles from which they are emitted.68 They are entitatively material and
divisible.69 The impressed species concur in the production of the (vital) cog-
nitive act as partial efficient instrumental causes.70
In patent contrast to Suárez, Hurtado rejects the theory of universal appli-
cation of the sensible species to all the external senses. He is willing to admit
the existence of the species only in the two noblest external senses, namely in
sight and hearing. Like his critique of the real distinction between the soul and
its powers, Hurtado’s critique of the universal applicability of the sensible spe-
cies in all the external senses is based on an ad hominem argument as well. This
time, Hurtado starts from Suárez’s specification of the existential conditions
of the (intelligible) species. According to Suárez, they are to be posited only if
the objects are distant or disproportionate to the cognitive power.71 However,
these existential conditions are met only in the operations of sight and hearing.
63 Hurtado, Universa philosophia, De anima, disp. 12, §1, 610: “Est ergo species impressa quali-
tas quae loco obiecti praebetur potentiae cognoscitivae, ut simul cum illa concurrat ad
actum.”
64 Ibid., disp. 12, Sec. 4, §61, 618.
65 Hurtado, De anima, disp. 6, Sec. 5, §155, 553–54.
66 Ibid., disp. 12, Sec. 4, §56, 617–18.
67 Ibid., §57, 618.
68 Ibid., Sec. 6, §83, 621.
69 Ibid., Sec. 5, §66, 619.
70 Ibid., Sec. 4, §63, 618.
71 He explicitly refers to Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations, disp. 35, Sec. 4n18, 464: “Species
intelligibilis poni solet, vel ut objectum intelligibile in potentia fiat intelligibile in actu,
vel ut objectum quod erat separatum aut distans et improportionatum, conjungatur vel
proportionatur potentiae.”
130 Heider
There must be visual species emitted from the visible object since the vis-
ible is not (and cannot be) in touch with the visual power. In line with the
Aristotelian theory of intromission,72 Hurtado says that the visible must concur
efficiently in the formation of the visual act. This determinative concurrence
can proceed only by reception of the visual species, which stands for the extra-
mental sensible. Hurtado also denies that this determination of the “indiffer-
ent” power can be provided by light. Light is essentially different from color.73
One of the numerous experientiae Hurtado presents is “the mirror experience.”
If a mirror is set before an observer, he can see even the objects behind him.
They are visible because visual species are emitted from the objects.74 Audible
species also have to be posited. If an auditory act is to be elicited, the “transfer”
of some likeness of sound from the sonorous thing to the organ of hearing
is necessary. Even though the eardrum can be harmed by material alteration
such as a strong blow of the wind, Hurtado is clear that intentional affection is
the fundamental principle of the production of auditory acts. He employs the
same arguments as Suárez does. We can hear distant sounds whose physical vi-
bration cannot reach our ears. These are not only sounds coming from remote
places but also human words or music. Further, we would not be able to detect
the place from which the sound came if only the quality of sound reached
our ears. If the naturalist explanation were applied, we could hear only sounds
lying next to the ears.75
While Suárez professed full analogy between hearing and olfaction, Hurta-
do underscores their disparity. This disanalogy can be seen in Hurtado’s very
definition of odor. Odor (including stench) is a secondary quality composed
not only of the primary qualities of dryness and heat but of moisture too. Con-
trary to the redolent odors, moisture is prevalent in stenches. Since bad smell
is commonly the sign of corruption, and corruption comes from humidity, the
quality of moisture must be its essential component as well.76 Importantly,
precisely this inclusion of moisture in the temperamentum of odor is the rea-
son why Hurtado, unlike Suárez, can explain the diffusion of odor underwater
only by means of the propagation of the real quality of odor. Consequently, he
does not need to recur to intentional affection.77 In a nutshell, Hurtado does
not see any situation in which odoriferous species would have to be posited.
72 For Suárez’s refusal of the theory of the visual rays’ extramission coming from the eyes to
the visible objects, see Suárez, DA 7, 4, 600–20.
73 Hurtado, De anima, disp. 12, Sec. 1, §2, 610.
74 Ibid., §4, 610.
75 Ibid., §7, 611.
76 Ibid., disp. 17, Sec. 4, §32, 680.
77 Ibid., §34, 680.
Rejecting the analogy between hearing and olfaction, he says that smell can-
not trace the source of the sensed odors. If it seems that it sometimes can, it is
not due to the reception of the odoriferous species but due to the percipient’s
approaching the odoriferous thing.78
In his very brief argument for the dispensability of tasteable and tangible
species, Hurtado explicitly refers to Suárez’s “existential conditions of the in-
tentional species.” Tasteable things and tangible things are neither physically
distant from nor disproportionate to their powers. In agreement with Suárez,
Hurtado says that there is no experience of tasting or touching without mate-
rial alteration of the organs. However, unlike Suárez, Hurtado asserts that this
kind of material unity between the powers and the sensible objects is fully
sufficient for eliciting the respective perceptions since (in line with Ockham’s
Razor) Many is not to be posited if One is possible. Hurtado mentions no ar-
gument from the non-perception of qualities inherent in the percipientʼs or-
gans. He underlines that tasteable things and tangible things in their physical
presence are fully proportionate to the relevant organs and powers. Since both
the organs and their proper sensibles are “the coarsest,” they do not require a
subtle motive in the form of the sensible species. Hurtado also compares their
modus percipiendi to angelic “species-less” self-knowledge. Angels can know
themselves through their own substance without the mediation of intelligible
species.79
4 Conclusion
The doctrinal shift illustrated by the comparison above cannot be said to hold
for all Jesuit philosophers who wrote their commentaries on De anima or Cur-
sus philosophici at about the same time as Suárez and Hurtado did. As historian
Ulrich Leinsle showed, as early as at the beginning of the 1570s, there were au-
thors such as Antonius Balduin (c.1533–85) of the University of Dillingen who
openly advocated rit and who explicitly inclined to the overall rejection of
the sensible species as a necessary principle in the production of the external
senses’ operations.80 Nonetheless, turning to the Iberian Peninsula and to the
commentaries on De anima written by the main philosophical representatives
78 Ibid., disp. 12, Sec. 1, §7, 611.

79 Ibid., §11, 611. For Suárezʼs claim, see DM 35, 4, 18, 464.
80 Ulrich G. Leinsle, Dilinganae Disputationes: Der Lehrinhalt der gedruckten Disputationen
an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Dillingen 1555–1648 (Regensburg: Schnell
and Steiner, 2006); for Balduin’s embracement of rit, see 360; for Balduinʼs denial of the
sensible species, see 388.
132 Heider
of the Society of Jesus in the last decades of the sixteenth century and in the
first decade of the seventeenth century, it is possible to say that rdt and the
theory of the universal applicability of the sensible species were loci commu-
ni. The doctrinal situation changed with the advent of the new philosophical
genre of Philosophical Courses, which were authored by the aforementioned
nominalists such as Mendoza, Arriaga, and Oviedo, who wrote their system-
atic manuals in the first half of the seventeenth century. In fact, all these post-
Suárezian Jesuits advocated rit as the more probable doctrine. All grounded
this theory unequivocally in the crucial statement about the soul’s proximate
efficient causality in its operations. For all of them, this teaching constituted
the sententia communis of their time. With the exception of the schola nomina-
lium, they all referred to Augustine and to medieval Augustinianism as the his-
torical antecedents of their doctrine.81 No less clearly, they disputed Suárez’s
claim about the sensible species conceived as a necessary principle in the pro-
duction of sensation in all the external senses. Even though they varied in the
number of the external senses in which they admitted the sensible species—
Arriaga, like Hurtado, accepts sensible species in the powers of sight and hear-
ing, while Oviedo recognizes sensible species only in visual perception—all
argued against Suárez’s view of the universal applicability of the sensible
species. Moreover, all inclined to a naturalist explanation of the elicitation of
perceptual acts in all the “lower” external senses, which was strongly substanti-
ated by the extensive employment of the inductive method.82
Thus despite the typical syncretism in the philosophical teaching of the
early Jesuit authors, the doctrinal and methodological shift based on

the decisive role of Ockham’s Razor constitutes an important milestone in
81 For Arriaga’s and Oviedo’s rit, see Rodrigo de Arriaga, Cursus Philosophicus, De anima,
ed. Balthasar Moretus (Antwerp: Ex officina Plantiniana, 1632), disp. 3, Sec. 4, subsectio
4n118 669: “Ultima ergo & vera sententia omnes potentia, nulla excepta, realiter identifi-
cat cum anima”; Francisco de Oviedo, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 2, De anima (Lyon, 1663),
controversia 3, punctum 2n8 45: “Animae, quae de facto dantur nullas habent potentias
superadditas.” For the decisive emphasis on the soul’s causal efficiency in early modern
Scholasticism, see Robert Pasnau, “Form, Substance, and Mechanism,” Philosophical Re-
view 113, no. 1 (2004): 31–88, here 38–9; Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes 1274–1671 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011), 101–18; Helen Hattab, Descartes on Forms and Mechanisms
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 64; Perler, “Faculties in Medieval Philoso-
phy,” 136–39.
82 Arriaga, Cursus philosophicus, De anima, disp. 4, Sec. 1, subsectio 5n47, 681: “In gustu, ol-
factu, & tactu non dantur species impressae. Haec est communis […]”; Oviedo, Cursus
philosophicus, vol. 2, De anima, controversia 13, punctum 1n17, 184: “Odor non sentiatur
mediis speciebus”; ibid., n. 21: “Obiecta gustus, & tactus immediate producunt proprias
sensationes, non mediis speciebus.”
the development and the internal dynamics of early Jesuit philosophy in gen-
eral. That this “nominalization” in the philosophy of authors such as Mendoza
is far from being confined to philosophical psychology is more than clear if
we examine Suárez’s and Hurtado’s metaphysico-epistemological doctrines of
universal concepts.83
Bibliography
Aristotle. On the Soul. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Arriaga, Rodrigo. Cursus Philosophicus, De anima. Edited by Balthasar Moretus. Ant-
werp: Ex officina Plantiniana, 1632.
Caruso, Ester. Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza e la rinascita del nominalismo nella Scolastica
del Seicento. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1979.
Castellote, Salvador. Die Anthropologie des Suarez: Beiträge zur spanischen Anthropolo-
gie des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Freiburg and Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 1982.
Collegium Conimbricensis. In tres libros de anima. Cologne: Impensis Lazari Zetzneri,
1609; reprint: Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2006.
Hattab, Helen. Descartes on Forms and Mechanisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009.
Heider, Daniel. Universals in Second Scholasticism: A Comparative Study with Focus on
the Theories of Francisco Suárez S.J. (1548–1617), João Poinsot O.P. (1589–1644) and Bar-
tolomeo Mastri da Meldola O.F.M. Conv. (1602–1673)/Bonaventura Belluto O.F.M. Conv.
(1600–1676). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2014.
Heider, Daniel. “Introduction.” In Cognitive Psychology in Early Jesuit Scholasticism, ed-
ited by Daniel Heider, 1–11. Neunkirchen-Seelscheid: Editiones Scholasticae, 2016.
Heider, Daniel. “The Notitia intuitiva and Notitia abstractiva of the External Senses in
Second Scholasticism: Suárez, Poinsot and Francisco de Oviedo.” Vivarium 54, no.
2–3 (2016): 173–203.
Leinsle, Ulrich G. Dilinganae Disputationes: Der Lehrinhalt der gedruckten Disputa-
tionen an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Dillingen 1555–1648. Regens-
burg: Schnell and Steiner, 2006.
Mendoza, Pedro Hurtado de. Universa philosophia. Edited by Louis Prost. Lyon: Hae-
redis Rouillé, 1624.
83 For Hurtado’s “nominalization” of Suárez’s moderate nominalism, see Daniel Heider,

Universals in Second Scholasticism: A Comparative Study with Focus on the Theories of
Francisco Suárez S.J. (1548–1617), João Poinsot O.P. (1589–1644) and Bartolomeo Mastri da
Meldola O.F.M. Conv. (1602–1673)/Bonaventura Belluto O.F.M. Conv. (1600–1676) (Amster-
dam: John Benjamins, 2014), 87–94.
134 Heider
Park, Katharine. “The Organic Soul.” In The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philoso-
phy, edited by Charles B. Schmitt et al., 464–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998.
Pasnau, Robert. “Form, Substance, and Mechanism.” Philosophical Review 113, no. 1
(2004): 31–88.
Pasnau, Robert. Metaphysical Themes 1274–1671. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Perler, Dominik. “What Are the Faculties of the Soul? Descartes and His Scholastic
Background.” In Continuity and Innovation in Medieval and Modern Philosophy:
Knowledge, Mind, and Language, edited by John Marenbon, 9–38. Oxford: Oxford
Perler, Dominik. “Faculties in Medieval Philosophy.” In The Faculties: A History, edited
by Dominik Perler, 97–139. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Regan, Teresa. “A Study of the Liber de spiritu et anima: Its Doctrine, Sources and His-
torical Significance.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1948.
Sousedík, Stanislav, and Tereza Saxlová, eds. Rodrigo de Arriaga (†1667): Philosoph und
Theologe. Prague: Karolinum, 1998.
Spruit, Leen. Species intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, vol. 2, Renaissance
Controversies, Later Scholasticism, and the Elimination of the Intelligible Species in
Modern Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 1995.
Suárez, Francisco. Disputationes metaphysicae. In Opera omnia, edited by Carol Berton.
Vol. 25. Paris: Apud Ludovicum Vives, 1861.
Suárez, Francisco. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis. Edited by
Salvador Castellote. Vol. 1. Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1978.
Suárez, Francisco. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima.
Edited by Salvador Castellote. Vol. 2. Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones,
1981.
Tachau, Katherine H. Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology
and the Foundations of Semantics 1250–1345. Leiden: Brill, 1988.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros de Anima.
Edited by Hermannus Mylius. Cologne: Officina Birckmannica, 1615, reprint:
Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 1985.
Wolf-Devine, Celia. Descartes on Seeing: Epistemology and Visual Perception. Carbon-
dale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University, 1993.
Section 2.2
Nature and Theological Concerns
∵
Chapter 6
Early Jesuit Philosophers on the Nature of Space

Paul Richard Blum
1 Introduction
The philosophy of nature was studied by the early Jesuits in the form of com-
mentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and in those parts of the philosophy textbooks
(Cursus philosophicus) that treated these issues on the model of Aristotle.
The topic of space in those Jesuit Aristotelian works serves as a touchstone
for the way Jesuits thought. It is hard to discuss the Jesuits’ understanding of
nature summarily precisely due to their meticulous discussions of nearly every
fine point. Differences between the various authors are not advertised in broad-
sheet but worked out in inquiries on single topics and with respect to alterna-
tive solutions. The Jesuits’ contributions to the history of scientific thought
have frequently been studied. But there is a tendency in the literature to focus
on Jesuit philosophy with the aim of demonstrating that the Jesuits were both
Scholastic Aristotelians and modern scientists.1 Rather than c ontributing to
this historiographical agenda, the current chapter is instead concerned with
how the Jesuits systematically developed a concept of space; it also explores
the specific forms of thought that shaped their teaching. As such, I have tried
to avoid qualifiers like new science, materialism, mathematization, and so on.
Thus, the focus in this chapter is on the Jesuits’ critical reception of authorities
and their engagement with reality in theories and metatheories of knowledge.
The chapter begins with a discussion of the first three Jesuit physics text-
books and their arguments about space. As will become clear, the textbooks
started with a close reading of Aristotle that was informed by the Scholastic
interpretation as well as by recently available sources. The chapter will then
compare a number of recurrent themes and the ways in which they were
1 For literature, see Mordechai Feingold, ed., The New Science and Jesuit Science: Seventeenth-
Century Perspectives, Archimedes 6 (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003); Feingold, ed., Jesuit Science
and the Republic of Letters (Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2003). There is no treatment of the
Jesuits’ philosophy of space in Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, eds., The Cambridge History
of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
This study is a result of research funded by the Czech Science Foundation as project GA
ČR 14-37038G, “Between Renaissance and Baroque: Philosophy and Knowledge in the Czech
Lands within the Wider European Context.”

138 Blum
a ddressed by Jesuit authors. The authors of these books sought to under-

stand the questions and answers behind those centuries-old debates, paying
attention to the theological implications and the controversies among medi-
eval Scholastics. As will hopefully become clear, the Jesuits were not slavish
adherents to a particular philosophical school but instead adopted a critical
approach to Aristotelianism, as revealed by the differences among some of the
leading Jesuit philosophers.
2 Francisco de Toledo
Francisco de Toledo (1532–96) was the first Jesuit to publish a commentary

on Aristotle’s Physics (1573).2 His commentary follows Aristotle’s work section
by section (the traditionally numbered textus) without reproducing the text.
A paraphrase first points out the doctrine and its inherent problems, which
is then followed by quaestiones that contextualize and problematize the
teachings.
Aristotle had defined “place” (locus) as the inner surface of the containing
body of the located thing and dismissed both space and void from his theory.
Toledo’s first question is as follows: Is place a substance or an accident? (lib. 4,
cap. 1, text. 1, 104v). Does place exist in and of itself or is location a property of
things? Are “being” and “being located” convertible? Since spiritual beings, as
Toledo reminds the reader, are not located in a place, the latter theory would
have materialist implications. (lib. 4, cap. 1, text. 1, 104v). This is a first instance
of operating with non-corporeal things in order to problematize material cat-
egories. Toledo summarizes that place does exist and that it is known by itself,
whereas the doctrine that place is distinct from the located body is not known
by itself (text. 3, 105r).
Place is crucial for understanding movement. The power or virtue of place
in the process of movement is “attraction” of the body in motion as a final
cause (text. 4, 105v). Accordingly, place is an external and not an internal cause
of the moving body (text. 11, 106v). The distinction of “internal” versus “exter-
nal” place would become important in later debates.
Aristotle had also defined “up” and “down” as natural places, but Toledo asks
whether these are instead relations and perspectives of bodies with regard to
us (text. 5, 105v). This occasions the distinction of unchanging nature versus
2 On his philosophy, see Anna Tropia’s chapter in this volume. Edition used: Francisco de To-
ledo, Commentaria, una cum quaestionibus, In octo libros Aristotelis, De physica Auscultatione
(Cologne: Birckmann, 1574).
Early Jesuit Philosophers on the Nature of Space 139
relative position. In the background, we see the discussion over whether there
can be a non-corporeal space independent of bodies that move relatively with-
in that space. When the Jesuit summarizes the ancient theory of chaos as the
preliminary space of the world, he leaves open the question of whether the
existence of body presupposes the natural existence of a receiving place (text.
7, 106r).
Toledo’s discussion of the essence of place begins with negative statements:
place has no dimensions, is not a receptacle, nor does it have quantity; it is also
not itself a cause, nor a genus (text. 8–11, 106r–v). Generally, there is no place
where there is no body; or, more pointedly, there is no place devoid of body.
The criterion is augmentation. It is not the case that a body when expanding
takes another place; instead, its place expands with the body. However, the
place itself cannot expand because there is nothing whence it could increase.
Toledo points out that these considerations put in doubt both the existence
and the nature of place (text. 13, 106v–107r). In doing so, he prepares the reader
for a fundamental debate on the concept of space.
Toledo then adds a few queries. One of these concerns the notion of body
in the context of space: there is the mathematical concept of body, that is, the
quantity of three dimensions, imagined by geometers, as opposed to the physi-
cal body as a sensible substance that has those dimensions but is mutable (cap.
2, q. 1, 108r–v). Such mathematical body, if it existed in reality, would be equiva-
lent to a mathematical place. And although the mathematical place is not the
place of a natural body, it still conforms to that natural place, not qua natural
place but qua continuum; it is distinct from the body but only by reason. The
mathematical body corresponds to the mathematical place qua mathematical.
Another question concerns the creation of the world, a doctrine not pro-
pounded by Aristotle, but common to Averroes (1126–98) and Christian read-
ers. If the world as a material body has been created, has it been placed in an
empty space that must have been preexisting? Toledo states that the world
by itself is not in a surrounding place; only its parts are located. Furthermore,
vacuum is defined, according to Toledo, as privation of place or body, wherever
a body would or could exist naturally. Before creation, there could not possibly
exist any corporeal thing. The world was created “there,” where it is, that is,
place and body exist together. If there is any vacuum, then it can only occur
after the creation of body and place when there might be a privation, that is,
an absence of a body or an absence of a place. Consequently, even beyond the
heaven there is no vacuum, since by definition there cannot be a body and by
implication no absence of a possible body (109r).
While reviewing Aristotle’s rendering of “to be in […],” Toledo makes a short
but revealing remark: the discussion teaches that not whatever is, is in a place;
140 Blum
and not whatever is “in something” is in it as its place (cap. 3, text. 28, 110r).
Existence and location are two distinct features, and the relation between
things is not necessarily that of location. Hence it follows that location de-
serves an investigation that is not tied to that of being or of materiality. Toledo
emphasizes the question of separability: in one sense, a located thing can leave
its place, which seems obvious, but in another sense, there can be no place
without a thing that is located in it, and consequently, there can be no void
place (cap. 4, text. 30, 110v). Here is a conceptual gap that will allow others to
speculate about the possibility of a place without a thing in place, a theoretical
or empirical vacuum.
Given Aristotle’s concept of place as the container of the located thing, and
given that this implies the immediate contact between place and thing, the
question of their “being equal” comes up. One has to distinguish between the
equality of dimensions and of containing. The equality of dimensions is ruled
out because not all three dimensions are shared between a located thing and
its location; otherwise, the three dimensions of each of them would penetrate
each other. Therefore, only the two dimensions of the surface, latitude and lon-
gitude, can be what is equal between the container and the contained (cap. 4,
q. 2, 111v–112r). The concepts of dimension and containing surface clash, which
indicates that Aristotle’s container-place refers only to real objects so that the
surface of the container is identical with that of the contained. Analogously,
dimensions are thought of as things rather than parameters of measurement.
The move to say that the two-dimensional surface is a better candidate for
place than the three dimensions is paradoxically approaching the notion of
body-free space because surface is in itself an abstraction from corporeality
and needs to be conceived as possibly both concave and convex; a thought
that only works by disregarding the corporeal feature and including the third
dimension in the concept. The inner and the outer surfaces of place, then, are
equal in that they are equal in terms of quantity insofar as the surface of the
located body delimits the quantity of the locating thing (text. 35, 112r). Toledo
draws attention to Aristotle’s argumentative strategy and points out that the
notion of interval or dimension helps to understand the (ontological) inde-
pendence of the place from the located thing and thus also helps to describe
movement against the interval, which appears as though it were immobile.
Stability is a feature of a container, if it is a material one, into which a thing is
moving. However, in Aristotelian theory, place is always with the located thing,
for instance invisible air, which is not empty (text 39, 113r).
Toledo paraphrased and commented on Aristotle’s treatment of place and
its difficulties in a separate quaestio (q. 3, 114vff.) precisely in order to distin-
guish location from space. He especially reports objections taken from John
Philoponus (490–570) that reveal the notion of non-corporeal space.3 His own
doctrine is (q. 3, 115v):
1. Space is not a substance, neither corporeal nor incorporeal; for, as incor-
poreal it would be internal to the located body and as corporeal it would
penetrate the body.
2. Space is not only quantity or dimension, because—if it is real quantity—
it must penetrate the body. We observe that the question of the reality of
quantity is at stake, because in Aristotelian theory that is an accident. An-
other implication is that space would be an accident without a substance.
3. The opinion stating that such empty space is in itself the place is prob-
able. [He adds that “such opinion does not imply that this empty space
ever exists, since it is filled with body and yet as such it is of itself empty.”]
Toledo then refers to those who assume there is empty space beyond the heav-
en and those who claim God can produce a vacuum.
Toledo is presenting the fruits of his analysis of Aristotle’s text and the vari-
ous interpretations of it: the distinction between place and body and the ques-
tion of its reality opens the option of thinking about space as having its own
properties without conflicting with the notion of body and fullness. He invokes
two theories that equally rely on thinking of space as real or as a real possibility
that, however, is never realized in the empirical world. Nevertheless, he con-
cludes that Aristotle’s theory of place is easier and less controversial.
When addressing the various arguments against the Aristotelian place, To-
ledo also refers to experiments4 or empirical observations: it appears clear to
him that another body has to succeed when a body recedes. The theoretical
impossibility of a vacuum is based on the idea that the parts of the containing
body that are empty would collapse onto one another: “There is no space that
is in itself empty, because there is no other space than the body in between;
and when this is removed necessarily there will be a space between two ex-
tremes, and if there can be no other thing, then the extremes join” (116v). We
could say: body and space are the same; vacuum and plenum are the same. As
an example, he mentions the clepsydra, the tool to lift samples of wine that
was used in vacuum experiments: a tube filled with liquid and closed on the
3 On Philoponus, see David Sedley, “Chapter 7: Philoponus’ Conception of Space,” Bulletin of the
Institute of Classical Studies 56, no. S103 (February 1, 2013): 181–93; DOI:10.1111/j.2041-5370.2013.
tb02542.x. Cf. John Philoponus, Ioannis Grammatici, cognomento Philoponi, in Aristotelis
Physicorum libros quatuor explanatio, trans. Giovanni Battista Rasario (Venice: Valgrisius,
1569), 332ff.
4 On the type of experiments at the time, see Charles B. Schmitt, “Experimental Evidence for
and against a Void: The Sixteenth-Century Arguments,” Isis 58, no. 3, 193 (1968): 352–66.
142 Blum
top would not permit the liquid to flow out. Space is the fullness of place when
disregarding the corporeal presence. In addition, Toledo concedes that math-
ematicians may speak of space while not thinking of body in the same way as
they abstract triangles from bodies without claiming that there is in reality a
triangle in addition to the parts of the body (116v).
In quaestio 4, Toledo reports and rejects the theory of Duns Scotus (c.1266–
1308) and other realists who suggest that place, considered as form, is a rela-
tion, namely that of containing or that of distance (q. 4, 117v). Much of the
definition of place and the temptation to define it as space regardless of body
hinges upon the logical implication that place is unmoved in relation to the
located body, which makes local motion comprehensible. This is the topic of
quaestio 5. Indeed, the explanatory function of place is to determine local mo-
tion, and what is moving is not the place but the body in it (q. 5, 118v). Here
is the point where the notion of “imagined space” starts to play a role in the
theory. Some seem to argue that the debate about the place in the world does
not employ the actual parts of the orbs but the imagined parts. The relation of
distance is not taken from the real poles but “from those from which we imag-
ine something to be distant, and those [celestial] poles stay however the heav-
enly bodies change” (q. 5, 119r). To this, Toledo offers the interpretation that
the sameness implied in the concept of place is “explained by relation of dis-
tance without claiming that such distance is really a relation,” which he makes
plausible with the remark that a relation to “imaginary” endpoints cannot be
real but only imaginary, too, made for the sake of explaining the immobility of
place (q. 5, 119r).Whatever Aristotle’s or other thinkers’ intentions, the Jesuit
is carving out a theory of nature as the endeavor to explain reality, even if the
explanatory means cannot claim the same reality as what is to be explained.
So far, the investigation concerned real, corporeal bodies and their location.
The ancients already considered location as incorporeal qua distinct from the
located body. Quaestio 6 now deals with the location of incorporeal things.
First, the reader learns a new distinction: to be in a place by definition versus
by circumscription. What is in a place by circumscription (a body in a vessel)
can be there also by definition; but what is “in something” by definition (e.g.,
the soul in the body) is there not in a way of circumscription, because it is not
there as opposed to elsewhere or this part rather than that part (q. 6, 119r–v).
The notion of incorporeal location defies certain assumptions of physical
place. However, this subtlety is unsound in God, who is neither by definition
nor by circumscription “somewhere” but by essence, presence, and p otency
(q. 6, 119v). Angels can be in heaven or on earth but are not located by cir-
cumscription because they lack “corpulence” or thickness (q. 6, 119v). Hence
only bodies are located by definition and circumscription, which is the issue
of Aristotle’s Physics. Thus Toledo reinforces his doctrine that physical bodies
have a physical location that, as he adds, refers to the category of quantity and
to movement (q. 6, 119v).
The next problem to tackle is that of the location of the outermost sphere
of the world (q. 7). This problem challenges the notion of the container-place
and has always provoked the question: What is beyond that sphere, if not a
place that contains the world? One option, ascribed to the Arabs, is that only
bodies in rectilinear movement need an external place, whereas those in cir-
cular movement have an internal place (q. 7, 119v). Such internal location is not
without difficulties: Is the center of the orbs their place, as some suggest? That
would apply to all orbs of the world and, hence, explain nothing (q. 7, 12or).
Speaking of the internal location, Themistius (317–87) had suggested that the
inner circles are the place of the orbs. In that case, the orbs would be both lo-
cation and located regarding the subsequent sphere (q. 7, 12or). One standard
opinion, ascribed among others to Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–74), is that one
part of the world is place of the other, which entails the paradox that, since
all parts are continuous, none can actually move (q. 7, 120v). In other words, it
explains neither location nor motion, as long as place is taken to be physical,
which is the overall premise of the theory of place. Toledo admits that Philopo-
nus’s reasoning with space avoids these paradoxes. Indeed, Toledo asserts that
he finds such reasoning “not improbable” (q. 7, 120v). That entails that the last
sphere is in no place at all. Toledo assuages critics of that idea by pointing out
that the other solutions need to say the heaven is “in place per accidens,” which
according to him amounts to not being in place. For “accidental location” is
playing with words rather than assigning a place. If the extreme orb is in no
place, it can still move locally, namely move around a place (q. 7, 120v). Thus
the field has been prepared to do justice to Aristotle and to think of space in
terms that leave the purely corporeal notion of place behind.
It should be clear that Toledo composed his paraphrasing commentary with
a clear agenda. Quaestio 8 therefore deserves particular attention as it shows
the concordance of all theories of place. It is the “very probable opinion of a
recent scholar.”5 The solution consists in combining the basic conflicting ap-
proaches to location into one theory that is expressed, in traditional Scholastic
language, as a distinction, namely that of place as internal property resulting
from its quantity, which is called space, and the external place as discussed by
Aristotle (q. 8, 121r). This distinction is based on that between “real” and “imagi-
nary.” The imaginary place is of the same sort as the imaginary space beyond
5 Obviously Toledo himself. See Cees Leijenhorst, The Mechanisation of Aristotelianism: The
Late Aristotelian Setting of Thomas Hobbes’s Natural Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 113.
144 Blum
the heaven. Also, vacuum in this world—if it existed—is an imaginary place

or space; and nothing is wrong with it, since we can also imagine an empty
surface (surface being part of the definition of the Aristotelian place) (q. 8,
121r). So, is it just a fiction? Certainly so with regard to the extracosmic space
and the void. But one may also attain the concept of space by abstracting from
particular bodies, and such space common to the whole world is not a fiction
just because of abstraction, but real (q. 8, 121r). Toledo compares it with the
mathematical abstraction of quantity. At that point, he invokes the sensual
experience of ordinary people who would not distinguish between apparently
identical properties in identical things at different times. His example is wa-
ter that is heated, cooled, and heated again: the heat appears to be the same,
namely the same degree, although it is factually distinct. In the same way, the
space appears to remain the same for varying bodies, “although it is the same
only as species and equality” (q. 8, 121r).
In this way, Toledo explains, on the basis of Aristotle’s container-place, how
a theory of space is conceptually possible and practically useful. Space is the
internal place of a thing as occupied by it due to its corpulence (q. 8, 121v).
Space is an implication of quantity. Toledo offers the analogy with time: time is
the measure of the succession of quantity in motion, and “analogously, while
the quantity remains stable, space as an implication of quantity is related to
that quantity.” Space is the measure of quantitative corporeality (q. 8, 121v).
And, as such, “there is one common space of the world as there is one measure
of the most universal motion of the entire universal time” (q. 8, 121v). Without
disowning the Aristotelian philosophy of nature, the Jesuit manages to theo-
rize space as such and in theoretical correlation with time.
Toledo can now move on to modifying what had been taught about place:
where there is body, there is space, and where there is space, there is body, so
that both entail each other mutually. Does that exclude a real vacuum? As a
mental experiment, Toledo suggests that if a man would be placed outside of
the heaven in the middle of the vacuum, that body would still have its own
space, while the surrounding would be only imaginary space (q. 8, 121v). With
this argument, Toledo is approaching the convertibility of space and body, or
of body and extension, in a similar way as he had held body and place to be
convertible. For, when he enumerates the various properties of place as such,
an obvious one is the co-extension of place and the located thing, which makes
it possible to speak theoretically about two bodies occupying the same space
(q. 8, 122r). Space as quantity makes bodies comparable. Space also makes it
possible to say that the heaven is non-located, though only in a relative sense,
because it has its internal space. At the same time, the difficult question of (ab-
solute) up, down, front, and back, which in Aristotle were tied to the “natural
place” of elements, is solved insofar as they all apply to the surface, the actual
place of a body, and to any imaginary or fictitious space (q. 8, 122r). Another
problem, that of local motion, which is hard to capture with the container-
place, is transformed into that of imagining traversing an imagined space. The
succession of bodies in a place can now be described as moving in an imagi-
nary or abstract space (q. 8, 122r). Concluding this chapter, Toledo underscores
that the notion of space solves all the paradoxes of location and still does jus-
tice to Aristotle’s theory of external place (q. 8, 122r).6
Toledo expressly states that we are now ready so see what Aristotle had to
say about the vacuum as seemingly opposed to the place (q. 8, 122r). Aristotle
takes vacuum to mean a place where there is nothing, which is a descriptive
and nominal definition without claim to reality. Toledo also notes that Aristo-
tle is defending the notion used by his predecessors (text. 57, 123v). The defini-
tion is: “Vacuum is a place that lacks a tangible body and is able to receive such
body” (text. 58, 124r).
Of Aristotle’s proofs against the vacuum, Toledo notes that vacuum may be
needed for local movement, but by definition it cannot be a positive, determin-
ing cause of movement; it is indifferent (Chapter 8, text. 64, 125r). It also cannot
be a final cause, since there is no direction nor up or down implied in a vacuum
(text. 65, 125r). The concept of vacuum leads to similar paradoxes as that of
place if taken in opposition to bodily conditions and as mere non-corporeality:
natural movement, as that of the elements naturally moving up or down, de-
fines violent movement; in a vacuum, there is no such natural direction, and
hence not even violent movement (text. 67, 125v). The concept of vacuum fails
to explain how a body can move, if taken to be real; for instance, if there is
vacuum that cedes a moving body, the body cannot move in a precise direction
because the vacuum has no determined parts (text. 70, 126r). Very important,
according to Toledo, is the argument that movement (by definition successive)
would be instantaneous if traversing through a vacuum. That is to say, vacuum
would annihilate time. The physical examples are water and air and their dif-
ferent resistance to a moving body. The resistance is proportionate to the time
of travel. In a non-resisting vacuum, the movement would happen in no time
(text. 71, 126r). In very general terms: the fullness of the traversed space and
the vacuum have no mutual proportion, and hence vacuum is not capable of
measuring movement (text. 73, 127r).
This becomes the topic of quaestio 9: Would local motion be in no time if
there is a vacuum (127v)? First, Toledo qualifies such a vacuum to be distances
without a body, so as we could imagine there to be no bodies between the
6 On imaginary space in Jesuit theories, see ibid., 112–16.

146 Blum
heaven and the earth—as it actually appears to the senses—but only distance.
Second, instantaneous movement should mean not just very fast, but really
an indivisible instance that meets the condition of not being proportionate to
elapsing time. Toledo endorses the solution of Aquinas and suggests that dif-
ference in speed does not only depend on the resistance of the medium or the
heaviness or lightness of the moving thing but also on the dimension of space
(q. 9, 128r). Distance as such “resists” speed, that is, spatial dimensions imply
variable speed of movement even in an imaginary empty space. Or, in other
words: movement is by definition temporal, and that is not avoidable even in
void space (q. 9, 128r).
Does vacuum exist? That is the topic of quaestio 10. It is clear from the out-
set that vacuum is an ambiguous term if discussed in the physical framework,
although it depends on an effort of imagination such as a mental experiment
where God would take away all air and other elements. Vacuum, both as di-
mensions without body and as space deprived of accidents and substances, is
evidently contradictory. Consequently, there can be no vacuum if that means
accident without substance. We saw similar reasoning with the term space.
Also, vacuum in the sense of space without body is not available to “natural
observation” (q. 10, 129r).
The famous horror vacui is explained with the principle of contiguity: in the
same way as continuous parts drag each other, so also contiguous parts pull
each other, when no other body can intervene. This contiguity, Toledo states,
comes from the nature of the universe and from the power of universal causes.
The lower and derivative powers depend on and are controlled by intermedi-
ary bodies, whereas vacuum would interrupt the “virtual contact of upper level
causes.” The abhorrence of the void belongs to the “arrangement of the univer-
sal orb,” in which all that proceeds from the whole is more natural than what
comes from the particular (q. 10, 129v). Toledo does not disclose the origin of
this argumentation. He introduces and concludes it in first-person sentences.
The argument consists of top-down causation and uniformity in the cosmos.
Neither is specific to Aristotle’s understanding of nature; the argument has a
neo-Platonic or Stoic ring.
3 Benet Perera
Benet Perera (Benedictus Pererius, Benito Pereira [1536–1610]) published his

De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis et affectionibus (On the
common principles and properties of all natural things) on the basis of his
lectures as a contribution to the inquiry within the order about how to teach
philosophy. In contrast to the other Jesuit works presented here, the book is
not structured as a commentary.7 In book 10 of the work, Perera states that the
main features (affectiones) of all natural things are quantity, place, time, and
movement. Quantity, including shape (figura), has theoretical precedence be-
cause, as he says, it is contemporaneous with prime matter, and as such is not
coming to be or decaying; also, quantity is inherent in matter because without
quantity it could not take any of the other properties. In the order of things,
movement precedes time, which is its property, but movement follows place
and the mobile thing, while both cannot lack quantity. With that, Perera sets
the stage for a philosophical discussion of place and space.
Book 11, dedicated to “place,” opens with the doctrine that natural things are
finite and thus have quantity and hence location. Location entails five proper-
ties: to contain the located thing, to attract it, to maintain it, to define move-
ment (its unity, distinction, and specificity), and to be immobile (lib. 11, 602).
As to the first property, Perera identifies four kinds of containing: giving shape,
preserving in a favorable location, ordering minor bodies within major and
more perfect ones, and finally the relation of passive and active, whereby the
mobile thing is contained by the active and moving thing. He explains “con-
taining the located thing” as “being equal with it.” It is not the body as such that
contains, but it does so by way of the surface so that the container may well be
larger than the contained (lib. 11, cap. 1, 604). “Attraction” is used metaphori-
cally. In the Aristotelian order of elements, the earthly things are attracted to
the center of the world, their natural place, not through active pulling (which
would entail the center moving toward a falling rock) nor by way of emitting
certain powers toward the moving object, but only in a metaphoric sense (lib.
11, cap. 1, 605). We should note the description of attraction of bodies as a pow-
er that reaches from the center of the earth to a rock that is moving toward it.
Perera entertains the thought without endorsing it. Metaphors are also used
when assessing the conserving faculty of place. In one sense, the container
preserves the contained; in another sense, the higher regions of the cosmos
transmit their power to the sublunar world from the locating region to the lo-
cated region (606).
Place defines local motion in terms of unity and distinction because it is
the place of destination that defines a movement and also the natural place of
light or heavy things that identifies such movement. Here, Perera adopts with-
out comment the term space: there is the space from the center of the world
7 On Perera, see Chapter 11 in this book. Edition used: Benet Perera, De communibus omnium
rerum naturalium principiis et affectionibus, libri quindecim (Paris: Sonnius, 1579 [1576]). The
subtitle announces that the book refers “mostly” to Aristotle’s Physics.
148 Blum
to the lunar sphere, and the space that is marked by the circular movement of
the orbs (607). The Jesuit has no inhibitions in talking about place and space
as concepts that describe physical reality.
Immobility is the fifth property of the natural and universal place; other-
wise, it could not provide preservation, completion, and destination to local
movement. Even local movement would lose its aim. Local movement, place,
and nature as the principle of movement are interconnected (608). Perera ded-
icates two chapters to the question of whether the proper place of a thing can
be immobile. The example given is that of a tower surrounded by wind. The air
should be its container-place but that is constantly changing. Three solutions
are available: (1) the movement of the wind is only accidental to the stabil-
ity of air qua container (Averroists); (2) the containing air remains equivalent
while its parts are being exchanged (Scotists); and (3) the tower maintains the
same position in the world defined by its distance from the poles (Aquinas).
The third theory would effectively abolish the definition of place as contain-
ing surface (cap. 2, 608–12). Perera’s own solution begins by stating that body
can be mathematical, artificial, and natural. The mathematical body is not in
a place because it is not separate but inherent in the matter of things (cap. 3,
612). Artificial bodies as such do not move by themselves and have, at best,
an artificial place (612f.). Only straight movement is local movement, whereas
circular movement does not require there to be a place because it is not a local
movement (613). Thus the problem of the place of the world is removed as in-
appropriate use of terminology. Animals are not surrounded by only one place,
unless one speaks of the natural place of the species fish, birds, and so on and
so forth. Plants are rooted in their place, and while growing or diminishing
they move through several places. Inanimate things have their natural place
according to the prevailing elements in them (614).
Hence, given the role of elements for inanimate things, the natural place of
those elements needs to be clarified. Only the natural place of unmixed ele-
ments is immobile, and it is so with respect to their rectilinear movement. The
natural places, the orb of the moon, for instance, do have circular motion, but
relative to the elements they never recede from other locations of the world.
Thus all simple elements have their immobile natural place (614). The result
of these discussions is that the general definition of place is: surface of the
first containing body (as Aristotle taught); the natural place, additionally, is of
the same nature (connaturalis) as the located thing and preserves it; it is also
immobile and as such applies only to simple elements (616). Perera limits the
traditional definition in its full meaning to the four elements and its relative
meaning to the mere function of containing. This reopens the question of the
meaning in intervals in the concept of place and space. Perera summarizes
Philoponus’s attempt at identifying place with interval, space, and vacuum

(cap. 4, 616–18). Perera objects, first, that such intervals are mere fictions; they
require mentally removing the body from its container, and what remains is
nothing. Hence space is nothing (cap. 5, 618f.). Second, the alleged intervals
are three-dimensional, which befits bodies. If those bodies are mathematical,
they exist only in the imagination and are outside the competence of physics.
If these imagined bodies are physical bodies, then they are movable and hence
not stable, as required by the theory of dimensions (619). Generally, there is no
theoretical surplus to be gained.
There remains the critical question concerning the place of the outermost
heaven (cap. 8). In the preliminaries (lib. 11, cap. 1, 603), Perera had explained
why the first heaven is not in a place: it does not need any of the functions of
containing (shape, preservation, order, activation). He focuses on the function-
al relation (as we would term it) of parts in nature. The mentioned understand-
ing of location by interval aims at solving the problem but is invalid because
there is no reality to such a concept of interval. And so all attempts at present-
ing the ultimate sphere as both located and devoid of an external container are
transparent violations of the basic principle stated by Aristotle, which Perera is
seeking to defend. Invoking Al-Farabi (d.951 CE) and Avempace (c.1085–1138),
the Jesuit explains his theory that the heaven does not have to have a contain-
ing place because it is not in a straight but in a circular movement, as men-
tioned above. The place that is in congruence with a spherical body is its center
(cap. 9, 629f.). Toledo had rejected this theory but Perera adopts it.
What the directions (up or down) provide in rectilinear movement, namely
its definition, provides the center in the sphere: the center is what defines a
circle and circular movement (cap. 9, 629). We see immediately that Perera
defends the spherical cosmos and, at the same time, takes recourse to formal
definitions. To postulate a containing place for the body of the world would
lead to an infinite regress. Likewise, the outer sphere preserves the world but
is not in need of being preserved. The place of the heaven is its center (cap. 9,
629f.). One doctrine by which Aristotle tried to solve the paradox of the loca-
tion of the heaven (and the world as a whole) was to say that it is in a place per
accidens, which is justified by the Jesuit by saying: yes, the earth is in a location
per se; it is also the center of the physical world, and in that sense the heaven,
circling around the earth as its center, which is its proper place, is accidentally
in a container-place because the earth is located by nature in this way (631).
Perera’s strategy differs from that of Toledo, but he agrees with him in ac-
knowledging the challenge posed by Philoponus and in leaving the original
thought of Aristotle behind: what in Toledo was the acknowledgment of the
spatium imaginarium is in Perera the separating of particular bodies from
150 Blum
atural bodies (the heavenly spheres and the elements) and of rectilinear from
n
circular movement. Both strategies justify Aristotle’s notion of place and open
the discourse for alternative approaches to the objects of natural philosophy.
There remains the question of vacuum. Perera defends the non-existence of
the void in nature by establishing a set of “hypotheses”: movement is always lo-
cal; succession and elapsing time are from causes external to the moving thing;
resistance in movement may come from the inclination contrary to the violent
movement, otherwise it comes from the medium being traversed; anything
imaginary cannot have an impact on real things; “nature abhors vacuum” be-
cause it would disrupt the unity and contiguity of the world and its parts, their
hierarchy, and the chain of causation within it (cap. 11, 634–36).
The argumentation against the role of a vacuum in local motion rests on
the hierarchal influence of the heaven on the lower realms and the dogma that
changing place cannot happen without place (cap. 12, 636). Based on the dis-
tinction of heavenly circular from elementary linear movements, Perera claims
that in the heaven the mover and the moved are separate, but this is not so in
the elements, and in the succession of the movement of the heaven there ex-
ists an “internal resistance” (probably what otherwise would be called momen-
tum or speed) (cap. 12, 638).
Perera’s way of staging the discourse implies the geocentric universe as a
coherent system of things and forces. He understands the Aristotelian doctrine
to be a theory that captures physical reality and sees no incentive to deviate
from it, as long as it serves that purpose. Throughout the text, he cites precise
sections of Aristotle’s text to make clear that the critique of the Aristotelian
concept of place derives from imprecise readings rather than oversight on the
part of the Philosopher. On the other hand, concluding book 11, he remarks
that, although Aristotle’s teaching on vacuum is correct, “I reckon the contrary
to be defendable as neither absurd nor improbable” (cap. 12, 367). A careful
reader will be encouraged to look out for alternatives.
4 The Conimbricenses
The Jesuits of Coimbra published an edition with paraphrase and commen-

tary of Aristotle’s Physics obviously intended as a textbook for teaching.8 Book
4 opens with the statement that material things need to be confined and
8 On the College of Coimbra, see Mário S. de Carvalho’s chapter in this volume. Cristiano Casa-
lini, Aristotele a Coimbra: Il cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel Collegium Artium (Rome:
Anicia, 2013). Edition used: Conimbricenses, Commentariorum Collegii C onimbricensis,
c ircumscribed by place, and also that there is no transportation without place.

Vacuum is at issue because the ancients identified or associated it with place
(proemium, 1). When commenting on the text, they immediately also point out
differences in interpretation and state that doubt is the first step in gaining
knowledge (cap. 1nb, 3). Then, they seize the occasion to speak about math-
ematical objects. These are not in a place but have local distinctions, “thanks
to our mind,” as we abstract lines from movement and matter and yet assign
them right and left (note e, 5). Aristotle’s mentioning Plato’s Timaeus prompts
the Jesuits to vindicate Plato, who did not address the essence of matter but
that of place, when he defined matter as receptacle and thus the place of forms
(cap. 2nc, 11).
Regarding the textual problems, the Conimbricenses consistently aim at
clarifying the issues with reference to the precise wording, while regularly
refuting older Greek or medieval interpreters. For instance, the known ques-
tion of whether the universe is in place is redirected as the doctrine that the
universe is the bulk of the things that exist and that the heaven holds all this
together. However, as to the universe as place, for them, the heaven is not the
place of all sublunary things but only the concave surface of it, which as such
is also immobile (cap. 5nc, 26). A clarification like this speaks for the precision
of the commentators’ reading and their interest in keeping essentialist inter-
pretations at bay.
In the first quaestio, the Conimbricenses address the well-known objec-
tions against the container-place, such as attraction, that suggest some quality
rather than surface, the relation between locator and located in the process
of movement, the location of angels, and the Eucharist (q. 1, art. 1, 29–30). An
explanation of the meaning of place and its immobility draws expressly on
Gianfrancesco Pico’s (1470–1533) Examen vanitatis (Investigation of the hol-
lowness of the teaching of the pagans), book 6, Chapter 4, who extensively
reported on Philoponus’s interpretation of space and vacuum.9 The authors
affirm with some ambiguity the true Aristotelian doctrine to be that place is
properly a surface, “although it cannot be denied that the relation of the con-
taining to the contained also pertains to it by way of connotation” (q. 1, art.
2, 31).
As to the problem of immobility of place, the Jesuits open with the state-
ment that beyond the heaven there is infinitely open space. Although this is
S ocietatis Iesu, In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae, Secunda pars (Cologne: Zetzner,
1600 [1592]). The Cologne edition has Aristotle’s text in Greek and Latin.
9 Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola, Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium et veritatis
Christianae disciplinae ([Mirandola]: Maciochius, 1520), fol. 176r–179v.
152 Blum
nothing real but imaginary, within which one may assume points, lines, and
planes, one can think of the space as occupied by the world. This space was
vacant, before the world was created, and remains so beyond the world. The
Conimbricenses opt for the legitimacy of an infinite imaginary space that in
some way defines the finite created world. This does not do away with the Ar-
istotelian container-place: that surface of itself is real, but to it corresponds
an imaginary surface. The real place is movable, but only accidentally while
depending on the movement of the body. The imaginary place that surrounds
everywhere is immobile. That, so they claim, was Aristotle’s teaching: every
place is unmovable in comparison with that imaginary surface that is free of
all motion (q. 1, art. 2, 31)
For the Coimbrans, it is necessary to look at place “mathematically and
physically.” It is the physical place that has those qualities that make it pos-
sible to preserve and to attract bodies. That physical place, however, has those
properties only due to its being enclosed in the cavity and surrounded by the
heaven and the intermediary corporeal layers (q. 1, art. 3, 32). Not dissimilar
from Perera, the Coimbra Jesuits attribute all the properties of the Aristotelian
container-place to the natural place of things in the universe. The mathemati-
cal place is left aside.
As to the paradoxes of movement and place in the container-place (the ex-
ample was the tower in the wind), they think these can only arise when one
looks at the containing surface and disregards the imaginary location. Rather, it
is the surface of the imaginary space that makes it possible to think of the con-
taining surface to be stable while accidentally being in motion (q. 1, art. 3, 33).
As to the location of heaven, the Jesuits reject all solutions relying on the
center as the point of stability and orientation. The world as a whole, or the ul-
timate sphere, is only in place per accidens due to its parts, which contain each
other. The commentators are unhappy with it but deem this to be the correct
reading of Aristotle (q. 2, art. 1, 34–36), which they support with the teaching
that the elements of the world are naturally located (q. 3). They report various
descriptions of the first elements, from natural philosophers to poets, which
all suggest that there is an order (harmony, congruence, etc.) among the ele-
ments (q. 3, art. 1, 38–41). Order is the necessary condition to speak meaning-
fully about nature.
The problem is the obvious changeability of the relation of elements to one
another. One example is taken from the treatise on the elements by Gasparo
Contarini (the diplomat and cardinal [1483–1542]) who discusses the causes of
the tides10 (q. 3, art. 2, 42). Some thinkers take recourse to divine intervention:
10 Gasparo Contarini, Gasparis Contareni […] opera (Paris: Apud Sebastianum Niuellium,
1571), 34.
it must have been God’s will not to cover the entire earth with water and thus
to spare the world a universal “shipwreck” (art. 3, 45). To the acute reader, this
sort of remark casts a shadow of doubt on how the natural place theory can
be applied to geography and also on the competence of biblical narratives in
science. The contemporary Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), for instance, rejected
the hierarchy of the elements, for it would not serve to explain the continuous
change of material things.11
Connected with the hierarchy of elements as natural places is the other
question of whether two bodies can be in the same place at the same time
(q. 4, 45ff.). The Jesuits cite Jean Fernel (1497–1558), who, in his Physiology,12
had rejected the theory according to which elements can actually merge,
which would imply simultaneous presence of bodies; examples are glowing
metal and dissolving ashes in water. The Conimbricenses establish that mu-
tual exclusion of bodies derives from the principle that “to be in a particular
place” and “not to admit a ‘partner’ there” amounts to the same. What makes
extension expel other bodies is neither matter nor form; rather, it is the three-
dimensional quantity (cap. 5, q. 4, art. 1, 46). On the one hand, they say, it is a
property of quantity to refer parts to external parts, which would be impos-
sible if two parts were in the same place. On the other hand, they feel obliged
to report that in Christian thought the location of two bodies in one place is
possible by divine power. Historic instances include the birth of Christ without
violating the mother’s virginity, the resurrection through the closed tomb, and
the ascent to heaven through the celestial bodies (art. 2, 47). To the modern
reader, it is obvious that miracles are called to testify for a physical principle.
The Jesuits shrug it off: the miracles do not do away with the nature of quan-
tity or location. The two bodies that penetrate each other are each contained
by their proper place and each of their parts corresponds to the parts of their
places. Invoking Duns Scotus, the authors teach that two quantities do not op-
pose each other formaliter (in principle) but only by their power to fill space.
Hypothetically, there might be some cause that allows a located body not to
fill that place so that there may be two bodies in one location. This, however,
is not natural but in the power of God (art. 2, 48). Although the solution is still
referring to supernatural power, the issue as such helps clarify that in nature
location is an implication of quantity, and that quantities by definition do not
physically or corporeally conflict. The Jesuits add that the exclusion of another
body in a place is not an active but a passive causation from matter (49).
11 Giordano Bruno, Dialoghi italiani, ed. Giovanni Gentile and Giovanni Aquilecchia (Flor-
ence: Sansoni, 1958), De l’infinito, universo et mondi, 5:524f.
12 Jean Fernel, The Physiologia of Jean Fernel (1567), trans. John M. Forrester (Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 2003), book 2, Chapter 8, 212.
154 Blum
The reverse problem to be discussed is that of the bilocation of bodies (q. 5,

50–53). The exposition of the issue shows that we are dealing with a contra-
diction in terms. Location is treated as a category that can be only one for a
particular thing.
The Conimbricenses point out that Aristotle’s definition of vacuum as “place
wherein there is nothing” follows a methodical strategy of explaining the errors
of his predecessors who believed that “being,” “substance,” and “body” meant
the same thing. Since body was understood as “tangible object” (cap. 7, 59–60),
the notion of vacuum is self-contradictory if taken to exist in reality (60–61).
The Conimbricenses redefine the void as “space in any direction devoid of any
body and not enclosed in bodies” (cap. 8, 63–64). With that, they draw the void
near the notion of pure space. Even when paraphrasing Aristotle’s arguments
against the vacuum, the Conimbricenses repeat (beyond the text) their doc-
trine that penetration of bodily qualities depends on the threefold dimensions
as stated earlier (cap. 9, 71–72).
Having commented on Aristotle’s text, the Conimbricenses address the
vacuum in quaestiones of their own.13 When arguing against vacuum, they sur-
prisingly open with the idea of self-preservation in nature, which they support
with social and political behavior, for instance the desire to leave a memory
of oneself through military success (art. 3, 79). At any rate, the existence of
vacuum would destroy the preservation of things, which is depicted as a cos-
mic force in analogy with the pursuit of the good in ethics (cap. 9, q. 1, art. 3, 80,
and art. 5, 84). The existence of a vacuum anywhere inside or outside the world
would be a (moral) imperfection and a failure of nature’s design (art. 4, 81).
When refuting traditional arguments in favor of the existence of a vacuum,
the Conimbricenses emphasize the aptitude of the alleged vacuum to be filled
with a body. Hence, even if one argues that there must have been a space, and
an empty one, before the creation of the world, at least it has to be admit-
ted that such vacuum is defined not by emptiness but by potential filling. This
argument also holds for the hypothetical void beyond the heaven (art. 5, 82).
Since the beyond of the world is not capable of being filled, there is no point
in speaking of a vacuum. As to the methodical question of whether God could
have created an empty space, the answer has to be that it contradicts God’s or-
daining power and goodness to make something preposterous and inordinate,
and even if God does something against the ordinary run of nature, it could
not run against his own mastery (q. 2, art. 2, 86). In non-theological words:
13 For authors accepting the existence of vacuum, Pico della Mirandola is again cited as a
source (cap. 9, q. 1, art. 2, 98).
vacuum is a contradiction in terms if taken to be existing in physical reality.

However, vacuum as the concept of location without a located thing and con-
sequently without the function of locating a real and finite material being has
all the potential of a mere concept of spatiality.
After quaestio 3 dealt with the question of whether an angel could produce
a vacuum, which sounds utterly non-physical, quaestio 4, article 1 shows the
merit of it: here, the known issue of whether movement through a vacuum
is possible or not is addressed. Since place serves to determine local motion
in Aristotelian thought, it appears that vacuum would make such determina-
tion and even the reality of local change impossible. But the conclusion is that
an angel, being immaterial and thus independent of locality, could well throw
a dart through a vacuum (cap. 9, q. 4, art. 1, 91). The mental experiment of a
non-corporeal agent makes the idea of movement through a non-corporeal
place palpable. Consequently, the following article argues diligently in favor of
motion through an empty space with these tenets: if a body transits through
a vacuum, it leaves a void behind but not of its own merit but only due to di-
vine intervention that had made the movement hypothetically possible. The
hypothesis of God’s agency does not infringe upon physical reality. The goal
of such movement is not a place, which would be corporeal, but the “there,”
which exists even in a void. A distance can be positive, wherever there are bod-
ies, or privative when there is no body to fill it. At this point, the imaginary
space is mentioned, for that was lurking behind these theses. Aristotle, against
whom this section is implicitly arguing, is saved with the remark that he had
only intended to correct the ancients who mistakenly had made the vacuum
an active force in bodily local motion (art. 2, 91).
The Jesuits explain Aristotle’s claim that movement through a vacuum
would be instantaneous, although they do not endorse it. It appears that speed
is dependent on the traversed medium. In a vacuum, there is no medium, and
hence there is no proportion between the movement through a medium and
a non-medium and, generally, there is no proportion between the one and the
other time of travel (cap. 9, q. 5, art. 2, 93). Also, it is known that bodies fall
at different speeds, depending on their weight. In a vacuum, they would fall
with the same speed (art. 2, 94). This, as is well known, was Galileo Galilei’s
(1564–1642) discovery, namely that the speed of a fall does not depend on the
weight when the resistance of the medium can be neglected. We see that the
mental experiment may have led to a physical experiment and the related
theory. The Conimbricenses argue that the speed of an object depends not
only on the ability to cut through a resisting medium but also on the moving
power in the object (art. 2, 96).
156 Blum
5 Recurring Themes
The three textbooks in which Jesuits address the philosophy of place, space,
and vacuum have been summarized above with respect to the order in which
the topic was handled. With the help of medieval and ancient c ommentators—
recently made available—they point out the inconsistencies of the Aristote-
lian “place,” and they use theological and metaphysical components of the
scholarly debate for the sake of providing a coherent rational (systematic)
theory of location.
The recurring questions in those textbooks include the properties or
function of place, place and motion, corporeal versus non-corporeal things,
the tower example, the place of the world, the center and periphery of the
world, spatium imaginarium, and vacuum.14 The following sets out a few of
the s olutions put forward by other Jesuits of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
The Aristotelian definition of place remained uncontested, although quali-
fied. Antonio Rubio (1548–1615) found the distinction of the internal and the
external place to be an invention of some moderns. The intrinsic place would
be the local presence due to which the body is said to be present in the divis-
ible space; it is intrinsic because it inheres in the located body. Rubio finds that
this is at odds with Aristotle’s teaching of the container-place. It is a confla-
tion of “where” with place. The category “where” is the result of local motion,
namely the presence of a body with regard to space. Rubio points out that the
language of internal/external place is a move toward giving theoretical prece-
dence to space over place, which is an implication of the philosophical ambi-
guity concerning the definition of place as form or as matter.15
Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) puts forward the same argument in his Meta-
physical Disputations, which was not a handbook of physics but of metaphys-
ics and included the categories of being. The “opinion” he deems to be most
true is this: to be somewhere is “a real and intrinsic mode of that thing that is
14 For medieval antecedents and examples among the Jesuits on the question of vacuum
and its context, see Edward Grant, “Medieval and Seventeenth-Century Conceptions of
an Infinite Void Space beyond the Cosmos,” Isis 60, no. 1 (1969): 39–60; Grant, Much Ado
about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolu-
tion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
15 Antonio Rubio, Commentarii in Aristotelis de physico auditu seu auscultatione (Cologne:
Crithius, 1629), Tractatus de natura loci, q. 3n37, 10v, and q. 2n26, 7r. On Rubio, see Daniel
D. Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel: A Study in Scholasticism of the Baroque
Era (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 18.
said to be somewhere.”16 Since Suárez approaches the problem as a category,

that is, from the perspective of “speaking about” a thing, he is able to analyze
the implications of the claim before entering physical theory. Thus he can
suspend the notion of a surrounding container and focus on the properties
of the located thing. To be located must mean something absolute, “although
we can explicate that only on the basis of some relations of distance or near-
ness.” In that sense, the category of “where” expresses a relation. This suggests
that to be somewhere entails the universal relationship toward such a space.
This is a mode that is distinct from the located thing because it can change
location; on the other hand, there is no such mode without something that
is somewhere (disp. 51, §1n13). In contrast to Aristotle and those who defend
the container-place, Suárez claims that the mode of location does not come
from the container, which is external (n. 18). Later, he will explain that “place”
refers to the physical location, external to the body, whereas “where” is the
intrinsic property of the body (§3n2). Instead of locus (place), he uses the term
praesentia. Presence is plausible to belong to the thing present rather than to
some external determination because it is the mode of existence of a body in
the space it fills.17
Suárez took recourse to the category of relation in order to describe local
movement. Rubio still maintained that place, however defined, has to be im-
mobile because its theoretical as well as physical purpose is to locate a moving
body.18 Going beyond Aristotle, he states: place has to be related to the pres-
ence in space and to the stable parts of the world (the center and the celestial
poles), and it has to determine the individual places of things. With these con-
ditions, it is consistent to say that a place is immobile and invariable, whereas,
whenever one of these conditions varies, so varies the place.19
In his philosophy textbook, the much later Jesuit Thomas Compton Car-
leton (1591–1666) accepted the Aristotelian container-place as the extrinsic
place, but the intrinsic location (ubicatio) is cooperating, since there is no
place without application to a body. Having said that, Compton Carleton de-
clares that local movement refers to the intrinsic place and to the relation to
the imaginary space.20
16 Francisco Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae (Opera omnia vol. 25–26) (Paris: Vivès, 1861
[1597]), disp. 51, §1n13. On Suárez, see Benjamin Hill’s chapter in this book.
17 Ibid., disp. 51, §1n17–18 and disp. 40, §7n4.
18 Rubio, Commentarii in Aristotelis de physico auditu, q. 3n31, 8v.
19 Ibid., n. 40–41, 11r–v.
20 Thomas Compton Carleton, Cursus philosophicus universus, ed. tertia (Antwerp: Verdus-
sen, 1698 [1649]), disp. 32–33; here disp. 32, §2n2–3, 333. Compton Carleton is discussed
in Edward Grant, “The Partial Transformation of Medieval Cosmology by Jesuits in the
158 Blum
Almost all authors refer to the questions of the location of angels and of
God. This used to be a debated theological question in the Middle Ages, and
versions of it were condemned in Paris in 1277.21 Here, the favored term of
“presence” becomes useful. Suárez explains that angels, as spiritual substances,
can be “present” to a body in the same manner as the human mind is present
in its body and leaves it after death together with all corporeal restrictions.22
The Jesuit theologian Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604) reported as erroneous
the theory of Agostino Steuco (Augustinus Steuchus, an Augustinian canon
and polymath [1496–1548]) who suggested that God is essentially present only
in the heaven but attends to the world through intellect like the sun is in the
sky and illuminates the lower parts. Vázquez responds that God in his immen-
sity is inside the whole world and every single part of it, not only as a figure
of speech but by essence. With this Platonizing argument, he emphasizes the
theological character of the doctrine and thus withdraws God from natural
philosophy.23 Rubio also exonerates the question from physical concerns in
the same way as the Coimbrans had done. That Christ was born from a virgin
(i.e., his and the mother’s bodies penetrated each other without destruction)
and left the tomb that was blocked can be explained in terms of coexisting
extensions; but these are miracles outside the competence of physics; and yet
they induce us to consider placement, extension, and impenetrability as con-
ceptually distinct.24 The presence or location of a spiritual substance, God or
an angel, makes it thinkable that generic location (i.e., space) is not tied to the
concrete body but something that can be present or absent depending on the
physical situation.
The change in discourse becomes notable in Compton Carleton, who opens
his discussion of Aristotle’s concept of place with the observation that only
a spirit can dwell in a vacuum. For instance, “if in this school all air were an-
nihilated and no other would follow, God would still remain here and yet
there would be vacuum. The same is true, if an angel made himself internally
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Feingold, Jesuit Science and the Republic of Let-
ters, 127–55.
21 Henrik Wels, “Late Medieval Debates on the Location of Angels after the Condemnation
of 1277,” in Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry: Their Function and Significance, ed.
Isabel Iribarren and Martin Lenz (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 113–27. Cf. Richard Cross,
“Angelic Time and Motion: Bonaventure to Duns Scotus,” in A Companion to Angels in
Medieval Philosophy, ed. Tobias Hoffmann (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 117–47.
22 Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. 51, §3n11–12.
23 Gabriel Vázquez, Disputationes metaphysicae desumptae ex variis locis suorum operum
(Antwerp: Keerberg, 1618), disp. 17, cap. 1–2, 326–28, and disp. 20, cap. 2, 395. The disputa-
tions were excerpted from Vázquez’s commentary on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae.
24 Rubio, Commentarii in Aristotelis de physico auditu, q. 17n63–66, 17r–18r.
present.”25 The Jesuit severs the concept of location from that of a body and
consequently also from the corporeal container-place of Aristotelian tradition.
A test case was the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Coimbrans ob-
served that the body of Christ is not even exclusively in this place, and hence
the notion of surrounding place is not applicable here.26 Theologian Philippe
Moncé (Philippus Moncaeus [1570–1619]) discusses the Eucharist as a prob-
lem of location (i.e., the presence of Christ in the host and the wine, not only
symbolically but real). The Reformed theologians, he says, deny that Christ is
truly anywhere else than in the heaven. The argumentative move of Reformed
theologians was to say that Christ was real-present in the Eucharist, granted
that by his will God could achieve that. Then, however, the problem is not a
natural one but one of God’s absolute power.27
The mental experiment of a tower standing still in the wind or in a river
has frequently been used to challenge the Aristotelian notion of place. Perera,
as said above, held that the tower is an artificial body and as such has only an
artificial place. He thus avoided the paradox and left the function of contain-
ing only to the natural place of natural bodies in the world. The Coimbrans
said (as above) the containing surface is part of the imaginary space that is
thought to be stationary, which does not prevent the actual surface (water or
wind) from being in motion per accidens. In a similar way, Rubio reasoned that
immobility is a fundamental component of “place” and does not only refer to
the containing body but also establishes a relation to the static parts of the
world, namely the celestial poles and the center of the earth. The location of
the tower remains identical in the wind that continues surrounding chang-
ing bodies while the tower acquires ever new containers.28 This tendency to
liberate the concept of place from the tangible surface comes to a completion
in Compton Carleton, who says that the place of the passing wind is a real ex-
ternal place that changes, while the “imaginary external place” remains stable.
The tower keeps its place moraliter while the container changes physice.29 (The
term moraliter comes from moral theology where it can mean “for practical
purposes”; it could also suggest “conceptually.”) That is, the inner surface of
the external body remains identical—as a concept—while the external body
(air or water) keeps changing. We could also say: “place” serves practical deter-
25 Compton Carleton, Cursus philosophicus, disp. 32, §1n1, 332.

26 Conimbricenses, In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae, lib. 4, q. 1, art. 3, 33.
27 Philippe Moncé, Disputationes theologicae (Paris: Cramoisy, 1622), disp. 10, cap. 1, 809. On
Reformed physical theory of the Eucharist, see Cees Leijenhorst, “Place, Space and Matter
in Calvinist Physics,” Monist 84, no. 4 (2001): 520–41.
28 Rubio, Commentarii in Aristotelis de physico auditu, q. 3n38, 10v–11r.
29 Compton Carleton, Cursus philosophicus disp. 32, §2n4, 334.
160 Blum
mination and theory, regardless of the physical bodily condition of the actual
surrounding surface.
While the tower example questioned the operability of “place” for under-
standing natural and artificial local movement, another problem challenged
the absolute validity of the Aristotelian container-place: the question of the
place of the world as a whole. As we saw earlier, the approaches used by To-
ledo, Perera, and the Coimbrans drew attention in one way or another to the
notion of space, unchangeable location, and vacuum. As a result, Compton
Carleton explains that the finite world is in a place potentially insofar as God
could well have created yet another surrounding sphere.30 Compton Carleton
defers to God’s power, whereas for Perera the quest for a container of the world
is a logical infinite regress.31 Both ways of arguing can be explained as trans-
forming physical and theological concerns into methodical theory, for both so-
lutions expose the question as one leading astray from warranted knowledge.
At the same time, we observe increased reference to the spatial parameters of
the world, namely the heavenly spheres and the center of the world. Even more
clearly, the Jesuit Giuseppe Biancani (Josephus Blancanus [1566–1624]), who
is known for his early reception of Galileo’s science, tersely stated that “to be
in a place” is inadequate for the world, because world is what contains things.
And that is true whether one defines place as a container or as space. To think
of a place outside the world exceeds natural understanding. What matters is to
determine the regions, locations, and positions of parts of the world with the
help of astronomy.32
At this point, it is no longer surprising that Giordano Bruno took this debate
about the location of the world as a starting point to argue in favor of the in-
finity of the cosmos and innumerability of worlds. In his De immenso (On the
infinite [1591]), he argued that the very question of what is beyond the world
suggests there has to be something divine and infinite that undoes the distinc-
tion between located and locating, so that the universe may well be an infinite
30 Ibid., disp. 32, §2n1, 333.

31 Perera, De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis, lib. 11, cap. 9, 629f.
32 Giuseppe Biancani, Sphaera mundi, seu cosmographia, demonstrativa, ac facili methodo
tradita: In qua totius mundi fabrica, una cum novis Tychonis, Kepleri, Galilaei, aliorumque
astronomorum adinventis continetur (Bologna: Bonomius, 1620), pars 3, §1, tr. 1, cap. 1, 57.
On Biancani, see Ugo Baldini, “Additamenta Galilaeana. I. Galileo, La nuova astronomia e
la critica all’aristotelismo nel dialogo epistolare tra Giuseppe Biancani e i revisori romani
della Compagnia di Gesù,” Annali dell’Istituto e Museo di storia della scienza di Firenze 9,
no. 2 (1984): 13–43; Paolo Mancosu, Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Practice
in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), Chapter 1.2.1, 15–19.
space.33 In support, Bruno reports the “nonsense” of the Aristotelians, based

on the status quaestionis given by Perera.34 While appropriating the interpreta-
tions of the Jesuits, Bruno is not far from the later Compton Carleton. The Je-
suit found the location of God merely a question of terminology, for to say God
is in the imaginary spaces beyond the heavens is the same as to say that God
with his immensity is actually pervaded with all the negations of real locality
and hence also most intimate to them. Does God coexist with the imaginary
spaces? Not properly speaking, because those spaces are negatively immense,
whereas God is positively immense.35 The difference with Bruno is that the
heretic equated divine and cosmic infinity.
The location of the world, place versus space, and vacuum merge into one
philosophical quest for a philosophy of the physical reality.36 In contrast to the
other Jesuits who follow the structure of book 4 of Aristotle’s Physics, Compton
Carleton opens the treatise with a discussion of the vacuum. Void and spirit
can coexist, body and spirit too, but not so body and vacuum. The horror vacui
is explained by the consistency of the natural world, in which the forces that
keep the sublunary world together, the influences from the heavenly spheres,
would be impeded by vacuum. Accordingly, the changes take place in a con-
tinuous succession, that is, not in an instance, and the forces that move things
also impede any vacuum. The experimental argument is: when pumping air
out of a well, more and more weight is felt with the water rising. If the water
would rise by itself or not rise while the air is pumped out, one would feel no
weight.37 Relying on an experiment, Compton underscores coherence in natu-
ral processes. On this basis, the Jesuit can take the notion of space seriously
both as imaginary and as empty: it is a construction of the mind.
33 Giordano Bruno, “De immenso et innumerabilibus seu de universo et mundis,” in Jordani

Bruni Nolani opera latine conscripta, ed. Francesco Fiorentino (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1962 [1879]), 1.1:lib. 1, cap. 6, 221–23.
34 Ibid., 223–25. See Marco Lamanna, “Perera Benito,” in Giordano Bruno: Parole, concetti,
immagini, ed. Michele Ciliberto (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2014), 2:1461–65; Perera, De
communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis, lib. 11, cap. 8.
36 There might be a connection between the imagination of place (compositio loci) in the Je-
suit Spiritual Exercises and the philosophy of space as suggested by Michael John Gorman,
“Jesuit Explorations of the Torricellian Space: Carp-Bladders and Sulphurous Fumes,” Mé-
langes de l’École Française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée 106, no. 1 (1994): 7–32, here 20.
A response to vacuum experiments of the time was Paulo Casati, Vacuum proscriptum:
Disputatio physica (Genoa: Peri, 1649). Casati also tied the void to the imaginary space
(cap. 7, 81f.).
37 Compton Carleton, Cursus philosophicus, disp. 32, §1n3–6, 333.
162 Blum
The Jesuit targeted René Descartes (1596–1650) when discussing space. Ac-
cording to his summary, Descartes holds that—in avoidance of a vacuum—
there is no place that has no body, even beyond the heavens. The world is
“indefinitely immense,” filling all imaginary spaces with infinite worlds.38 The
first objection is: a philosopher may not invent something and declare that
this is beyond doubt—Cyclops, for instance, or dogs with horns.39 The Jesuit
is exploiting the terminology in Descartes’s text, namely imaginari and fingere:
“Wherever we can imagine limits we imagine further spaces.” Descartes is ac-
cused of claiming that these spaces are imaginable and therefore real and of
equating the idea of extension with the idea of corporeal substance. As a Je-
suit, Compton Carleton knew the epistemological and metaphysical status of
entia rationis, fictions of the mind in analogy to real beings, such as fabulous
animals, but also necessary ideas (e.g., negations).40 Indeed, “the human mind
has no limits of place and time,” but that does not make its conceptions real.
Rather, the embodied human mind imagines angels and even God on the mod-
el of bodies, knowing that this is improper. By way of abstraction, we know of
space and conceive of it on the pattern of air or other bodies and of real spatial
extension.41 In other words, Descartes’s error was to mistake a being of reason
for a real being.
For Compton Carleton, imaginary space is such a “being of reason,” that is,
imaginary space exists as an object of the mind alone and therefore inevita-
bly negates real location. For example, if Peter is located in Rome, then every-
where else is an imaginary space that inescapably negates the statement “Peter
is located in Rome.”42 Space and vacuum have the same properties: infinite
in three dimensions, immobile in concept and reality, capable of containing
impenetrable bodies, partitioned according to real things, and in all this the
negation of location.43 It should be remembered that, in the beginning, Comp-
ton Carleton had qualified vacuum as that which can be undone by a body.
Location and imaginary space are conceptually interlocked. Imaginary space
38 Ibid., disp. 32, §3n1, 334, citing Descartes, Principia philosophiae 2, 21–22 (AT 8.1, 52).
39 Ibid., §3n6–8, 334.
40 Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel.
41 Compton Carleton, Cursus philosophicus, disp. 32, §3n9 and 13, 334–35; disp. 33, §3n7, 337.
Tirso González de Santalla (1624–1705) also viewed space as a being of reason. Sven K.
Knebel, Suarezismus: Erkenntnistheoretisches aus dem Nachlass des Jesuitengenerals Tirso
González de Santalla (1624–1705); Abhandlung und Edition (Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
2011), 84.
43 Ibid., n. 2, 336.
explains what location means but is not itself location.44 Thus Compton Car-
leton leaves the Aristotelian idea of place behind.
The investigation of place, space, and vacuum is paradigmatic for the Jesuits’
commitment to understanding nature and negotiating authorities with reason.
Their method can also be studied by looking at other sections of natural phi-
losophy. Against the potential suspicion that the Jesuits might have followed
dictates of the church or slavishly endorsed ancient or medieval doctrines, it
can be concluded that the investigation of reality and the establishment of a
secure scientific method was at the center of their philosophy.
Bibliography
Baldini, Ugo. “Additamenta Galilaeana. I. Galileo, La nuova astronomia e la critica

all’aristotelismo nel dialogo epistolare tra Giuseppe Biancani e i revisori romani
della Compagnia di Gesù.” Annali dell’Istituto e Museo di storia della scienza di Fi-
renze 9, no. 2 (1984): 13–43.
Biancani, Giuseppe. Sphaera mundi, seu cosmographia, demonstrativa, ac facili metho
do tradita: In qua totius mundi fabrica, una cum novis Tychonis, Kepleri, Galilaei, alio-
rumque Astronomorum adinventis continetur. Bologna: Bonomius, 1620.
Bruno, Giordano. Dialoghi italiani. Edited by Gentile, Giovanni and Aquilecchia,
Giovanni. Florence: Sansoni, 1958.
Bruno, Giordano. “De immenso et innumerabilibus seu de universo et mundis.” In Jor-
dani Bruni Nolani opera latine conscripta, edited by Francesco Fiorentino. Stuttgart-
Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1962 [1879].
Casalini, Cristiano. Aristotele a Coimbra: Il cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel Col-
Casati, Paulo. Vacuum proscriptum: Disputatio physica. Genoa: Peri, 1649.
Compton Carleton, Thomas. Cursus philosophicus universus, ed. tertia. Antwerp: Ver-
dussen, 1698 [1649].
Conimbricenses. Commentariorum Collegii Conimbricensis, Societatis Iesu, In octo li-
bros Physicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae, Secunda Pars. Cologne: Zetzner, 1600 [1592].
Contarini, Gasparo. Gasparis Contareni […] opera. Paris: Apud Sebastianum Niuellium,
1571.
Cross, Richard. “Angelic Time and Motion: Bonaventure to Duns Scotus.” In A Com-
panion to Angels in Medieval Philosophy, edited by Tobias Hoffmann, 117–47. Leiden:
Brill, 2012.
Feingold, Mordechai, ed. Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2003.
44 Ibid., disp. 33, §3n4, 337.

164 Blum
Feingold, Mordechai, ed. The New Science and Jesuit Science: Seventeenth Century Per-
spectives. Archimedes 6. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003.
Fernel, Jean. The Physiologia of Jean Fernel (1567). Translated by John M. Forrester. Phil-
adelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2003.
Garber, Daniel, and Michael Ayers, eds. The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century
Philosophy. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Gorman, Michael John. “Jesuit Explorations of the Torricellian Space: Carp-Bladders
and Sulphurous Fumes.” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome: Italie et Méditer-
ranée 106, no. 1 (1994): 7–32.
Grant, Edward. “Medieval and Seventeenth-Century Conceptions of an Infinite Void
Space beyond the Cosmos.” Isis 60, no. 1 (1969): 39–60.
Grant, Edward. “The Partial Transformation of Medieval Cosmology by Jesuits in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters,
edited by Mordechai Feingold, 127–55. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
Knebel, Sven K. Suarezismus: Erkenntnistheoretisches aus dem Nachlass des Jesuiten-
generals Tirso González de Santalla (1624–1705); Abhandlung und Edition. Amster-
dam: John Benjamins, 2011.
Lamanna, Marco. “Perera Benito.” In Giordano Bruno: Parole, concetti, immagini, edited
by Michele Ciliberto, 2:1461–65. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2014.
Leijenhorst, Cees. “Place, Space and Matter in Calvinist Physics.” Monist 84, no. 4
(2001): 520–41.
Leijenhorst, Cees. The Mechanisation of Aristotelianism: The Late Aristotelian Setting of
Thomas Hobbes’s Natural Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Moncaeus, Philippus. Disputationes theologicae. Paris: Cramoisy, 1622.
Mancosu, Paolo. Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Practice in the Seven-
teenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Novotný, Daniel D. Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel: A Study in Scholasticism of the
Baroque Era. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.
Perera, Benet. De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis et affectionibus, li-
bri quindecim. Paris: Sonnius, 1579 [1576].
Philoponus, John. Ioannis Grammatici, cognomento Philoponi, in Aristotelis Physicorum
libros quatuor explanatio. Translated by Giovanni Battista Rasario. Venice: Valgri-
sius, 1569.
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni Francesco. Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium et
veritatis Christianae disciplinae. [Mirandola]: Maciochius, 1520.
Rubio, Antonio. Commentarii in Aristotelis de physico auditu seu auscultatione. Co-
logne: Crithius, 1629.
Schmitt, Charles B. “Experimental Evidence for and against a Void: The Sixteenth-
Century Arguments.” Isis 58, no. 3, 193 (1968): 352–66.
Sedley, David. “Chapter 7: Philoponus’ Conception of Space.” Bulletin of the Institute of

Classical Studies 56, no. S103 (February 1, 2013): 181–93; DOI:10.1111/j.2041-5370.2013.
tb02542.x.
Suárez, Francisco. Disputationes metaphysicae (Opera omnia vol. 25–26). Paris: Vivès,
1861.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentaria, una cum quaestionibus, In octo libros Aristotelis, De
physica Auscultatione. Cologne: Birckmann, 1574.
Vázquez, Gabriel. Disputationes metaphysicae desumptae ex variis locis suorum ope-
rum. Antwerp: Keerberg, 1618.
Wels, Henrik. “Late Medieval Debates on the Location of Angels after the Condemna-
tion of 1277.” In Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry: Their Function and Signifi-
cance, edited by Isabel Iribarren and Martin Lenz, 113–27. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
Chapter 7
“Accedit Theologicum argumentum”: Discussing

Transubstantiation in Commenting Aristotle;
Commentarius Collegii Conimbricensis on Aristotle’s
De generatione
Stefano Caroti
The Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis on Aristotle are widely viewed as one

of the most important outcomes of the Jesuits’ decision to use Aristotle’s works
as course books for higher training in philosophy, not only as far as the order’s
education plan is concerned but also in the long history of Aristotelianism.1
According to one interpretation, the decision played a fundamental role in the
Jesuits’ success and their reputation as highly skilled philosophers, scientists,
and theologians. Yet, according to a different interpretation that stresses the
importance of Aristotle’s and Scholastic Aristotelianism’s contribution to mod-
ern science and philosophy, it is also the source of an opposing evaluation of
the order’s contribution to modern culture, based on a historiographical per-
spective that juxtaposes Aristotelian Scholasticism and the new science and
philosophy originating from Galileo Galilei’s (1564–1652) and René Descartes’s
(1596–1650) work. As a result of these two opposing interpretations, the Je-
suits’ efforts in these fields tend to be assessed either negatively in terms of
their enslavement to Aristotle, or positively on the basis of the ways in which
the order transformed the Philosopher’s original teaching. However, doing so
potentially conceals the relevance as well as the original intention of the Je-
suit commentators on Aristotle. And the revival of stronger historiographical
perspectives—such as the one put forward by Pierre Duhem (1861–1916), who
reduces modern science to medieval achievements—does not provide the ba-
sis for the kind of neutral approach that would be needed to properly appre-
ciate the Jesuit contribution to modern culture. Although adopting a neutral
position is more laborious than comparing single parts of Jesuit c ommentaries
1 The bibliography on the Cursus is vast; I only quote some of the more important contribu-
tions; see John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993);
Cristiano Casalini, Aristotele a Coimbra: Il Cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel “Colle-
gium Artium” (Rome: Anicia, 2012).

Accedit Theologicum argumentum 167
e ither with some Aristotelian philosophical solutions or with some of the

more important outcomes of modern science, doing so is the only way to fully
appreciate the original efforts and intentions of every commentator.
In order to better take into account the afterlife of the Commentarii in the
Jesuits’ system of higher education, it is more productive to engage in an analy-
sis of a problem in one of the Jesuit commentaries than to compare it with
medieval or more recent (Galileo or Descartes) philosophical, scientific, and
theological discussions. Rather than evaluating the originality or groundbreak-
ing nature of a given text, the task of the historian is to understand what the
author originally intended, and this can only be done by paying due respect to
the viewpoint of the authors themselves and the context in which their work
emerged.
There are at least two reasons why Manuel de Góis’s (1543–97) commentary
on De generatione et corruptione2 (On generation and corruption) is a good
starting point for achieving this goal. The first is that De generatione is one
of the less frequently commented of Aristotle’s writings,3 particularly when
compared, for instance, with Physica (On physics) and De coelo (On heavens).
Second, the problems Góis’s commentary discusses are not part of the agenda
of the new philosophy and science, thus providing him with more freedom to
state his own positions rather than following previously established patterns
and protocols, at least in a context and in a form like that of Aristotle’s work.
It is important to make a few preliminary remarks before dealing with the
commentary’s discussion of the relationship between substance and acci-
dents—a topic closely related to transubstantiation.4 As is well known, the
Commentarii on Aristotle’s works from the Jesuit college at the University of
Coimbra are by far the most important examples of manuals used for teaching
philosophy since the first Scholastic commentaries of the thirteenth century,
and the commentary on De generatione et corruptione is no exception. In ad-
dition to the Greek text and the Latin translation, the work contains both the
literal commentary (expositio/explanatio) and an in-depth analysis of the top-
ics discussed in the quaestiones (questions) at the end of each section (capita).
The table of contents at the beginning (Summa capitum et quaestionum) and
the Index rerum at the end of the book are not the only aids for the readers: fol-
lowing the practice of medieval university students and teachers, the margins
2 I quote from the 1613 Lyon edition, De generatione, the first edition is Lisbon 1595.
3 Hans J.M.M. Thijssen and Henk A.G. Braakhuis, eds., The Commentary Tradition on Aristo-
tle’s De generatione et corruptione: Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern (Turnhout: Brepols,
1999).
4 Which, as is well known, was a main concern for Descartes.
168 Caroti
of the De generatione commentary contain summaries of the topics discussed

in the text and references to the authors quoted.5
Thus, unlike in Góis’s commentary, Aristotle’s text is not printed in the De
generatione commentary from the Discalced Carmelites’ Collegium Com-
plutense6 (neither in the original Greek nor in the Latin translation), in which
even the literal paraphrase is omitted;7 respecting an already secular tradition,
the Carmelites limited the content of their manual to a series of quaestiones ar-
ranged in disputationes (analogous to the capita in the Coimbra manual). Simi-
larly, Francisco de Toledo’s (1515–82) commentary on De generatione8 does not
contain Aristotle’s text but instead introduces the quaestiones with a summary;
though it is not a real explanatio, it is still incomparably more complete than
the summaries in the Discalced Carmelites’ commentary. In Toledo’s edition,
there is no annotation in the margins, unlike in the Venice one (Apud Iunctas,
1579), which contains marginal references to the topics discussed in the text.
A superficial glance at the annotations in the edition of the Coimbra man-
ual on Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione I am using here immediately
provides an idea of the wide range of sources employed in the text, enhanced
through the references in the left-hand margins, which may have been added
by the scholar(s) who prepared the printed edition, even though the authors
mentioned in these margins can also be found in other parts of the text. An
astonishing number of authors are quoted, ranging from Plato in the trans-
lation of Marsilio Ficino (Marsilius Ficinus [1433–99]) to Anselm (1033–1109),
from Boethius (c.475/77–c.526) to William of Ockham (1285–1347), from Jean
Fernel (1497–1558) to Andrea van Wesel (Andreas Vesalius [1514–64]), and from
Agostino Nifo (Augustinus Niphus [c.1473–c.1545]) to Girolamo F racastoro
5 There is a different general purpose in the notes contained on the left-hand margins: while
those on the right closely follow the text, those on the left provide additional information
on the topic discussed in the text, usually references to one or more authors not quoted in
the text. There are similar annotations in some of the commentaries on Aristotle’s works by
Agostino Nifo. Such annotations have been integrated in order to help the teacher in his lec-
tures on the text, and very likely they are the outcome of the work made on the philosophical
texts from antiquity to the early modern period (on printed editions) by the editor (s) of the
Commentarius.
6 Collegii Complutensis Discalceatorum Fratrum Beatae Mariae de Monte Carmeli Disputationes
in duos libros Physicorum Aristotelis De generatione et corruptione seu De ortu et interitu (Lyon:
Ioannes-Amatus Candy, 1637 [1627]). In the copies I am acquainted with, there are no annota-
tions in the margins.
7 At the beginning of both books, we find only a brief summary (summa) of the content of the
book.
8 Francisco de Toledo, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in duos libros Aristotelis De genera-
tione et corruptione (Venice: Apud Junctas, 1690).
(Hieronymus Fracastorius [1478–1553]). This in turn raises the question of

whether the presence of such a wide range of sources, and in particular con-
temporary authors, can be ascribed to what we could call erudition or rather
to real philosophical, scientific, or theological interests. Góis could, of course,
avail himself of the synthesis proposed by Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99) and
Francisco Suárez (1548–1617)—to mention only two of the major figures of Je-
suit philosophy—but not all the sources of the commentary are to be found in
their works.
The second articulus of the seventh question of Chapter 5 (book 1, “Whether
an Element Can Be the Nourishment of a Living Thing or Not”9) contains a
series of statements (assertiones) that confirm the author’s manifold knowl-
edge. The third assertio, which ends with a reference to Aristotle’s De sensu
(On sense), emphasizes the complexity of natural events, which can hardly
be explained on the basis of Aristotle’s theory of the four elements.10 The fol-
lowing statement, the Aristotelian notion of potentia notwithstanding, even
has a materialistic nuance, introduced through a passage from Lucretius’s
De rerum natura (On the nature of things).11 Moreover, in the first a rticulus,
9 “An elementum rei viventis alimentum esse queat necne.” Commentarii Collegii Conimbri-
censis Societatis Jesu in duos libros De generatione et corruptione Aristotelis (Lyon: Sumpti-
bus Horatii Cardon, 1613) [De generatione (1613) hereafter], 249–52.
10 “Tertia assertio. Nihil prohibet aliqua elementa extra naturalem statum posita, et invi-
cem confusa effici quorundam viventium alimentum. Huius assertionis veritatem probat
experientia. Constat enim herbas, stirpesque terra et aqua invicem coniunctis enutriri,
ut superius argumentabamur, docetque Aristoteles libro de sensu et sensato capitulo 5”
(Third statement. Nothing prevents some elements placed in a supernatural state and
blended with each other from being the nourishment of certain kinds of living beings. Ex-
perience proves the truth of such a statement. Indeed, it is clear that plants and roots are
nourished by land and water in combination as we said above, and as Aristotle teaches in
Chapter 5 of On Sense). Ibid., 251. In the left-hand margin, there is a reference to Guillau-
me Rondelet’s (1507–66) De piscibus (Lyon, 1554), which is not quoted in the text, though
it is mentioned in the first articulus (article) of the question (250).
11 “Quarta assertio. Licet quodvis mistum secundum potentiam remotam dici queat alimen-
tum cuiuslibet viventis, non tamen secundum potentiam proximam tale est. Haec quoad
priorem partem ostenditur, quia nulli misto ex parte materiae quae ad omnes formas
indiscriminatim se habet, repugnat assumere tandem formam quam obtinet verum pro-
priumque alimentum cuiusque viventis. Quo pertinet illud Lucretii libro 2 […]. Posterior
pars assertionis inde patet, quia id tantum dicitur alimentum alicuius viventis, quod ab eo
immutari et decoqui potest; hoc vero non omnibus mistis convenire, palam est” (Fourth
statement. Although anything mixed according to a remote power can be said to be the
nourishment of some living being, nevertheless it is not such according to the proximate
power. This is shown as far as the first part of the statement, since it is not contradictory
for anything mixed from part of the matter that relates to all forms indiscriminately to
assume the same form that the true and proper food of each living being holds. Relevant
170 Caroti
the chameleon is introduced as an example of a living being nourishing

itself exclusively through air; the authors quoted in the text are Tertullian
(c.155–c.240), Plinius (23–79), Plutarch (c.46–120), and Guillaume Rondelet
(1507–66), enriched in the left-hand margin through the mention of Ambroise
Paré (c.1510–90), Strabo (c.63 bce–c.24 ce), Solinus (fl. third century), Jean
Baptiste Bruyerin (fl. 1530–60),12 Caelius Rhodiginus (Ludovico Ricchieri
[1469–1525]) and Oribasius (c.320–c.400). In defending what is stated in the af-
firmationes, Góis quotes a long passage concerning an experiment carried out
by Johannes Landius (dates uncertain) during his travels in Syria, as recorded
in Julius Caesar Scaliger’s (1484–1588) Exercitationes contra Cardanum (Exer-
cises against Cardanus).13
In the explanatio of book 1, 8 (Chapter 8, t. 56), where the different posi-
tions of ancient philosophers on action and passion are discussed, and after
mentioning his own solution concerning Parmenides’s and Melissus’s unten-
able reduction of natural principles to only one principle in his commentary
on Aristotle’s Physics,14 Góis quotes Basilion Bessarion’s (1403–72) In calum-
niatorem Platonis (Against Plato’s calumniator), Nicholas of Cusa’s (1401–64)
De filiatione Dei (On divine filiation), Augustinus Eugubinus’s (Agostino Steu-
co [1497/98–1548]) De perenni philosophia (On perennial philosophy), and
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola’s (1469–1533) Examen vanitatis doc-
trinae gentium (Examination of the vanity of the unbelievers’ doctrines).15 The
discussion of this topic in Góis’s commentaries on De generatione and Physics
sheds light on two very important points concerning the Jesuits’ efforts to pro-
vide a complete system of knowledge by commenting on Aristotle’s writings. It
is important to emphasize the complementarity of the commentaries—with
the leading position allotted to the more important work, the Physics, where
the topics are discussed more deeply. The strategy of exploiting Aristotle’s text
in order to introduce theological issues, a well-established practice in medieval
Aristotelianism, is bolstered in Góis’s De generatione commentary (and in the
to this is that passage in Lucretius’s book. […] The second part of the statement is then
obvious since only what can be transformed and digested is considered the food of some
living being. But it is clear that this does not apply to every mixed thing). Ibid.
12 Here quoted as “Boëmius liber 2: De moribus gentium”; Jean-Baptiste Bruyerin, De re ci-
baria libri 22. Omnium ciborum genera, omnium gentium moribus, & vsu probata complec-
tens (Lyon: Apud Sebastianum Honoratum, 1560).
13 Exerc. 196, v. De generatione (1613), 252. This same passage is mentioned in Thomas
Brown’s Religio medici, 3, 21.
14 The reference is to the commentary on book 1, Chapter 6, question 1, art. 1; see Commen-
tarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Jesu in octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae
(Lyon: Johannes Baptista Buysson, 1594) [Physica (1594) hereafter], 136–38.
15 De generatione (1613), 315.
Physics commentary as well) by the wide range of Renaissance and contempo-

rary authors that are quoted. This is the second point to be considered, because
it reveals the wide range of interests fostered in Jesuit education, so much so
that considering Jesuit education as an updated form of Aristotelian Scholasti-
cism would be to downgrade its original aim.
The commentary on the Physics quoted in the explanatio of De generatione
is quite interesting: following Simplicius (490–560), Parmenides’s and Melis-
sus’s positions are interpreted as a defense of the unicity of God,16 upheld also
by Hermes Trismegistus as the “unitas radix omnium rerum.”17 The reference
to Hermes allows Góis to introduce the notion of pia philosophia, that is, the
conviction strongly endorsed by Ficino (who is not quoted) of an ancient re-
ligious attitude that preceded Christianism,18 a sort of docta religio, to which
Parmenides’s and Melissus’s position is also ascribed. The question of why Ar-
istotle disapproved the two authors is raised explicitly,19 and the reply is found
in his aversion against the method—notably against drawing heavily on eso-
teric language—and not against the content.20 This irenic view of Aristotle’s
16 “Alii, ut ex scriptis Eudemi Simplicius loco citato memorat, putant illos omnia unum
dixisse, id est, unam esse mundi universitatem, quae res omnes, quasi unum quid suo
complexu continet, nec alterius rei creatae ope indiget, quam intelligentiam innuit etiam
Aristoteles primo de generatione capitulo 8” (Others hold as Simplicius cites from Eude-
mus’s writings in the above-mentioned text, that they [Parmenides and Melissus] stated
that everything is one, namely that there is a single integral whole world, and it contains in
its all things as if they were one, and it does not require the act of any other created thing
than that which Aristotle called intelligence, in On Generation, first book, Chapter 8).
Physica (1594), 137, where the cross reference to the text of De generatione is to be noted.
17 Unity is the foundation of everything. Ibid.
18 “Nimirum vetus Philosophantium consuetudo fuerat in Aegyptiis, et Chaldaeis, atque a
Pherecide Pytagorae magistro ducta, ut Philosophiae mysteria, aut non scriberent omni-
no, aut scriberent dissimulanter, id est, implicita recedentium sensuum obscuritate, et
Mathematicis imaginibus, atque aenigmatibus reconderent” (Evidently an ancient tradi-
tion had existed among philosophers among the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and practiced
by Pherecydes the teacher of Pythagoras, that they would not write down the mysteries
of philosophy at all, or they would write them in a obscure and implicit way, using math-
ematical images, and enigmas). Ibid., 138.
19 “Quid igitur caussae fuit, dicet aliquis, cur sese Aristoteles in eos Philosophos tam sever-
um iudicem exhibuerit, eorumque dicta, etsi in speciem falsa, re ipsa tamen veritati
consona, tot argumentis confutari?” (What was the reason—someone will ask—why Ar-
istotle exhibited such a harshly critical attitude toward these philosophers and refuted
with so many arguments their position, which, even though only apparently false, was
nevertheless consonant with truth?). Ibid.
20 “Aristoteles vero, etsi iudicaret Philosophiam passim evulgandam non esse, eam tamen
doctrinae rationem, quod cuncta in ambiguo relinqueret, et interdum inani falsitatis spe-
cie veritatem obumbraret, minime probandam censuit. Itaque ob hanc caussam, tum hoc
172 Caroti
philosophy is corroborated by a reference to Saint Thomas (1224/25–74) as well

to Bessarion’s In calumniatorem Platonis.21
1 Alteratio and Transubstantiation
Unlike the Commentarius Collegii Complutensis and Toledo’s De generatione

commentary, Góis’s commentary on De generatione devotes most of the sec-
tion on alteratio22 to the relationship between substance and accidents, with
explicit reference to theological topics, and mainly to transubstantiation.23
loco Parmenidem et Melissum, tum alibi antiquos Philosophos frequenter impugnat, in

iis etiam rebus, quibus recte eos sensisse intelligit, non tam quid illi significare vellent,
quam quod primo verborum aspectu indicare viderentur, expendens. Ne scilicet imperiti-
oribus, qui vocabulis haerent, hallucinandi, et in errores incidendi occasio relinqueretur”
(In fact, although Aristotle thought that philosophy should not be made known univer-
sally, he nonetheless believed that the method of leaving everything unclear and even
sometimes of obscuring the truth with something false had to be rejected. For this reason,
Aristotle often attacks Parmenides and Melissus and other ancient philosophers in this
matter, considering not what they meant, but rather what they seemed to say on the basis
of the first apparent meaning of the words. And that in order to prevent the mistaking of
the incompetents). Ibid.
21 “Quod animadvertit praeter alios Divus Thomas 3. Metaphysicorum ad text. 15, Eustratius
1. Eticorum cap. 6, Bessario libro 1. Contra calumniatorem Platonis cap. 3. Et libro 2. Ca.p
7” (This was grasped, in addition to other philosophers, by Saint Thomas in the third book
of his commentary on Metaphysics text 15, by Eustrace in Chapter 6 of his commentary
on Ethics and by Bessarion in his Against the Calumniator of Plato book 1, Chapter 6 and
book 2, Chapter 7). That the author is here alluding to the pia philosophia/docta religio is
confirmed by another set of references including the same work by Bessarion, Nicholas
of Cusa’s De filiatione Dei, Agostino Steuco’s De perenni philosophia, and Francesco Pico
della Mirandola’s Examen doctrinae vanitatis gentium (which has probably inspired the
quotations either of Bessarion or Nicholas of Cusa).
22 Chapter 4, q. 4: “Quodnam sit subiectum alterationis aliorumque materialium
accidentium” (What is the subject of alteration and other material accidents); q. 5 “Utrum
quodlibet accidens divina virtute alieno subiecto inhaerere possit, an non” (Whether any
accident can inhere in a different subject by divine virtue or not); q. 6 “Possit-ne accidens
divina virtute conservari extra subiectum” (Whether an accident can be preserved by di-
vine virtue beyond the subject); q. 7 “Quidnam accidens amittere, aut acquirere debeat,
ut divinitus extra subiectum maneat” (What should an accident lose or acquire in order
to continue by divine power beyond the subject). De generatione (1613), 54–88.
23 Some references are also made to the Trinity: ibid., 54, 55, 60 (where it is a very strong
counterargument against the Thomist suppositum solution: “Si suppositum physicum
sustentaret accidentia, etiam Verbum Divinum in mysterio Incarnationis diceretur sus-
tentare accidentia humanitatis assumptae; nam quoad supposita denominanda, eadem
utrobique ratio esse videtur, atqui hoc asserendum non est, ergo neque illud” [If the
An exact exposition of the problem in a philosophical framework is of para-

mount importance in order to test such a theoretical framework and to refute
heretical convictions.24
In the first question, four conclusions introduce the basic features of the
Aristotelian notion of alteratio: (1) what is affected by the special motion of
alteration is the singular physical object (compositum), which is the subject of
the accidents (subiectum denominationis or quod); in the case of the human
being, where soul is a per se substance, there is no need for the subject to be
a complete being; (2) the subject in which accidents are to be properly found
(subiectum inhaesionis or quo) is neither matter, nor form, or even their en-
semble, and therefore (3) “Subiectum cui immediate inhaerent materialia ac-
cidentia non est totum compositum” (The subject in which material accidents
immediately inhere is not the whole composite);25 and finally (4), first matter,
informed by a substantial form, is such a subiectum inhaesionis. But it is not
just first matter in which material accidents inhere properly, if they maintain
the possibility to act, secured by quantity.
And it is exactly by describing transubstantiation in philosophical terms
that Góis introduces a theological argument for allotting to quantity the subi-
ectum inhaerentiae of material accidents:
Third, there is in addition a theological argument.

Indeed, since in the Holy Eucharist the accidents of the bread main-
tain the same place as before and keep the same quantity, wherever it
hysical subject (suppositum) were to maintain accidents, then one would also say that
p
in the mystery of incarnation, the Divine Word maintains the accidents of the humanity
that it has acquired. Indeed, to the extent that they are named supposita, the same rea-
soning seems to apply to each, but it should not be asserted, so it cannot be the former
assertion (namely the physical subject maintain accidents)]); 61, 64, 68.
24 In art. 2 of q. 6, we find some references from councils, fathers, doctors, and theologians
like the Carmelite Thomas Netter (1375–1430) and the Jesuit Francisco Torres (c.1509–84)
against “Vuithclephus et Oecolampadius, aliique eiusdem farinae homines, propositae
conclusionis veritati temere adversantes, aientesque nos dum asserimus conservari divin-
itus accidentia extra subiectum, commune ius naturae, ordinemque violare, cum natura
rerum ita a Deo ordinata sit, ut si auferantur substantiae, accidentia deperire, et in nihi-
lum redigi oporteat” (Wyclif and Oecolampadius, and others of that ilk, rashly opposing
the truth of the proposed conclusion and saying that while we assert that the accidents
are divinely preserved beyond the subject, we are violating the common law and order
of nature since the nature of things has been so ordained by God that if substance are
removed, then accidents must perish and be reduced to nothing). Ibid., 74.
25 Ibid., 56.
174 Caroti
moves, they doubtless remain united and bound with each other by
reason of some subject [subiectum]; not of something other than quan-
tity (considering that the bread’s matter and form have ceased to be);
therefore, they reside in that quantity in which they inhered before con-
secration, except that the quantity that earlier had been the subject by
which [subiectum quo] has become the subject which [subiectum quod]
now that it has been divinely preserved beyond any matter.26
It is evident that the distinction between subiectum quod and quo is suitable
for describing the presence of bread’s accidents after the consecration. But it is
also clear that Góis is here reviving a medieval theory, that of dimensiones in-
terminatae (boundless dimensions),27 which he uses to provide philosophical
support for a theological topic. Quantity, which follows matter, is an adiutrix
26 “Tertio, accedit Theologicum argumentum. Namque in divina Eucharistia cum accidentia

panis eundem retineant situm, quem antea, et sequantur quantitatem, quocumque illa
movetur; haud dubie manent inter se unita, et colligata, ratione alicuius subiecti, non al-
terius quam quantitatis (siquidem materia, et forma panis desierunt esse); igitur insident
quantitati, cui ante consecrationem inhaerebant, nisi quod ea quantitas, quae prius fuerat
subiectum quo, nunc divinitus extra materiam servata, fit subiectum quod […]. Praeterea
nisi quantitas sacramentalis esset subiectum aliorum accidentium, nullum eorum ab iis
speciebus posset naturaliter expelli, vel denuo acquiri. Hoc autem experientiae repugnat,
cum sensu pateat species refrigerari, et incalescere, aliisque id genus alterationibus im-
mutari, ergo etc. Probatur maior, quia illa expulsio est ab aliquo subiecto, et illa acquisitio,
cum sit actio positiva, similiter in subiecto aliquo recipitur, et de alicuius subiecti potes-
tate educitur. At hoc subiectum, nisi sit quantitas, nullum omnino erit.” (Moreover, if the
quantity of the consecrated host was not the subject of the other accidents, none of them
could be naturally removed from their sensible properties or newly acquire them. Such
case, in fact, is against experience, since it is evident by sense experience that the sensible
properties of the consecrated host can be cooled, warmed up, and subdued to different
modifications. The first premise [maior] is proved considering that either their removal is
from some subject or their acquisition, being a positive action, is similarly to be received
in a subject, and it is derived from the potency of some subject; but if quantity is not the
subject, there is no subject at all). Ibid., 59. Other solutions are forced to rely too heavily
on miracles: “Nec satisfaciet qui dixerit posse haec omnia divina virtute praestari absque
subiecti adminiculo; non enim etiam in re tam ineffabili miracula citra necessitate, aut
idoneam rationem multiplicanda sunt” (Nor is it adequate if someone says that all this
divine virtue prevails without the aid of a subject; for not even in a matter so ineffable
should miracles be multiplied without necessity or suitable reason).
27 “Utrum quantitas interminata sit ponenda” (Whether quantity should be claimed to be
boundless) is the title of dist. 18 of the second book of Capreolus’s commentary, quoted
among the authors upholding the primary role of quantity in receiving material acci-
dents. See Cecilia Donati, “La dottrina delle dimensioni interminate in Egidio Romano,”
Medioevo 14 (1988): 149–233.
(helper) in receiving material accidents, one, moreover, that fits perfectly with
the extensive character of such accidents.28
Nevertheless, the proposed solution is far from uncontentious: even though
Saint Thomas could be considered a supporter of the materia prima as the
subiectum inhaesionis (or quo) of material accidents on the basis of a single
passage from his De veritate (On truth), in other passages (Summa theologiae,
Ia, q. 77, art. 629) he explicitly maintains that material accidents inhere in
the natural being (ens in actu, that is, compositum ex materia et forma). And
the Thomistic tradition follows the latter solution.30 Article 2 of question 4
is devoted to an explanation of how material accidents inhere in matter: the
question the author introduces (“Now, Whether Material Accidents Inhere in
Matter Immediately or by Means of the Intervention of Quantity”31) is actually
28 “Nam cum materiam quantitas sequatur, nec ullam habeat agendi vim […], consenta-
neum videtur, ut a natura contributa sit materiae tanquam adiutrix intermediumve ad
recipienda accidentia. Secundo, quia accidentia corporalia sunt extensa, ut sensu patet;
vel ergo extensione sibi propria vel solius quantitatis. Non sibi propria, alioquin multae
extensiones essent in eodem situ, nempe extensio quantitatis et aliorum accidentium; ex
quo sequeretur non repugnare duo corpora simul esse. Igitur extensione solius quantita-
tis, quia nimirum accidentia in ea insunt, ad eiusque dimensionem per accidens diffund-
untur” (Indeed, since quantity follows matter and does not have any power to act […], it
seems consistent that quantity has been contributed by nature to matter as her helper or
as a mediator for the reception of accidents. Second, since bodily accidents are extended,
as it appears to our senses; either therefore by an extension proper to itself or of quantity
alone. But not proper to itself, otherwise many extensions would occur in the same place,
namely the extension of quantity and other accidents, from which it would follow that
without any incompatibility there could be two bodies in the same place. Therefore, by
extension of quantity alone, for accidents no doubt belong to it and they are spread out to
its full extent accidentally [per accidens]). De generatione (1613), 59.
29 “Primo quidem, quia forma substantialis facit esse simpliciter, et eius subiectum est ens
in potentia tantum; forma autem accidentalis non facit esse simpliciter, sed esse tale, aut
tantum, aut aliquo modo se habens; subiectum enim eius est ens in actu” (First, indeed,
because the substantial form produces the being simply [simpliciter] and its subject is
the potential being [ens in potentia]. However, the accidental form does not produce the
being simply [simpliciter], but it produces the being of such a kind, or of such a size, or
disposed in some way). Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ed. De Rubeis, Billuart et al.
(Turin: Marietti, 1932) [Aquinas (1932) hereafter], Ia, 1, 498.
30 These are the references: Thomas de Vio Cajetan, In De ente et essentia D. Thomae Aqui-
natis Commentaria, ed. M.H. Laurent (Turin: Marietti, 1934) [Cajetan (1934) hereafter], 7,
q. 17, 225; Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones Theologiae Divi Thomae Aquinatis, ed. Ceslaus
Paban and Thomas Pègues (Tours: Alfred Cattier, 1900–8) [Capreolus (1900–8) hereafter],
2, d. 13, q. 1, art. 3, 4, 29–41; Durand of Saint-Pourçain, In Petri Lombardi Sententias Com-
mentariorum libri iiii (Venice: Ex Typographia Guerraea, 1571), 1, dist. 8, q. 4n15, 39vb.
31 “Num materialia accidentia proxime an interventu quantitatis inhaereant materiae.” De
generatione (1613), 58.
176 Caroti
misleading, as the authors quoted in the opening lines do not endorse one
of the two modalities proposed. For them, material accidents inhere directly
in substance,32 that is, the compositum, and not in matter, and therefore they
can be considered, together with the Thomistic theologians quoted above, as
being opposed to the solution prompted by the author of De generatione com-
mentary in article 1.
Question 4, which introduces the specific topic of transubstantiation dis-
cussed in the four following questions, is a clear example of Góis’s philosophi-
cal and theological strategy: he is perfectly well aware that he is proposing a
solution that is different from Saint Thomas’s, but he tries to use Aquinas, the
author formally recognized as the model by the order, in support of his claim
by availing himself of a large number of texts. The use of a large number of
texts bears witness to the author’s skill and determination to achieve his aims:
some of the texts quoted in the De generatione commentary are to be found in
John Capreolus’s (c.1380–1444) Defensiones. Gois also quotes Ockham’s posi-
tion on quantity in De sacramento altaris,33 introduced as the first auctoritas
32 The list of auctoritates ends by recapitulating their position: “Aientes accidentia non in-
haerere quantitati, sed immediate recipi in substantiam” (Those who maintain that ac-
cidents do not inhere to quantity, but are received immediately in substance); ibid., 58.
The quoted authors are Ockham, De sacramento altaris, Chapter 28 (“Quod substantia est
quanta per suas partes substantiales sine omni quantitate quae sit res distincta realiter
a substantia et qualitate” [Substance is extended (quanta) through his substantial parts,
without the contribution of quantity, when it is considered something really different
either from substance or quality]; William of Ockham, De corpore Christi [Strasbourg,
1491] [Ockham (1491) hereafter], c. D5ra); Ockham, Quodlibeta, 4, 39 (34 in the modern
edition, Opera theologica 9,9, ed. Joseph C. Wey, Opera Theologica [St. Bonaventure: St.
Bonaventure University, 1980] 465–69) (“Utrum qualitates hostie post consecrationem
sint subiective in quantitate” [Whether qualities in the consecrated host are in quantity
as in their subject] Ockham 1491, l5ra); Johannes Maior, Super Sententias, 2, d. 12 q. 2 (“An
Deus potest facere materiam sine forma substantiali et accidentali” [Whether God can
create matter without substantial or accidental form]); Maior, Editio secunda in secundum
librum Sententiarum [Paris: Iohannis Granion, 1519], cc. 63va–65rb); Pierre d’Ailly, Super
Sententias. 1, q. 5 (“De unitate essentiae et trinitate personarum” [On the unity of essence
and trinity of the persons of Holy Trinity]); d’Ailly, Quaestiones super primum, tertium et
quartum Sententiarum (Paris: Johannes Petit, n.d.), c. 91; Gabriel Biel, In Canone Missae,
lectio 4 (“Christus itaque eterni Patris filius verus et summus sacerdos seipsum in ara
crucis secundum assumptam nostrae mortalitatis substantiam in humane redemptionis
precium immolatur” [Jesus Christ true Son of the Eternal Father and Highest Priest offers
himself as a sacrifice in the cross according to his acquired mortal substance in order to
redeem mankind]); Biel, Sacri Canonis Misse tam mystica quam litteralis Expositio (Basel:
Jacobus Pforczensis, 1510), c. 7vb; Pierre Auriol, quoted from Capreolus (1900–8), 2, dist.
18, q. unica “Utrum quantitas interminata sit ponenda” (Whether limitless quantity can
be admitted); 4, in particular 134–37, 139–40.
33 Capreolus (1900–8), 4, 133.
against the defended solution, as well as Saint Thomas’s Summa theologiae and
Summa contra gentiles in support of his own solution.34
In order to dispel two opposite but equally dangerous and misleading at-
titudes (i.e., the reduction of the De generatione commentary to a collection
of quotations or to a list of arguments drawn from medieval debates), it is im-
portant to stress the peculiarity of the philosophical and theological approach
used in the De generatione commentary. That it is not only a list of arguments
drawn from medieval authors, the numerous quotations from medieval texts
notwithstanding, is evident from the choice of the authorities and from the
general strategy used to present the divergent solutions of some of the most
important medieval and Renaissance philosophers in such a way as to solve
some problems raised by apparent or real contradictions (like in the above-
quoted example from Saint Thomas).
The two rationes before the above-quoted “theologicum argumentum”
are strictly philosophical: (1) matter follows quantity, and through it matter
is “adiutrix intermediumve ad recipiendum accidentia” (helper and mediator
for receiving accidents);35 and (2) material accidents are extended, and such a
property is not to be attributed to themselves but to quantity in order to avoid
introducing more than one extension in the same thing.36 These two rationes
probably draw on Saint Thomas’s Summa theologica,37 in which the divina po-
tentia and the principium individuationis are frequently used; in Góis’s com-
mentary, no reference is made to the individuating property of matter, and
divine power is explicitly discussed in the following three questions. This set-
ting of the discussion is interesting because it allows the author to propose
34 Ibid., 4, 126 and 127. The second conclusion of article 1, where Saint Thomas’s text is
quoted: “Quantitas est subiectum aliorum accidentium corporalium et absolutorum in-
haerentium substantiae” (Quantity is the subject of bodily and other sorts of accidents
inherent to substance); 126. In Capreolus, we find also a quotation of the Tractatus de plu-
ralitate formarum by Hervaeus Natalis, mentioned also by Góis, De generatione (1613), 59.
36 Ibid. Namely extension of material accidents and that of quantity.
37 “Respondeo dicendum quod necesse est dicere accidentia alia quae remanent in hoc sac-
ramento, esse sicut in subiecto in quantitate dimensiva panis vel vini remanente: primo
quidem per hoc quod ad sensum apparet aliquid quantum esse ibi coloratum, et aliis
accidentibus affectum, nec in talibus sensus decipitur; secundo quia prima dispositio
materiae est quantitas dimensiva” (I answer that it is necessary to say that the other acci-
dents that remain in this sacrament are subjected in the dimensive quantity of the bread
and wine that remains: first of all, because something having quantity and color and af-
fected by other accidents is perceived by the senses; nor is sense deceived in such. Second,
because the first disposition of matter is dimensive quantity); iiia, q. 77, art. 1, Aquinas
(1932), t. 5, 140.
178 Caroti
s olutions concerning the presence of material accidents in the consecrated

host in line with Thomistic theology, even though the general problem of the
inherence of them in a subject is not Thomas’s, as openly recognized in article 1
of the question we are examining. This is an important move by Góis: in doing
so, he can either maintain an orthodox explication of the presence of the spe-
cies of the host after consecration or change the Aristotelian notion of the in-
herence of material accidents during the alteration; in such a way, even though
the blessing of the priest cannot be handled with philosophical notions, there
is no apparent need to turn to the miraculous38 to explain the presence of the
species.
2 Divine Absolute Power
The key feature to establish the limits of divine power is introduced at the end
of question 4 by drawing a distinction between physical and absolute neces-
sity.39 The particular role of God’s power in explaining the presence of the spe-
cies in the consecrated host is discussed in the following three questions. The
distinction between the two different types of necessity is obviously not new,
but the way in which it is used by Góis is nevertheless original: considering
that physical necessity is the only field in which God’s absolute power can in-
tervene, he takes advantage of the discussion of the different topics connected
with God’s action in the Eucharist to outline the main ontological features of
natural change.
God’s intervention, in fact, does not overturn the nature of substance, ac-
cidents, or natural actions such as alteration and motion. His power is strictly
restricted to what can be physically distinguished; as far as accidents are con-
cerned, when they are not distinguishable from their subject, it is impossible
even for God to maintain them out of their subject.40 Quantity, according to
38 See n. 28 and De generatione (1613), 82: “Primum non videtur dandum, ne tot cumulentur
miracula” (The first is to be refused in order to avoid the proliferation of miracles).
40 “Prima conclusio: nullum accidens idem re cum uno subiecto potest in alio divina virtute
constitui. In hac conclusione nomine subiecti intelligimus tam subiectum inhaesionis,
quam denominationis, tam subiectum quod, quam subiectum quo […] Nam quae sunt
idem realiter, ita se habent ut nequeat utrumque disiungi ab altero […]. Si enim ambo ab
se mutuo separata consisterent, necessario essent diversae realitates” (First conclusion:
no accident that is the same in reality with its subject can be constituted in another by
divine power. In this conclusion, with the word “subject” we mean both the subject of
indwelling and that of denomination, and both the subject that [quod] and the subject
through which [subjectum quo] […]. Indeed, those things that are in reality the same are
this solution, is the only material accident that cannot inhere in an immaterial
substance because it is impossible to keep its essential feature intact, namely
to extend the subject.
The arguments against the possibility of maintaining an accident in a sub-
ject that differ from the more commonly used arguments41 are drawn from
Gabriel Biel’s (1420–1495) Expositio canonis Missae (Exposition of the canon of
the Mass),42 where no special role is attributed to quantity.43
Rather than a reproach to Saint Thomas’s position on God’s action, Góis’s
De generatione commentary contains a firm warning not to misunderstand his
words:
Notice what Saint Thomas said, namely that the holy virtue can produce
the effects of secondary causes without those secondary causes them-
selves, cannot be interpreted as concerning the material and formal
causes that concur to produce the effect with absolute necessity, as the
matter and form to compose a whole, but rather concern those causes
that are required to produce effects through physical necessity.44
such that neither can be distinguished from the other. Were they separated from each
other, in fact, they would necessarily be different realities). Ibid., 68. In this way, the rela-
tionship of a created being (“relatio creaturae”) that is identical with a certain soul could
not be moved even by God to another soul. The same must be said of the external shape
(“figura”) of some quantity, being identical with the quantity itself.
41 Q. 5: “Utrum quodlibet accidens divina virtute alieno subiecto inhaerere possit an non”
(Whether by divine power accidents could inhere in a subject different from their own);
ibid., 66.
42 “Licet utramque (conclusions) neget Ioannes Maior in primo distinct. 17 quaestio 10 et
Gabriel super Canonem lect. 44 argumentis parum efficacibus quorum praecipua art. I
retulimus”; ibid., 70–71.
43 Biel (1510), l. 44, c. 107ra (“Igitur est alia opinio quam puto veram: quod omne accidens
absolutum per divinam potentiam esse potest, produci et conservari sine subiecto tam
substantiali quam accidentali. Unde si ponitur quantitas accidens medium inter substan-
tiam et qualitatem, potest qualitas esse sine quantitate sicut quantitas sine substantia”
[Therefore, there is another opinion that I hold as true: that every absolute (absolutum)
accident by divine power can be, can be produced and maintained without either a sub-
stantial or an accidental subject. Therefore, if quantity is posited as an accident between
substance and quality, then quality can be without quantity just as quantity can be with-
out substance]). The solution defended in De generatione commentary is Scotus’s, v. c.
106vb. It is striking that Góis criticizes Capreolus, who is often used as a reliable source in
Góis’s commentary, for supporting the possibility of a spiritual form to be in a material
subject, a possibility rejected by him just because to inhere in a material subject entails to
be extended. De generatione (1613), 69; Capreolus (1900–8), 2, dist. 31, q. 1, art. 3, 4, 355.
44 “Adverte autem cum D. Thomas ait posse virtutem divinam effectus causarum secundar-
um sine ipsis causis secundis producere, non esse id intelligendum de causis materialibus,
180 Caroti
The basic ingredients of created beings, matter and form, cannot be replaced
by God’s action, and on this basis Góis rejects the conviction according to
which material accidents cannot be maintained by God without a subject or
without quantity. In his De generatione commentary, as already stated, the lim-
its of God’s power concern properties identical to their subjects: as they are in-
distinguishable, it is impossible to replace or modify the relationship between
them.45
When recapitulating the main philosophical feature of the relationship be-
tween substance and accidents in the last question in the commentary, Góis
lists the following: (a) the transcendent relationship between them;46 (b)
accidents’ possibility (aptitudo) to exist in a subject;47 and (c) their actual in-
herence in a subject, which implies the existence and an actual relationship
between accidents and substance (relatio unionis).48 God cannot interfere with
the first two, which are the distinctive features of accidents; he can, however,
et formalibus, quae absoluta necessitate concurrunt ad effectus, ut materia et forma ad

totum componendum; sed de iis, quae ad illos physica tantum necessitate requiruntur.”
De generatione (1613), 75; the warning follows a direct quotation from Summa contra gen-
tiles 4, Chapter 65. Cf. ibid., 74–74 and Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles seu De
veritate catholicae fidei, ed. Bernardo Maria De Rubeis (Turin: Marietti 1935), 515.
45 As it is clearly reaffirmed in rejecting the Thomistic solution: “Huiusce assertionis verita-
tem probat communis illa ratio, quod non sit divinae potestati subtrahendum id, ex quo
nulla contradictionis repugnantia sequitur […]; praesertim cum accidentium quidditas
non sit inhaerere actu in substantia, vel quantitate, sed ad ea respectu transcendenti re-
ferri” (The truth of this statement is proved by the common argument that one has to
deny to divine power anything from which no repugnance of contradiction follows […],
especially since the quiddity of accidents is not to inhere in substance or quantity, but to
refer to them through a transcendental relation). De generatione (1613), 75.
46 Cf. Francisco Suárez, Metaphysicae Disputationes in quibus universa naturalis theologia
ordinate traditur et quaestiones omnes ad duodecim Aristotelis Libros pertinentes accurate
disputantur (Venice: Ioannes Baptista Colosinus, 1605) [Suárez (1605) hereafter], 31, 10, 29,
2, 200: “Accidens dici entis ens non quia in ratione entis intrinsece constituatur per esse
sui subiecti, sed quia totum suum esse habet cum quadam habitudine trascendentali ad
subiectum” (Accident is said to be the being of being not because the being [of the ac-
cident] is constituted by means of the being of its subject; rather, because its whole being
relates to the subject with a certain relationship).
47 Cf. Suárez (1605), 31, 10, 23, 2, 199: “Tandem existentia accidentis non est sua inhaerentia
[…] neque existentia est sola essentia, nam essentia accidentis consistit in aptitudinali
inhaerentia, non in actuali existentia” (Finally, the existence of the accident is not its in-
herence […]. Nor is its existence a mere essence, for the essence of the accident stands
in an aptitudinal inherence rather than an actual existence). Cf. Cajetan (1934), 7, q. 16,
pp. 221–23.
48 “In accidente […] haec consideranda occurrunt: relatio transcendens ad substantiam,
aptitudo ut in substantia existat, actualis inhaerentia in eadem, itemque existentia et
relatio unionis” (The following should be considered about the accident: the relation to
operate on the actual relationship when it is a true relationship and not an

identity, as is the case with some qualities resulting from quantity. In short,
God can intervene in the ways (modi) in which accidents can exist, whether in
a subject or without a subject.49
Without losing either their transcendent relationship with or the pos-
sibility to inhere in substance, accidents could be maintained by God with-
out substance and even without quantity. This solution is at odds not only
with Saint Thomas but also with Giles of Rome (c.1247–1316) and Thomas of
Strasburg (d.1357), their distinction between res permanentes and successivae
notwithstanding,50 and again with Hervaeus Natalis (1260–1323) and some of
the followers of Saint Thomas (aliique e sectatoribus Divi Thomae51). So acci-
dents through God’s action could behave as substance, at least as far as their
subsistence is concerned.52
the s ubstance, the aptitude for existing in the substance, the actual inherence to that
substance, as well as the existence and relation of the union). De generatione (1613), 81.
49 “Quod vero ad actualem inhaerentiam spectat, duo ab ea importantur: existentia, vide-
licet, et talis existentiae conditio, modusve. Quia nimirum id, quod inhaeret, existit in
aliquo ut in subiecto a quo actualem dependentiam inhaesivam habet. Si ergo nudam
existentiam spectemus, dicendum eam non amitti ab accidente extra subiectum posito,
quia existentia non distinguitur nisi ut modus rei ab eo, cuius existentia est; sicque re
superstite et incolumi semper manet. Quod si de modo existentiae sermo sit, planum
est deperdi tunc illum ab accidente, cum iam non actu pendeat a substantia” (But as for
what concerns the actual inherence, two things follow: the existence of course, and the
mode or condition of such existence. For no doubt, what inheres exists in something as in
a subject from which it derives an actual dependence of inherence. Therefore, if we con-
sider mere existence, we should say that it cannot be lost by an accident placed outside of
the subject, because existence is distinguished only as a mode of the reality from that by
whose existence it is always maintained when that thing exists. But if we are talking here
about mode of existence, it is clear that it is lost by the accident since it does not depend
on the substance in its act). Ibid.
50 The former apparently able to be without either substance or quantity, while the latter
needs quantity when maintained by God out of substance, see ibid., 75. See Giles of Rome,
Theoremata de corpore Christi (Rome: Antonius Bladus, 1554), cc. 23rb–24ra; Thomas of
Strasbourg, Super Sententias, 4, dist. 12, q. 1, art. 1 (“Utrum in isto benedicto sacramento
virtute divina accidentia subsistant sine subiecto” [Whether in this holy sacrament acci-
dents can exist by divine power without a subject]; Thomas of Strasbourg, Tertium Scrip-
tum libri Sententiarum [Strasbourg: Per Martinum Flach, 1490], cc. JJ2vb–JJ5rb).
51 Góis finds Capreolus’s and Soto’s interpretation untenable; see Domingo de Soto, Com-
mentaria in quartum Sententiarum, i, Salmaticae, Ioannes Maria a Terranova, 1561),
481–82.
52 “Adverte tamen accidens imitationem quandam habere substantiae, cum extra subiec-
tum ponitur, non quod tunc amittat existentiam accidentis, et acquirat subsistentiam,
sive existentiam substantiae, quicquid velit Alensis 3. Part. Quaest. 40 m 1, art. 1 ad 6. Nam
cum existentia sit purus modus ac proprius cuiusque rei eidemque intrinsecus […], qui
182 Caroti
The quasi-substance notion of material accidents depends mainly on Góis’s

conviction that existentia cannot be separated from essentia, of which it is a
modus.53 Góis considers subsistence or inherence as modi, but of a different
sort, namely they are the ways through which substance is distinguished from
accident, the former being per se, the latter needing a subject in which to in-
here. But such modi are not intrinsic54 because, as we have seen, the character
proinde rem aliam modificare nequit; certe nullo pacto aut existentia substantiae, acci-
denti aut existentia accidentis, substantiae accomodari poterit; alioquin eadem res esset
accidens, et non esset […]. Eatenus ergo accidens extra subiectum imitari substantiam
dicitur, quatenus accidens manet per se, id est non fultum ab aliqua substantia cui inhae-
reat” (Yet, notice that the accident is similar to substance, when it is placed beyond the
subject. This is not because it loses the existence as accident and acquires a subsistence
or existence of a substance, whatever Alexander of Hales means in his Sentence commen-
tary 3 Part. Quest. 40 m 1, art.1 ad 6. Indeed, since existence is a pure and proper mode that
is intrinsic to each thing […], which consequently cannot modify another thing, certainly
in no way can the existence of a substance be fitted to the accident, or the existence of the
accident to the substance; otherwise the very same thing would be and not be an accident
[…]. Therefore, the accident beyond the subject is said to imitate the substance in so far
as the accident remains by itself [per se], that is, as not supported by a certain substance
to which it inhered). De generatione (1613), 77.
53 “Existentia est purus modus rei, ab ea realiter indistinctus, insitus ac proprius” (Existence
is the pure mode of the thing, not distinct from it in reality, incorporated in, and proper
to it). Ibid., 70. This is Fonseca’s solution, followed (and quoted explicitly) by Suárez: “Ex-
istentia creaturarum distinguitur ab illarum essentia ex natura rei, non tamen formaliter,
sed tamquam ultimus modus intrinsecus” (Creatures’ existence is distinct from their es-
sence according to the nature of the thing, as their ultimate intrinsic mode, rather than
formally). Pedro da Fonseca, In libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae Commentaria
(Cologne: Lazarus Zetznerus, 1615), 4, cap. 2, q. 4, 1, 755; cf. Suárez (1605), 31, 7, 2, 180–81.
54 “Si loquamur de subsistentia divina, eam non esse modum. Si de creata, modum quidem
esse: non tamen modum purum, ut est existentia. Nos vero non asseruimus ideo existen-
tiam unius rei non posse alteri communicari, quia est modus rei; sed quia est purus mo-
dus illi proprius et intrinsecus […]. Posteriorem obiectionem facile diluerit, qui similiter
dicet posse naturam conservari sine propria subsistentia, quia haec non est purus modus
ut existentia. Quod si quis adhuc urgeat accidens conservari divinitus extra subiectum
absque inhaerentia, quae est purus modus existentiae ipsius accidentis; respondendum
erit modum illum, quem inhaerentia addit existentiae, non esse purum modum existen-
tiae simpliciter intrinsecum rei […]; ideoque nihil mirum si existentia accidentis sine illo
modo per divinam potentiam retineri valeat” (If we are talking about divine subsistence,
that is not a mode. If we are talking about created subsistence, it is a mode, even though
not a pure mode, as existence is. In truth, we have not asserted therefore that the exis-
tence of a thing cannot be communicated to another because it is a mode of a thing, but
rather because it is a pure mode which is proper and intrinsic to that thing […] He will
easily solve the last objection who similarly says that nature can be maintained without
its own subsistence, because this is not a pure mode as existence is. But if the opponent
keeps objecting at this point that the accident is divinely conserved beyond its subject
without inherence, which is the pure mode of existence of the very same accident, one
of substance or accident is to be ready (aptitudo ad) to have such different

ways of existing; and this aptitudo is maintained when the accident does not
inhere in a subject, and as such it is a quasi-substance.
Denying quantity the role of substituting substance as the subject of the
species in the consecrated host requires a new solution to one of the most im-
portant philosophical notions: individuation. The distance between Góis and
Saint Thomas on this issue is unbridgeable: for the former, in fact, accidents’
individuating principle is something intrinsic, an internal difference regard-
less of substance and quantity.55
These two topics—the assimilation of accidents to substance and the in-
trinsic individuating principle—should be viewed as two original solutions:
original not in the sense of being proposed for the first time, but at least as
far as their incompatibility with Saint Thomas’s solution is concerned. If the
only way of delimiting God’s power is the possibility of distinguishing abso-
lutely necessary properties (for accidents, the transcendent relationship to
should reply that the mode that inherence adds to existence is not the pure mode of ex-
istence simply intrinsic to the thing […].Therefore, there is nothing surprising if the exis-
tence of the accident might be able to be conserved by divine power without that mode).
De generatione (1613), 77–78. Cf. Suárez (1605), 31, 12, 14, 2, 206: “Subsistentia et inhaerentia
sunt modi ex natura rei distincti ab actuali essentia, quia non constituunt illam in ratione
entis in actu, nec primo et formaliter eam distinguunt ab ente in potentia. Et ideo, qua-
mvis ab illa separentur, potest intelligi quod maneat essentia actualis eadem, licet sub alio
modo essendi” (Subsistence and inherence are modes distinct [on the basis of the nature
of the thing] from actual essence because they do not constitute it in the order of a being
[ens] in act; nor do they first and formally distinguish it from a being [ens] in potency. So,
even though they could be separated from it, it is understandable that the actual essence
remains the same, though under another mode of being [essendi]).
55 “Dicimus hunc candorem non individuari per subiectum sed per differentiam singula-
rem sibi intrinsecam, quam etiam extra substantiam et quantitatem retinet. Quare non
erit candor extra omnem subiectum commune quid velut idea Platonica, ut D. Thomas
censuit Quodlibet 7 art. 10. Sed erit individuum categoriae qualitatis, poteruntque plures
candores concipi, si Deus plures extra omnem subiectum conservare voluerit. Neque pla-
cet discrimen illud inter quantitatem et qualitatem, quoad principium individuationis;
utraque enim ex differentia sibi interna, et incommunicabili singularitatem accipit, ut
li. 5 Metaphysicae disseremus” (We state that this whiteness is not individuated through
the subject, but through the singular difference that is intrinsic to it, which the white-
ness conserves even beyond substance and quantity. That is the reason why there is not
whiteness beyond every common subject as in a Platonic idea, as Thomas Aquinas said
in Quodlibet 7, art. 10. But [whiteness] will be individuated through the category of qual-
ity, and many whitenesses can be conceived, if God would like to conserve many of them
beyond every subject. Not convincing is the distinction between quantity and quality, as
far as the principle of individuation is concerned. Indeed, both of them receive the sin-
gularity through an inner and incommunicable difference, as we will say in the 5 book of
Metaphysics). Ibid., 78–79.
184 Caroti
substance and the aptitudo to inhere in it), then some of the solutions of the
main champions of Saint Thomas’s followers would need to be reconsidered.56
The importance of quantity for material accidents not inhering in a sub-
stance is not, however, completely dismissed: against those reclaiming a spe-
cial new created property in accidents not inhering to substances by God’s
power, Góis acknowledges the necessity of the presence of quantity in order to
explain the ability of separate accidents to produce the same actions as when
they are inhering in a subject.57 Quantity in this case makes it possible to avoid
turning to God’s special action to supply the power of the substantial form.
Even when the ontological implications of the opinion according to which
there is something positive supplying the absence of substance are reduced to
56 “Postulat sextum argumentum ut explicemus num subiecta possint absque nativis suis
proprietatibus, a quibus realiter differunt, virtute divina conservari. Quod non possint
opinio est Capreoli in prima dist. 3 quaestione 3 et dist. 4 quaest. 1; Caietani i pars quaest.
54 art. 3 et ad cap. 7 libri de ente et essentia; Soncinatis libro octavo Metaphys. Quaestione
prima. Idemque nominatim de substantia materiali respectu quantitatis asserit Hervaeus
quodlibet 8 quaestione 3 […] Contraria sententia vera est, cum negari non debeat, quan-
tumvis loco citato repugnet Capreolus et Caietanus, quoties duo aliqua inter se realiter
distincta ita sunt affecta, ut neque unum ex altero componatur, sicut totum ex partibus,
neque alterum contineat totam alterius essentiam, ut materia et forma unitae essentiam
compositi Physici posse utrumvis ab altero seiungi, quandoquidem nulla inde contradic-
tionis repugnantia existit” (The sixth argument requires that we explain whether subjects
can be maintained by divine power without their natural qualities, from which they actu-
ally [realiter] differ. The opinion according to which they cannot was held by Capreolus in
Prima, dist. 3, quest. 3, and dist. 4, quest. 1; Caietanus, i pars, quest. 54. art. 3 and chapt. 7
in the book on Being and Essence; Soncinas in book 8 on Metaphysics, quest. 1. The same
thing about the material substance in respect of quantity is explicitly [nominatim] stated
by Hervaeus in Quodlibet. 8, quest. 3 […]. The opposite proposition is true, for it should
not be denied, however much Capreolus and Caietanus contradict it in the cited passage:
that as often as [quoties] two things, which are actually distinct from each other and they
are affected in such a way that neither one is composed by the other like the whole by the
parts, and neither contain the whole essence of the other, like the union of matter and
form contains the essence of a physical composite; each can be separated from the other,
because there is not any repugnance of contradiction). Ibid., 79.
57 “Ea quae de actione et corruptione accidentium extra subiectum asseruimus, intelligenda
est cum accidentia sunt extra substantiam sed tamen in quantitate. Si enim extra quan-
titatem sit, tunc nec agere nec pati naturae viribus possint, quia ad omnem actionem
et passionem agentium corporalium requiritur contactus, qui ministerio quantitatis fit”
(What we stated about the action and corruption of accidents outside of the subject
should be understood as the accidents are beyond the substance but still in its quan-
tity. Were they beyond quantity, they could neither act nor suffer through natural forces,
because for every action or suffering of corporal agents contact is needed, which comes
about by the function of quantity). Ibid., 84–85.
a minimum (namely to “modus positivi”58), such special beings risk destroy-

ing God’s simplicity.59 On this topic, Góis finds it more respectful to attribute
directly to God the actions produced by the species in the consecrated host, a
solution that Góis claims was shared by a group that includes names such as
Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308) and Ockham, Biel, and Bonaventure (1221–74).60
3 Final Remarks
The discussion of the relationship between material accidents and substance

in these questions of the De generatione commentary on transubstantiation al-
lows us not only to perceive the connection between Aristotelian natural phi-
losophy and theology but also an original processing of traditional problems.
The presence of numerous philosophers and theologians who are quoted in
this work makes one think of the gigantic effort made by modern commenta-
tors, and in this case by the Jesuits, in preparing their schoolbooks in order
to produce a complete handbook of the different solutions to the different
philosophical as well theological topics proposed in the scientific literature.
The medieval philosophical and theological works originating from university
teaching, which were often printed, are taken into account on almost every
topic discussed. They are often quoted directly and sometimes through a pre-
vious discussion (in particular Capreolus, with Thomas de Vio Cajetan [1469–
1534] a source also for Saint Thomas’s thought).
58 “Praeterea cum huius sententiae auctores opinentur causalitatem causae materialis, seu
subiectivae consistere in modo quodam positivo non transeunte in effectum, sed man-
ente in re, quae denominatur causa” (In addition, the authors of this proposition hold
that the causality of the material or subjective cause consists in some positive mode that
is not passing in its effect but perduring in the reality to which is given the name “cause”).
Ibid., 86.
59 Ibid.
60 “Atque ita sentiendum esse […] de iis manationibus affirmant tum alii privatim, tum
communiter illi, qui omnes specierum sacramentalium actiones ad divinam virtutem
referunt, e quorum numero sunt Ochamus in 4 quaest. 7, Scotus distinct. 12 quaest. 1,
Durandus eadem dist. quaest. 2, Gabriel super Canon lect. 45, Alensis 4 p. q. 40 memb. 2
art. 2. Quo etiam propendet D. Bonaventura distinct. Cit. art. 2 qu. 3 et Paludanus quaest.
4” (And this is what one should hold […]. Concerning these emanations, some people
state privately, some other publicly, that all the actions of sacramental species trace back
to the divine power. Of this opinion are Ockham in 4 quest. 7, Scotus distinct. 12 quest. 1,
Durandus distinct. 12 quest. 2, Gabriel on Canon lect. 45, Alensis 4 p. q. 40 memb. 2 art. 2.
Also Bonaventure distinct. cit. art. 2 qu. 3 and Paludanus quest. 4 incline toward this opin-
ion). Ibid., 85.
186 Caroti
Sometimes, entire passages are quoted verbatim, especially in introducing

pro—and contra-arguments or in explaining a philosophical/theological posi-
tion. But the solution to the problems discussed is always original, giving to
“original” the meaning required above. The originality of the solution is evi-
dent when considering the positions defended in the questions: the quasi-
substance notion of accidents, which maintain their essential properties even
without inhering to a substance, and acting—in this case when inhering to
quantity, in order to permit contact—without a special action by God. In con-
trast with Saint Thomas, Góis maintains that material accidents can exist even
without quantity; and also unlike Saint Thomas, the individuation principle is
attributed to an intrinsic property.
The originality of Góis’s work can also be ascertained by considering anoth-
er peculiarity of the commentary, namely its being connected with the other
commentaries—already written or to be prepared—on Aristotle’s works. In
the last question considered in this chapter concerning the positive being pro-
duced by God in order to supply substance’s operation, for example, there is
a cross-reference to the Physics commentary, book 2, Chapter 7, q. 6, art. 2,61
where no special ontological state is allotted to causality.62 In discussing cau-
sality—always in question 7—the author quotes the position defended in the
Physics commentary: “Verum praedicta sententia nobis in Physicis non placu-
it” (To be sure, we criticized this proposition in the commentary on Physics).63
The reference is to the Physics commentary, book 1, Chapter 9, q. 6,64 where
the limits of God’s action are fixed, like in Góis’s De generatione commentary,
61 Ibid., 86 internal margin; see also note 62.

62 “Causalitas in omnibus causis, praeterquam in efficiente, non est aliqua entitas media
inter causam et effectum ab utroque distincta, sed est modus quidam eius, quod denomi-
natur causa, idem re cum ipso. Veritas huiusce pronuntiati, quod attinet ad materiam
et formam, inde patet, quia […] materia et forma se ipsis immediate uniuntur, et totum
condunt; atque adeo nec ad mutuam caussalitatem, nec ad eam, quam erga compositum
habent, exercendam, ulla media entitate absoluta indigent” (In all causes, except for the
efficient causes, causality is not a middle entity between cause and effect that is distinct
from both, but it is a certain kind of mode of it, which is called cause, the same in real-
ity with it. The truth of such a proposition, which pertains to matter and form, follows
because […] matter and form immediately unite to each other, and establish a whole;
and they do not truly need anything like an absolute middle entity to the end of mutual
causality or to one they have to exercise toward the composite). Physica (1594), 1, 255.
63 De generatione (1613), 84; see also the quotation of the same passage in the internal mar-
gin of 75, where the possibility of attributing material causality to God is rejected.
64 “Utrumne materia divina virtute absque omni forma substantiali cohaerere possit, an
non” (Whether matter can stand by divine power without any substantial form); Physica
(1594), 1, 167–71.
in beings connected by a physical necessity (which God’s power can replace),

and where there is a modal distinction between essence and existence65 (the
same distinction is again in Góis’s De generatione commentary), which allows
Góis to solve the problem at stake in a way that is at odds with Saint Thomas
in admitting a certain autonomy to matter as regards form, at least through
divine power.
There are many cross-references in the commentary to other commentaries
stemming from the Jesuit project of providing a complete set of handbooks on
Aristotle’s works. In the questions discussed in this chapter, there is a reference
to the De anima and Metaphysics66 commentaries as not yet being ready (Góis
uses the future tense). And in both cases on very important topics.67
Even on the basis of the remarks contained in this chapter, there is enough
evidence to give due importance to the great effort of the Jesuits’ plan to pro-
vide a complete cursus studiorum based on Aristotle’s works without reducing
it either to a recycling of medieval discussions or to a mere repository of argu-
ments to be eventually found in the new, anti-Aristotelian philosophy.
Bibliography
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa theologica. Edited by Bernardo Maria De Rubeis and Billu-
art, Charles René. Turin: Marietti, 1932.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa contra gentiles seu De veritate catholicae fidei. Edited by
Bernardo Maria De Rubeis. Turin: Marietti, 1935.
65 “Caeterum qui arbitrantur posse materiam divina virtute sine omni forma consistere, alia
via incedunt: persuasum habent existentiam non a sola forma provenire, sed tam mate-
riam quam caetera entia, ut unumquodque ab alio distinguitur, ita aliquam sibi propriam
existentiam vendicare. Id quod breviter hunc in modum probari potest: existentia cui-
usque non distinguitur ab essentia, nisi ut modus rei a re; ergo ut unumquodque essen-
tiam ab alio distinctam habet, ita et distinctam sibique propriam existentiam” (But there
are some who think that matter can stand by divine power without any form at all: they
are convinced that existence does not derive only from form, but that both matter and
other beings as each is distinguished from another so claim for themselves some proper
existence. This can be proved concisely in the following way: the existence of each of
them is not distinguished from essence but as a mode of a thing is distinct from the thing
itself. Therefore, as each thing has an essence distinct from another one, so each has its
proper existence distinct to itself). Physica (1594), 1, 169–70.
66 De generatione (1613), 85 (De anima); 69, 79 (Metaphysica).
67 As far as De anima commentary is concerned, the role of species visibiles in vision, De
generatione (1613), 85. On the individuation principle, see note 56.
188 Caroti
Biel, Gabriel. Sacri canonis Misse tam mystica quam litteralis expositio. Basel: Jacobus
Pforczensis, 1510.
Bruyerin, Jean-Baptiste. De re cibaria libri 22: Omnium ciborum genera, omnium genti-
um moribus, & vsu probata complectens. Lyon: Apud Sebastianum Honoratum, 1560.
Cajetan, Thomas de Vio. In De ente et essentia D. Thomae Aquinatis commentaria. Ed-
ited by M.H. Laurent. Turin: Marietti, 1934.
Capreolus, Johannes. Defensiones theologiae Divi Thomae Aquinatis. Edited by Ceslaus
Paban and Thomas Pègues. Tours: Alfred Cattier, 1900–8.
Casalini, Cristiano. Aristotele a Coimbra: Il Cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel
“Collegium Artium”. Rome: Anicia, 2012.
Collegii Complutensis Discalceatorum Fratrum Beatae Mariae de Monte Carmeli Dispu-
tationes in duos libros Physicorum Aristotelis De Generatione et Corruptione seu De
Ortu et Interitu. Lyon: Ioannes-Amatus Candy, 1637.
Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Jesu in duos libros De generatione et cor-
ruptione Aristotelis. Lyon: Sumptibus Horatii Cardon, 1613.
Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Jesu in octo libros Physicorum Aristote-
lis Stagiritae. Lyon: Johannes Baptista Buysson, 1594; repr. Hildesheim, Zürich, and
New York: Georg Olms 1984.
D’Ailly, Pierre. Quaestiones super primum, tertium et quartum Sententiarum. Paris: Jo-
hannes Petit, n.d.
Donati, Cecilia. “La dottrina delle dimensioni interminate in Egidio Romano.” Medio-
evo 14 (1988): 149–233.
Durand of Saint-Pourçain. In Petri Lombardi Sententias commentariorum libri iiii. Ven-
ice: Ex Typographia Guerraea, 1571.
Fonseca, Pedro da. In libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae commentaria. Co-
logne: Lazarus Zetznerus, 1615; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1964.
Giles of Rome. Theoremata de corpore Christi. Rome: Antonius Bladus, 1554.
Maior, Johannes. Editio secunda in secundum librum Sententiarum. Paris: Iohannis
Granion, 1519.
O’Malley, John W. The First Jesuits. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Soto, Domingo de. Commentaria in quartum Sententiarum. Vol. 1. Salamanca: Ioannes
Maria a Terranova, 1561.
Suárez, Francisco. Metaphysicae disputationes in quibus universa naturalis theologia
ordinate traditur et quaestiones omnes ad duodecim Aristotelis Libros pertinentes ac-
curate disputantur. Venice: Ioannes Baptista Colosinus, 1605.
Thijssen, Hans J.M.M., and Henk A.G. Braakhuis, eds. The Commentary Tradition on Ar-
istotle’s De generatione et corruptione: Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern. Studia
Artistarum 7. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999.
Thomas of Strasbourg. Tertium Scriptum libri Sententiarum. Strasbourg: Per Martinum
Flach, 1490.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in duos libros Aristotelis De
generatione et corruptione. Venice: Apud Junctas, 1690.
William of Ockham. De corpore Christi. Strasbourg, 1491.
William of Ockham. Quodlibeta septem. Edited by Joseph C. Wey. Opera Theologica 9.
St. Bonaventure, NY: St. Bonaventure University, 1989.
Section 2.3
Action
∵
Chapter 8
A Juridicized Language for the Salvation of Souls:

Jesuit Ethics
Christoph P. Haar
1 Introduction
The addition of an educational vocation to the Society of Jesus’s founding

purposes exercised an enormous impact on the status of the Jesuits’ ethical
thought, as it supplemented and in many ways quickly overshadowed their
pastoral and missionary aims. Jesuit ethics developed in close connection to
their pastoral and academic thought.1 This chapter aims to offer a sense of
what motivated some of the major Jesuit luminaries to write about this topic
in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. As the foundational Con-
stitutiones Societatis Iesu mentioned countless times, the Jesuits’ thought and
action should be performed ad maiorem Dei gloriam (for the greater glory of
God).2 An account of Jesuit ethics on the eve of modernity must accordingly
illustrate how the growing sub-divisions in theological disciplines revolved
around this overarching agenda, expressed in their juridicized language and
emphasis on the aim of salvation.
In this chapter, attention will first be drawn to the roles of Scholastic theol-
ogy and cases of conscience in the Jesuit order of studies, the Ratio studiorum,
finalized in 1599. Following the decisions of the Council of Trent (1545–63), the
Jesuits made a series of improvements to their system of theological education
and pastoral care. The Jesuit Ratio reflected the drive to educate and bring forth
good confessors. This in turn represented a major thrust behind the expansion
of Jesuit ethical thought, which will be traced by narrating the fluid relation-
ship between Scholastic and moral theology. As will become clear, arriving
at a precise definition of the content of Jesuit ethics remains an elusive task.
This discussion is followed by an analysis of the moral manual composed by
one of the theologians who was instrumental in drafting the Ratio, Juan Azor
(1535–1603). Azor’s Institutiones morales, which was designed to expose the
good and bad conscience revealed in human actions, served as an influential
1 John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 200–42.
2 Ibid., 18.

194 Haar
model for subsequent ethical works. An examination of the manual dem-

onstrates how Jesuits increasingly addressed ethical matters in isolated text
genres in the early modern period. On this foundation, two central features
of their ethical methods and principles come to light. First, Jesuit theologians
merged legal and moral philosophical traditions, and second, they adopted the
decision-making method called probabilism.
The aim of this chapter, then, is to offer an overview of the major issues
Jesuit ethical thought brought forth in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries: a juridicized language and a post-Tridentine view of confession as a
crucial means to salvation.
2 Jesuit Education
The greater glory of God provided the overarching theme behind the Jesuit
concept of education. The idea that members of the order should actively en-
gage in teaching and running educational institutions was explicitly stated in
the Constitutions, Part 4: “As the end to which the Society properly strives lies
in helping one’s own as well as one’s neighbors’ souls to reach the ultimate end
for which they were created […]; for this purpose the Society takes over col-
leges and sometimes universities or institutes of general studies.”3 According
to the Constitutions, theology was the pinnacle of university learning:
As the purpose of the Society and of the studies consists of assisting

the neighbors toward the knowledge and love of God and to their own
soul’s salvation, and because the most appropriate means for this end is
the faculty of theology, the universities of the Society will emphasize it
the most.4
The Jesuits addressed ethical questions within their framework of teaching

and learning, which served to guide humans toward their ultimate end, as
3 G.M. [Georg Michael] Pachtler, ed., Ratio studiorum et institutiones scholasticae Societatis
Jesu, vol. 1, Ab anno 1541 ad annum 1599 (Berlin: A. Hofmann, 1887) (=Monumenta Germaniae
Paedagogica, vol. 2), 8–69 [Constitutiones, Part 4], prooemium, 9f.: “Cum scopus, ad quem
Societas rectâ tendit, sit suas ac proximorum animas ad finem ultimum consequendum, ad
quem creatae fuerunt, juvare; […] Ad hoc Collegia et aliquando etiam Universitates vel Stu-
dia generalia Societas amplectitur.”
4 Constitutiones, Part 4, 52f.: “Cum Societatis atque studiorum scopus sit, proximos ad cog-
nitionem et amorem Dei et salutem suarum animarum juvare, cumque ad eum finem me-
dium magis proprium sit facultas Theologiae, in hanc potissimum Societatis Universitates
incumbent.”
A Juridicized Language for the Salvation of Souls 195
outlined in the Constitutions. To consider how they undertook this enterprise,

the systematization of Jesuit education provides a guide. In this respect, the
foundational Jesuit document was the Ratio atque institutio studiorum Societa-
tis Jesu. At the demand of the order’s fifth superior general, Claudio Acquaviva
(1543–1615, in office 1581–1615), a commission consisting of six members, in-
cluding Azor, had been set up in 1584 with the objective of producing an order
of studies.5 The third and definitive redaction appeared in 1599.
According to the Constitutions, Aristotle was the preferred author in phi-
losophy, while Thomas Aquinas’s (1224/25–74) Summa theologiae was to
serve as the textbook in Scholastic theology.6 Humanistic learning and rheto-
ric were also emphasized.7 Concerning the discipline of theology, the Jesuit
understanding contained a threefold subdivision: scripture, Scholastic theol-
ogy, and positive theology.8 However, there were different ways of drawing up
the distinction between the speculative content of Scholastic theology and the
speculative and practical contents of positive theology, and there was no es-
tablished consensus. The Constitutions divided students into two groups:9 fol-
lowing humanistic studies, those who excelled in philosophy would progress
to the full theological course, whereas the remainder would study the subjects
that were important for the pastoral duties of priests, especially the knowl-
edge necessary to hear confession. The Ratio studiorum stated that the full
cursus theologiae should be completed within four years and taught by either
two or three professors.10 Within the four years of the theology course, the
Scholastic theology professor (professor scholasticae theologiae) was asked to
strengthen rigorous, sharp minds that were subordinate and attentive to the
5 G.M. Pachtler, “Vorbereitung der Ratio studiorum,” in Ratio studiorum et institutiones

scholasticae Societatis Jesu, vol. 2, Ratio studiorum ann. 1586, 1599, 1832, ed. G.M. Pachtler
(Berlin: A. Hofmann, 1887) (=Monumenta Germaniae Paedagogica, vol. 5), 225–481 [Ratio
studiorum], here 7f. For an overview of its importance in the field of education in light of
the Council of Trent and the Catholic reforms, see T. [Thomas] M. Parker, “The Papacy,
Catholic Reform, and Christian Missions,” in The New Cambridge Modern History, ed. R.B.
[Richard Bruce] Wernham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 3:44–71, here
65f.
6 Ratio studiorum, “Regulae professoris scholasticae theologiae,” 300n2; Constitutiones, Part
4, 58f.nn1–3.
7 For the relevance especially of Cicero, see Robert A. Maryks, Saint Cicero and the Jesuits:
The Influence of the Liberal Arts on the Adoption of Moral Probabilism (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2008).
8 Ulrich G. Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic Univer-
sity of America Press, 2010), 282–88.
9 Constitutiones, Part 4, 26n2, and 27nD. See Johann Theiner, Die Entwicklung der Moralthe-
ologie zur eigenständigen Disziplin (Regensburg: Pustet, 1970), 109f.
10 Ratio studiorum, “Regulae praepositi provincialis,” 238n9, and “Regulae professoris scho-
lasticae theologiae,” 304n7.
196 Haar
more i mportant traits of the true faith and piety.11 Hence the spiritual aspects
of the Jesuit way of life pertained to the order’s educational aspirations as well.
While Aquinas’s Summa was to represent the orthodoxy in Scholastic theol-
ogy, professors were free to diverge on occasion from Thomist theses, especial-
ly when these contrasted with the current opinion, with the Ratio Studiorum
mentioning the examples of the Immaculate Conception and solemn vows.12
The material that was to be covered depended on the number of professors
available to lecture on the material from all parts of Aquinas’s Summa in the
four years.13 In this context, the “Rules of the Provincial” offered the possibility
of having a professor lecture exclusively on “moral theology, in which those
moral matters are explained knowledgeably and thoroughly which are usu-
ally omitted or briefly treated by the ordinary professors.”14 This illustrates the
potential for a marked distinction between Scholastic and moral theology.
Following the “Rules for the Professor of Scholastic Theology,” the above-men-
tioned moral matters were “cases of conscience” and their “exact and detailed
solutions,” which otherwise were glossed over by presenting generally appli-
cable moral principles.15
According to the Ratio studiorum, the cases of conscience professor (pro-
fessor casuum conscientiae)16 was charged with producing skilled pastors and
administrators of the sacraments.17 Students on this two-year course were
taught the sacraments, the censures, the status and the duties attached to
them, and the commandments of the Decalogue (with special attention paid
11 Ratio studiorum, 300n1: “Sui muneris esse intelligat, solidam disputandi subtilitatem ita
cum orthodoxa fide ac pietate conjungere, ut huic in primis illa deserviat.”
12 Ratio studiorum, “Regulae professoris scholasticae theologiae,” 300nn2–3.
13 Ibid., 302n7, 304.
14 Ratio studiorum, “Regulae praepositi provincialis,” 238n9: “Tertia lectio erit moralis Theo-
logiae, in qua ex professo et solide explicentur materiae morales, quae ab ordinariis Pro-
fessoribus vel omnino praetermitti vel brevissime perstringi solent.” This is an addition
to the original; see Pachtler’s footnote on 238, and the explanation offered in Theiner,
Moraltheologie, 234–37.
15 Theiner, Moraltheologie, 235. Ratio studiorum, “Regulae professoris scholasticae theolo-
giae,” 306n9: “In quo generalibus quibusdam rerum moralium principiis, de quibus dispu-
tari Theologico more solet, contenti subtiliorem illam ac minutiorem praetereant casuum
explicationem.”
16 Ratio studiorum, “Regulae professoris casuum conscientiae,” 322–28.
17 Ratio studiorum, “Regulae professoris casuum conscientiae,” 322n1: “Eo suam omnem op-
eram atque industriam conferre studeat, ut peritos Parochos seu Sacramentorum admin-
istratores instituat.” One may add here that the revision of the Ratio studiorum of 1832
lists this as the “Regulae professoris theologiae moralis” (Rules of the professor of moral
theology), and systematically employs the term “moral theology” throughout the text.
to contracts in the course of teaching the seventh commandment).18 Theologi-

cal matters that did not pertain to the “doctrine of cases” were to be left aside
entirely, apart from some basic issues such as the distinctions of sacramental
character, mortal and venial sin, and consent.19
Thus there was a fragmentation of moral questions in the overall scheme
of Scholastic and casuistic theology in the Ratio studiorum. As we will see, the
Jesuits furthered the development of independent genres that isolated moral
theological topics. Azor’s manual for confessors is consequently discussed be-
low, as it represents a climactic expression of one such genre, namely the flour-
ishing cases of conscience literature that the Jesuits produced in the period
under discussion.
The specifically Jesuit character of the order’s curriculum can be illustrat-
ed by a comparison with the Dominican order of studies formulated by Sisto
Fabri (1540–94) in 1586: his plan envisaged using the Summa theologiae for the
Scholastic lectio speculativa as well as the practical lectio moralis. This helps ex-
plain why the Dominican order did not have a strong manual tradition in this
period, given that their practical lectures relied on commentaries on Aquinas’s
Summa and not on manuals for confessors.20 As a further corollary of leaning
on the Summa, the lectures on these matters were based on the scheme of
the virtues as laid out by Aquinas. By contrast, the Jesuits habitually explained
cases of conscience by way of the Decalogue. As we will see, it was not clear
to what extent the speculative aspects of moral questions—the fundamental
questions surrounding Christian existence and action in the world—should
have their place in the Jesuit scheme alongside the practical, pastoral mode of
doing ethics, which fit more naturally with the exposition of the Decalogue.
3 Juan Azor’s Institutiones morales
A number of different treatises preceded and informed the Jesuit cases of con-
science literature. The tradition of confessors’ manuals began systematically in
the early thirteenth century with Raymond of Peñafort’s (c.1175–1275) Summa
de casibus poenitentiae (Sum of the cases of penance), in which he transferred
the term casus from its origin in legal discourse to moral thought.21 While the
18 Ibid., 324n2.
19 Ibid., 324n3.
20 Initially, however, the Scholastic professor was also charged with lecturing on the Prima
secundae. Theiner, Moraltheologie, 335f.
21 Ibid., 116, 331.
198 Haar
first Jesuit manual for confessors was Juan Alfonso de Polanco’s (1517–76) Breve
directorium ad confessarii ac confitentis munus recte obeundum (Brief directory
for confessors and penitents to perform well their duties [1554]), Azor’s Institu-
tiones morales could perhaps be deemed to have had the greatest impact of all
textbooks on cases of conscience. It was circulated after the order had formu-
lated its idea of education, and articulating basic moral considerations in con-
junction with specific cases it followed the model provided by the Augustinian
Martín de Azpilcueta (1492–1586), who had authored an incredibly popular
manual for confessors and penitents. Azpilcueta, a distinguished canon lawyer
by trade, published the manual in its first definitive form in 1556 under the title
Manual de confesores y penitentes (Manual for confessors and penitents).22
Azor’s Institutiones morales quickly became a source for Jesuit casuistic re-
flections and thus exercised a formative impact as a model for the moral theo-
logical manual tradition that continued in later periods.23 It is a crucial source
for understanding the connection between cases of conscience and moral the-
ology. In his treatise, Azor resolutely called attention to empirical cases and
their juridical examinations. To be sure, Jesuit treatments were eclectic, and
theologians from other orders (such as Azpilcueta) participated in the cases
of conscience discourse as well; still, Azor’s work was a cornerstone on which
Jesuit ethical thought, as represented in this genre, was constructed.
Azor’s Institutiones morales is an expansive work, divided into three volumes,
the first published in 1600 and the latter two appearing posthumously. The
frontispiece illustrates his subject: Christ occupies the prominent position in
the middle, with the inscription Iesus Christus, Filius Dei, iudex vivorum et mor-
tuorum (Jesus Christ, Son of God, judge of the living and the dead). He is sur-
rounded by representations of the church and the seven sacraments: baptism,
confirmation, penance, the Eucharist, holy orders, matrimony, and extreme
unction. The middle column containing the title page of Azor’s manual and
a scene of the last judgment splits the left side, good conscience (conscientia
bona) and faith (fides), from the right side, bad conscience (conscientia prava)
22 Martín de Azpilcueta, Manual de confesores y penitentes (Salamanca, 1556). For more de-
tails on the publication, see Azpilcueta’s introduction “al pio lector.” Cf. Eloy Tejero, “El
doctor Navarro en la historia de la doctrina canónica y moral,” in Estudios sobre el Doctor
Navarro en el iv centenario de la muerte de Martín de Azpilcueta (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1988),
125–80, here 158–68. Historian Vincenzo Lavenia has argued that Azpilcueta’s Manual
crucially developed the separate treatment of the notions of crime and sin. Vincenzo
Lavenia, L’infamia e il perdono: Tributi, pene e confessione nella teologia morale della prima
età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004), 246–51.
23 Cf. Servais Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 1995), 265f.
and heresy (haeresis). Hence the emblematic frontispiece centers on Christ’s

identity as the judge. Substantively, the pivotal elements of the last judgment
are designated by illustrations of the sacraments and conscience.
The full title of the Institutiones morales highlights how Azor sought to ad-
dress this theme: Institutionum moralium, in quibus universae quaestiones ad
conscientiam recte aut prave factorum pertinentes, breviter tractantur (Moral
institutes, in which all matters of conscience pertaining to right and wrong
actions are briefly considered). Azor was concerned with conscience as re-
gards the human actions to which it gives rise. Building on Aquinas’s defini-
tion, which identified conscience as practical by establishing the difference
between act and habit,24 Azor stated that “conscience is nothing other than an
act of reason, through which it itself prescribes what is to be done and what
is to be avoided, as well as what is good and what is bad, what is custom and
permitted and what is prohibited.”25 This definition, together with his subse-
quent citing of a list of examples of such actions, explains the full title of Azor’s
work: it reveals that he understood conscience as the place for distinguish-
ing between morally permissible and prohibited external acts; in other words,
the question of which acts represented sinful behavior and which ones did
not. Moreover, Azor stressed that conscience was tied to the natural law and
thence the eternal law. Therefore, dealing with conscience pertained more to
the realm of the theologian than to the jurist.26
Given this general theme, the crucial point for present purposes lies in the
organization of the material. The voluminous text commences with a treat-
ment of the basic aspects of all moral questions in the first volume, books 1 to
7:27 the topics on human actions and their moral quality, the passions of the
24 Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ST hereafter), Prima Secundae, q. 19, a. 5, sed contra:
“Conscientia nihil aliud est quam applicatio scientiae ad aliquem actum. Scientia autem
in ratione est.” See also ST Prima pars, q. 79, a. 13, for the argument that conscientia is
an actus rationis rather than a habitus or a potentia. Conscience is thus an act dictat-
ing something to be done or avoided. All citations of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae are
taken from the Leonine edition (1891), available on http://www.corpusthomisticum.org
(accessed February 26, 2018).
25 Azor, Institutiones morales (Cologne, 1602), 1:l. 2, c. 8, 71B: “Conscientia nihil aliud est nisi
actus rationis, quo ipsa praescribit, quid sit agendum, quid fugiendum: item quid sit bo-
num, quid malum, quid fas sit, ac liceat; quid non liceat: Item quid sit ratione praecepti
praestandum, quid vi legis cavendum et respuendum. Conscientiae enim est testificari,
accusare, increpare, arguere praescribere, monere, suadere, stimulare et hinc sit ut con-
scientia esse dicatur violatae legis et rectae rationis tristis quaedam cogitatio et morsus.”
26 Azor, Institutiones morales (Cologne, 1612), 3:l. 1, c. 3, 17.
27 Azor, Institutiones morales, 1:l. 1, c. 1, 1A: “Antequam praeceptorum Decalogi et
Sacramentorum tractationem aggredior, pauca quaedam tanquam prima totius ope-
ris elementa explicare constitui […]. Ea autem sunt, de actibus humanis […] de eorum
200 Haar
soul, the nature of the virtues and of sin, human merit, and the laws. As would
become the case for most manuals, the emphasis here lay on free human acts,
conscience, laws, and sins. Azor explicitly aligned his treatment in the first
seven books with Aquinas’s Summa.28 However, Azor’s manual only deals with
the speculative aspects behind moral questions very briefly, and the sequence
of books lacks a thorough reflection on the ultimate end of man and beatitude
(thus of the point, so to speak, of all moral behavior); by contrast, Aquinas had
placed such an exposition at the very beginning of the Secunda pars of the
Summa theologiae (quaestiones 1 to 5). Moreover, Azor omitted a discussion of
the Thomist treatment of grace.29 Instead, the great majority of Azor’s work,
the remaining six books of the first volume as well as the other two volumes,
treated of specific moral situations by explaining the Decalogue and the sacra-
ments, as well as the ecclesiastical censures and considerations on the states of
life.30 For Azor, this was the proper object of conscience.
It is clear that Azor’s aim was to produce a technical guidebook for the
specific—pragmatic—purpose of how to manage confessions in the peni-
tential. The material related in the first instance to the educational duties of
the cases of conscience professor as outlined in the Ratio studiorum, who was
asked to teach the sacraments, censures, states of life, divine and ecclesiastical
law. It was to be useful in particular for practically minded students who were
to be charged with the pastoral duties of a confessor. At the same time, the first
seven books of the Institutiones morales covered topics treated by the Scho-
lastic theology professor, and, moreover, the Ratio studiorum had indicated a
place for cases of conscience as a subject to be studied in Scholastic theology,
too. In organizing the material in this way, Azor underlined his view on what
Jesuit ethics should depend upon: conscience and the sacraments as the con-
text for human actions and the last judgment.
b onitate et pravitate, de communibus animorum affectibus […] de virtutibus […] de pec-

catis generatim […] de meritis hominum […] de legibus […]. Quae omnia ex S. Thoma
optimo videlicet harum rerum tradendarum magistro […].”
28 Ibid., 1:praefatio: “Caeterum tanquam prima totius operis elementa septem primis libris
ea tracto, quae in prima Secundae S. Thomas recto ordine disputavit.”
29 These omissions have been pointed out widely in the scholarship, see e.g. Pinckaers,
Christian Ethics, 262–66, highlighting the contrast to Aquinas.
30 Azor, Institutiones morales, 1:praefatio: “Universam materiam ad quatuor capita reduxi,
videlicet ad Decem Divinae Legis praecepta, quae Decalogo continentur, ad septem insti-
tuta a Christo Domino Sacramenta: ad tres Ecclesiasticas censuras et alias poenas, quibus
delicta puniuntur et ad remissiones sive condonationes peccatorum, quas Indulgentias
vocamus: demum ad ea, quae de statu hominum et de bonorum ac malorum finibus
disputantur.”
On the whole, it seems appropriate to conclude that conscience occupied

a powerful, though not systematically defined, role in Jesuit ethical thought as
manifested in their order of studies and in the influential manual authored by
a central figure in the conception of the Ratio studiorum, Juan Azor.
4 The Jesuit Synthesis of Legal and Moral Traditions
The fact that confession took a “juridical turn” in the sixteenth century is high-
lighted most notably by the Council of Trent’s identification of the confessor
as a judge (more than any other identity such as that of a healer) and the con-
fessional as the court of conscience. The fourteenth session of the council de-
creed that “the absolution of the priest […] is after the manner of a judicial act,
whereby sentence is pronounced by the priest as by a judge.”31 The juridical
foundation of ethics was evident in the emphasis on the ordering and pro-
hibition of external acts. Conscience had its court and its judge, and it was
conceived in legal terms.
In making this juridical turn, Jesuit ethical thought drew not only on the
cases of conscience and the sacrament of confession as exhibited in the man-
ual tradition; the Jesuits also built on the wider early modern practice of com-
menting on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. This practice brought forth more and
more specialized treatise genres by isolating certain sections of the Summa.
As was also the case with the penitential handbooks discussing cases of con-
science, Scholastic commentaries on the Summa were moral theological works
that illustrated the conjunction of legal and moral positions. On this level, it
makes little sense to classify this eclectic literature into different genres. The
diversity of tractates reflected the fact that law, justice, and right were implied
in the jurisdictions of the court of conscience (forum internum) and the public
court (forum externum).32
One notable authority and source on the subject of justice and right was the
Dominican Domingo de Soto (1494–1560), who participated in the Council of
Trent as an imperial theologian sent by Charles v (r.1519–56), and who published
an important stand-alone commentary treatise on Aquinas’s h andling of the
virtues of justice and right in the Secunda secundae of the Summa theologiae,
De iustitia et iure (On justice and right [1556]). Soto formed part of the late
31 James Waterworth, ed. and trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical
Council of Trent (London: Dolman, 1848), session 14, 100.
32 For the internal and the external forum in the early modern period, see Paolo Prodi, Eine
Geschichte der Gerechtigkeit (Munich: Beck, 2003).
202 Haar
Scholastic scholarship that centered on the “School of Salamanca,”33 which es-

sentially expanded on the Thomist synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy with
Christian theology; the juridical nature of its moral theological output found
a climactic expression in the subsequent Jesuit phase of the late Scholastic.
The school’s leading figures further developed the Thomist synthesis and pro
duced systematically organized treatments, particularly in the fields of private
law and economics, such as the justice of contracts.34
On this basis, Jesuit ethics relied heavily on juridical discourses—on the
natural, Roman, canon, and contemporary civil laws—to shape the late Scho-
lastic tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Through these
efforts, the legal tradition underwent a dramatic change: commentaries on the
Secunda pars of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae discussed at great length ques-
tions of private law and also public law, with the effect that law was combined
in a novel way with the moral aspects of theology, or, in other words, law was
considered the principal means to activate spirituality in everyday life.35
We have already seen that Azor’s manual emphasized the morality of obli-
gation and external acts. The subtitle and frontispiece of the Institutiones mo-
rales discussed above made clear the purpose of his effort, which Azor also
described with his aim of compiling the opinions of theologians as well as
lawyers.36 This theme becomes even more salient when examining the role of
legal–moral thought in Jesuit commentary works, such as those by the major
Jesuit theologians of the period under discussion, including Luis de Molina
(1535–1600), Tomás Sánchez (1550–1610), and Francisco Suárez (1548–1617).
The first Jesuit treatise in the genre that Soto established was Molina’s De
iustitia et iure (On justice and right), a large and influential work in which Mo-
lina responded to questions on justice that Aquinas had passed over, noting
Aquinas’s short exposition in comparison to his own “massive” (vastissimus)
33 Juan Belda Plans, La Escuela de Salamanca (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos,

2000).
34 Cf. James Gordley, The Philosophical Origins of Modern Contract Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991); Francisco Gómez Camacho, Economía y filosofía moral: La for-
mación del pensamiento económico europeo en la Escolástica española (Madrid: Síntesis,
1998).
35 For this point and the main themes in this section, see Wim Decock, “From Law to Para-
dise: Confessional Catholicism and Legal Scholarship,” Rechtsgeschichte 18 (2011): 12–34,
here 13, 20. Cf. Decock, Theologians and Contract Law: The Moral Transformations of the
ius commune (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 55–68.
36 Azor, Institutiones morales, 1:praefatio: “In his [libros] ea breviter complector, quae The-
ologi, quae Canones et Leges, quae Pontificii et Civilis iuris interpretes, quae Summistae
literis prodiderunt de iis, quae pertinent ad conscientiam recte aut prave factorum.”
treatment of commutative justice.37 Undoubtedly, the fact that contractual

thinking had been brought to the forefront of Jesuit scholarship was motivated
especially by the global economic expansion that took place in the sixteenth
century.38 Molina repeatedly addressed current problems in the course of his
arguments.39 Like Molina, Leonard Lessius (1554–1623) also published an im-
portant commentary De iustitia et iure, similarly addressing the legal issues
of the day, with an explicit focus on the issue of contract. Molina and Les-
sius cited contemporary Portuguese law, Spanish law, and the laws in the Low
Countries.40 While Molina also treated of public law, his major focus rested on
private law, especially as regards the commutative justice concerning external
goods, which he treated in the enormous second tractate spanning 575 dispu-
tations. Hence Molina went to astounding lengths in considering this topic,
including the relationship between contractual justice and political power,41
which will be discussed further below. The scholarship has taken note of this,
as it has of the fact that the De iustitia et iure genre offered systematic legal
treatments in order to provide spiritual guidance for the individual conscience,
especially in the way the genre was represented in Molina and Lessius.42 This
ultimate purpose of spiritual guidance binds the systematic moral–legal trea-
tises together as manifestations of Jesuit ethics in the period under discussion.
The most important early modern authority on the marriage contract was
Sánchez. Sánchez was the author of De sancto matrimonii sacramento (On the
holy sacrament of marriage [1602–5]), published in three volumes and divided
into ten books that comprehensively discussed all theological and juridical is-
sues concerning matrimony. Hence he examined marriage in terms of its natu-
ral, sacramental, and contractual aspects. The importance of On Marriage can
hardly be overstated as it remained an authoritative work on the casuistry of
37 Luis de Molina, De iustitia et iure (Mainz, 1614), auctoris consilium, 1.

38 To further illustrate this fact, one may also point to Pedro de Oñate’s (1567–1646) detailed
analysis of different contracts in his De contractibus (1646). Oñate designated contracts
as a “massive” and “complex” field because of its sheer quantity (vastissimum and dificil-
limum), yet he also deemed it very expedient (utilissimum). Oñate, De contractibus, l. 1, t.
1nn1–3. Cf. Decock, “From Law to Paradise,” 30f.
39 Cf. José Eisenberg, “Cultural Encounters, Theoretical Adventures: The Jesuit Missions to
the New World and the Justification of Voluntary Slavery,” in Politische Metaphysik, ed.
Matthias Kaufmann and Robert Schnepf (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007), 357–83.
40 Decock, “From Law to Paradise,” 28.
41 Annabel S. Brett, “Molina on Law and Power,” in A Companion to Luis de Molina, ed. Mat-
thias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 155–82.
42 This summary of Molina and Lessius is formulated in Decock, Theologians and Contract
Law, 66. Cf. Gordley, Philosophical Origins, passim.
204 Haar
marriage for centuries to come.43 In it, Sánchez made it clear that he sought to
aid “not only theologians but also professors of both [canon and civil] laws.”44
The first seven books that comprise the first tome scrutinize the matter of con-
sent in extensive detail. This aspect of On Marriage strongly influenced fellow
Jesuits writing on other topics, as Lessius and others drew on Sánchez to con-
struct their notions of consent in all kinds of contracts.45
Besides contractual thinking, the Jesuit discourse on political power also in-
fluenced their ethical thought. Suárez is an essential guide when outlining the
porous boundaries of moral theology, where ethics can be seen to have been
influenced by political and legal conceptions.
Suárez was considered the most learned early modern Jesuit, as reflected
in Pope Paul V’s (r.1605–21) decision to bestow him with the sobriquet Doc-
tor Eximius ac Pius (Outstanding and pious scholar). Among his many intel-
lectual qualities, Suárez was brilliant in systematizing the Scholastic scholar-
ship, offering a comprehensive account of law and its relation to morality in
his celebrated treatise De legibus ac Deo legislatore (On the laws and God the
lawgiver [1612]). The title indicates the link he saw between the notion of “law”
and the ground of its obligation, God’s will and reason: law was fundamentally
connected to conscience and thus the sphere of the theologian. Particularly as
regards the novel arguments on the status of natural law, jurisprudential and
theological thinking was integrated not merely in Suárez but in the wider late
Scholastic as well.46 Thus, in the foreword, Suárez explained the subject of his
De legibus in the following way: God is the universal legislator and
hence it is the theologian’s task to care for the pilgrims’ conscience; but a
good conscience follows from obeying the laws […]; for the law is a rule
that, if one follows it, leads to eternal salvation, while breaking it leads to
43 For this and further biographical information, see Celestino Carrodeguas, La sacramen-
talidad del matrimonio: Doctrina de Tomás Sánchez S.J. (Madrid: Comillas, 2003), 55–61.
44 Tomás Sánchez, De sancto matrimonii sacramento (Antwerp, 1607), prooemium, 1: “Cum
typis mandare decrevissem nonnullas materias de officiis ad mores pertinentibus, operae
pretium duxi initium a sancto matrimonii sacramento sumere: quod maximam homini-
bus utilitatem praese ferat, non Theologis solum, sed utriusque iuris professoribus.”
45 Decock, Theologians and Contract Law, 61.
46 Kurt Seelmann, “Theologische Wurzeln des säkularen Naturrechts: Das Beispiel Sala-
manca,” in Die Begründung des Rechts als historisches Problem, ed. Dietmar Willsoweit
(Munich: Oldenbourg, 2000), 215–28; see also Norbert Brieskorn, “Francisco Suárez und
sein Gesetzesbegriff im Kontext”, in Transformationen des Gesetzesbegriffs im Übergang
zur Moderne?, ed. Manfred Walther, Norbert Brieskorn, and Kay Waechter (Wiesbaden:
Steiner, 2008), 105–24.
its loss; therefore, the theologian is charged with examining the law in so
far as it is bound to the conscience.47
This quotation lucidly illustrates the integration of Jesuit juridical and ethical
thought. God the lawgiver stood behind rational and social beings, who, on
account of being reasonable and the necessity of living together, produced a
political order based on laws.
Significantly, this natural political order with its laws was therefore fun-
damentally a human order,48 although it was based on natural law, which
ultimately derived from God’s eternal law.49 With this general framework,
Suárez emphasized the naturalness of the city. On one view, in considering the
relation between the human legislator and the divine legislator, and between
crime and sin, Suárez has been regarded as an exceptional figure who present-
ed a Hobbesian “state of nature” account.50 Certainly, Suárez’s “political theol-
ogy” denied divine sanction to royal rule and instead derived political power
from the legislative body of the citizen community. On this basis, Robert Filmer
(1588–1653) would polemically criticize in his famous Patriarcha “the subtle
schoolmen,” chiefly Suárez and Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), “who to be sure
to thrust down the king below the pope, thought it the safest course to advance
the people above the king.”51 Suárez himself had been tasked with formulat-
ing a polemical response to the Anglican claims of James i/vi (r.1567–1625),
which he duly offered in his Defensio fidei catholicae et apostolicae adversus
47 Suárez, De legibus ac Deo legislatore, vol. 1, in Opera omnia (Paris, 1856), 5:prooemium,
x: “Deinde Theologicum est negotium conscientiis prospicere viatorum; conscientiarum
vero rectitudo stat legibus servandis, sicut et pravitas violandis, cum lex quaelibet sit re-
gula, si ut oportet servetur, aeternae salutis assequendae; si violetur, amittendae; ergo et
legis inspectio, quatenus est conscientiae vinculum, ad Theologum pertinebit.”
48 For the view that Suárez separated the supernatural order of theology and the natural or-
der of (political) philosophy, see Jean-François Courtine, Nature et empire de la loi: Études
suaréziennes (Paris: Vrin, 1999), 45–67, drawing on Henri de Lubac’s nouvelle théologie; de
Lubac, Le mystère du surnaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1965).
49 For the arguments of continuity, see the previous paragraph on the status of natural law.
50 Cf. Harro Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State c.1540–1630 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 251f and 261; Höpfl, “Scholasticism in Quentin
Skinner’s Foundations,” in Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, ed. An-
nabel S. Brett and James Tully (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 113–29,
here 127f.
51 Robert Filmer, Patriarcha and Other Writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), 5. For the political point of Jesuit “democratic” and
“constitutionalist” tendencies versus James i and Filmerian absolutist thought, see
Johann P. Sommerville, “From Suárez to Filmer: A Reappraisal,” Historical Journal 25, no. 3
(1982): 525–40.
206 Haar
anglicanae sectae errores (Defense of the Catholic and apostolic faith against
the errors of the Anglican sect [1613]).
In sum, by stressing the naturalness as well as the legitimacy of human posi-
tive law, Jesuit political thought underlined the legal knowledge required of a
confessor: human law as a normative source had to be taken into account in
the court of conscience, to the extent that it coincided with the demands of
natural law.52
To conclude this section, it is worth reiterating the previously stated claim
regarding the difficulty of genre classifications: on the basis of the evidence
surveyed, the debates on contracts and political power illustrated the unde-
fined limits of moral theology on the eve of modernity. Thus, toward the end
of the climactic phase of the late Scholastic, the renowned Jesuit Rodrigo de
Arriaga (1592–1667) had still not encountered a firm definition of the contours
of moral theology. In his eight-volume Disputationes theologicae (Theological
disputations [1643–55]), Arriaga rather uneasily sub-divided theology into
positive, Scholastic, and moral. Although the last one could perhaps be
said to pertain to Scholastic [theology]. […] Moral [theology] […] treats
more of deciding rather than disputing cases of conscience. […] Yet,
since [positive and moral theology] are not proper science, but rather a
supplement to or interpretation of scripture, as it were, or transmissions
of precepts, they do not have the qualities proper to science.53
5 Probabilism
Besides their case-based and juridical approach to ethical thought, the early
modern Jesuits are perhaps most well known for their adherence to the “proba-
bilist” scheme, a decision-making method that gained traction in Jesuit discus-
sions of morally uncertain situations. The Jesuits adopted probabilism in the
late sixteenth century as their preferred way to resolve cases of conscience.
In the scholarship, a list of the works of Jesuit penitential literature has been
52 Decock, “From Law to Paradise,” 20.

53 Rodrigo de Arriaga, Disputationes theologicae in Primam partem D. Thomae (Lyon, 1643),
1:tractatus prooemialis de theologica doctrina, 2: “Scientia haec sacra [theologia, the scien-
tia fidei] dividi potest in Positivam, Scholasticam et Moralem. Licet forte haec ultima sit
pars Scholasticae. […] Moralis ea dicitur, quae magis decidendo, quam disputando casus
conscientiae tractat. […] cum illae [scientia positiva and scientia moralis] non sint pro-
priae scientiae, sed quasi glossa aut interpretatio Scripturae, vel traditio praeceptorum,
non habent proprias qualitates scientiae.”
compiled in an attempt to explain the Jesuits’ adoption of probabilism in this

period.54 This section provides an overview of the probabilist method and its
relationship to cases of conscience and juridicized moral argument.
Probabilism was a means to reach decisions about how to act in mor-
ally doubtful scenarios. A probable claim was a statement that could be ra-
tionally explained or proven.55 The probabilist thesis was first definitively
stated as a systematic argument in the post-Tridentine Expositio in Primam
secundae (1577) authored by the Dominican Bartolomé de Medina (1528–80).
While some aspects of the probabilist method had been in circulation for
a while, Medina self-consciously claimed to break with the common opinion.56
Certainly, Medina offered the first, fully abstract and systematic thesis. He ex-
pressed the definitive summary of his view in his commentary on Aquinas’s
article c oncerning the goodness of the interior acts of the will. In the context
of addressing Aquinas’s description of the instances when “the will abiding by
erring reason is good,” Medina declared:57
To me, it seems that if an opinion is probable, one is permitted to fol-

low it although the opposite opinion is more probable: for the probable
opinion in speculation is that which we may follow without the danger of
error and deception, therefore the probable opinion in practice is the one
we may follow without the danger of sinning.58
As can be gathered from the quotation, it had already been established that it
was legitimate to follow the probable opinion in a doubtful case of speculation.
Medina’s move was to extend the probabilism of speculative dubia to the
54 Cf. the list of penitential literature offered in Maryks, Saint Cicero and the Jesuits, 32–42.
55 For the general features of probabilism, see Rudolf Schüßler, Moral im Zweifel, vol. 2, Die
Herausforderung des Probabilismus (Paderborn: Mentis, 2006), 82–89.
56 For Medina’s claim to novelty and for the way in which he built on already existing argu-
ments, see Rudolf Schüßler, Moral im Zweifel, vol. 1, Die scholastische Theorie des Ents-
cheidens unter moralischer Unsicherheit (Paderborn: Mentis, 2003), 152–60.
57 Aquinas, ST Prima Secundae, q. 19. a. 6: “Videtur quod voluntas concordans rationi erranti,
sit bona.” Aquinas argued that a conscientia erronea excuses in the case of ignorantia cir-
cumstantiae, but not in the case of ignorantia directe voluntaria or indirecte (negligentia).
58 Bartolomé de Medina, Expositio in Primam secundae Angelici Doctoris D. Thomae Aqui-
natis (Venice, 1580), q. 19, a. 6, 179: “[Certe argumenta videntur optima, sed] mihi videtur,
quod si est opinio probabilis, licitum est eam sequi, licet opposita probabilior sit: nam
opinio probabilis in speculativis ea est, quam possumus sequi sine periculo erroris et de-
ceptionis, ergo opinio probabilis in practicis ea est, quam possumus sequi sine periculo
peccandi.”
208 Haar
robabilist approach to practical dubia. What can be argued and supported as

p
a theoretical position may also be supported in practical matters.59
The Jesuits soon championed this method. As Suárez stated in his Tractatus
quinque, book 3, “De bonitate et malitia humanorum actuum” (On the good
and evil of human acts), probable opinions in practical matters were ethical
counsels that were both reasonable and supported by some authority.60 In
short, then, the probabilist claim was the following: in cases of doubt, the in-
dividual may follow the course of action he or she finds provable (according
to prudence), on the basis of reason and authority. One was free to follow a
probable opinion, and there was no necessitated recourse to the safer option
according to the Jesuits. Blaise Pascal (1623–62), their chief critic, ridiculed
this probabilist scheme and targeted Sánchez on a number of occasions. Pas-
cal’s Lettres provinciales (Provincial letters) are perhaps more significant for
their polemical prose style than substantive matters, but they vividly illustrate
the prevalent unease about the particularly permissive form of this kind of
casuistry of uncertain moral cases: “‘Here we are quite lost, then,’ I told him,
‘my dear Father, thanks to your probable opinions!’”61 The scholarship on this
issue has established that this handling of doubtful cases was permissive on
two levels: the epistemic level of knowledge and belief, and the deontic level,
which stressed the ius libertatis or “right to freedom.”62 Epistemic obligations
were those moral duties that concerned truth claims to actions. Without these,
other reasons could provide the motive for action, such as obedience or the
principle of free decision-making. On the deontic level, decision-making was
tightly connected to the right to freedom in situations where a specific duty
did not exist in definitive shape. It was thus pitted against, and favored above,
the duty based on moral obligations. As to the question of why this permis-
sive form of casuistry achieved predominance, a number of developments in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been emphasized: the rise of
59 Schüßler, Moral im Zweifel, 1:155–58, emphasizes the contextual limitations of this claim
and offers the interpretative options of a probabilism concerning the collection of infor-
mation, or a probabilism mediating between one’s own position and that of others.
60 Francisco Suárez, Tractatus quinque theologici ad Primam secundae D. Thomae (Lyon,
1628), book 3, “De bonitate et malitia humanorum actuum,” d. 12, s. 6n1, 325: “Nobis nunc
satis est, illam existimari opinionem probabilem, quae etiam nititur authoritate aliqua
digna fide (quae in re morali multum habet ponderis) et non repugnant, aut veritatibus
ab Ecclesia receptis, aut evidenti ratione; neque etiam temere contradicit communi et
receptae doctrinae Doctorum.”
61 Blaise Pascal, Les lettres provinciales, ed. H.F. [Hugh Fraser] Stewart (London: Longmans,
1920), cinquième lettre, 42–54, here 50: “Nous voicy bien au large, luy dis-je, mon Reverend
Pere, graces à vos opinions probables.”
62 Schüßler, Moral im Zweifel, 1:147–50. This summary follows Schüßler’s authoritative ac-
count, and the entire section is indebted to his two volumes of Moral im Zweifel.
olitical a bsolutism and Machiavellian raison d’état, the religious conflict be-
p
tween the different denominations and their engagement with religious doc-
trine, the economic development of capitalistic free market societies and its
connection to questions of usury and extreme necessity, and the intensified
juridification of moral theology.63 Given that probabilism could favor the re-
spective opposing sides in these conflicts, the probabilist inclination pro liber-
tate has been said to represent to the examination of conscience what the legal
principle in dubio pro reo or “when in doubt, in favor of the accused” represent-
ed to ethics: depending on who was the penitent or the accused, probabilism
could strengthen the position of the powerful as well as the powerless, the rich
and the poor.64
In the current context, it should be noted that this concept of probabilism
reinforced the juridical bent of Jesuit ethical thought. Hence, the idea of fol-
lowing less probable notions was supported by long-standing legal norms,
notably the principle of melior est conditio possidentis (the condition of the
possessor is the better one): joining the method of speculative and practical
doubt, Sánchez argued on multiple occasions in his moral manual Opus mo-
rale in praecepta Decalogi (Moral treatise on the precepts of the Decalogue;
the second and third volumes of which were published posthumously) that
“the rule that, when in doubt, the possessor’s position is stronger, holds true in
the material pertaining to justice as well as all other virtues.”65 This example
illustrates how Sánchez was able to transpose this legal principle to his pre-
ferred ethical decision-making method.66 Moreover, “generally, it is said that
the will properly possesses its liberty and the burden of proof falls on the one
wanting to impose an obligation that deprives this liberty.”67 On the whole,
the Jesuit treatments of probabilism consequently lend credence to the notion
63 Ibid., 1:150f.
64 Ibid., 1:151.
65 Sánchez, Opus morale in praecepta Decalogi (Lyon, 1661), 1:l. 1, c. 10, q. 1, n. 11, 37: “Eam
regulam, in dubio potior est conditio possidentis, procedere aeque in materia iustitiae, ac
omnium aliarum virtutum.”
66 For another example, the principle lex dubia non obligat, which Suárez eloquently ar-
ticulated in his De bonitate et malitia humanorum actuum, see Schüßler, Moral im Zweifel,
1:160f, and 2:96–100. See also his “On the Anatomy of Probabilism,” in Moral Philosophy on
the Threshold of Modernity, ed. Jill Kraye and Risto Saarinen (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005),
91–114.
67 Sánchez, Opus morale, 1:l. 1, c. 10, q. 1, n. 11, 37: “In communi loquendi voluntas dicitur
possidere vere suam libertatem et volenti obligationem imponere privantem libertate,
incumbit eius probandae onus.” For this discussion in the context of placing the internal
forum in relation to subjective rights, see Rudolf Schüßler, “Moral Self-ownership and
Ius possessionis in the Late Scholastics,” in Transformations in Medieval and Early Mod-
ern Rights Discourse, ed. Virpi Mäkinen and Petter Korkman (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006),
149–72.
210 Haar
that Sánchez, Suárez, and their followers constructed their ethical thought on
a particularly juridicized way of thinking about human actions.
6 Conclusion
Jesuit ethical thought drew its material from various sources and traditions.
Using examples from the various texts, this chapter has outlined the terminol-
ogy the Jesuits used in order to express their views. The Ratio studiorum plainly
emphasized the role of the cases of conscience in Jesuit education. Their pas-
toral goal gave rise to a flourishing literature genre. Azor’s Institutiones morales
exemplifies the extensive and serious consideration that the question of sin
and the sacrament of penance received in such writings. The juridical focus
on external acts in this work marked a significant development, as this focus
resurfaced in other moral theological Jesuit genres. Thus, commentaries such
as Molina’s De iustitia et iure as well as Suárez’s De legibus were saturated with
a juridicized language and the blend of legal and moral traditions. Finally, the
espousal of the probabilist decision-making method by theologians such as
Sánchez furthered these developments. Eclectic as the early modern Jesuit
scholarship was, their juridicized language and preoccupation with the means
to salvation dominated their ethical ideas across the different treatise genres
to which they contributed.
Bibliography
Arriaga, Rodrigo de. Disputationes theologicae in Primam partem D. Thomae. Lyon, 1643.
Azpilcueta, Martín de. Manual de confesores y penitentes. Salamanca, 1556.
Brett, Annabel S. “Molina on Law and Power.” In A Companion to Luis de Molina, edited
by Kaufmann, Matthias and Alexander Aichele, 155–82. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Brieskorn, Norbert. “Francisco Suárez und sein Gesetzesbegriff im Kontext.” In Trans-
formationen des Gesetzesbegriffs im Übergang zur Moderne?, edited by Manfred
Walther, Norbert Brieskorn, and Kay Waechter, 105–24. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 2008.
Camacho, Francisco Gómez. Economía y filosofía moral: La formación del pensamiento
económico europeo en la Escolástica española. Madrid: Síntesis, 1998.
Carrodeguas, Celestino. La sacramentalidad del matrimonio: Doctrina de Tomás Sán-
chez S.J. Madrid: Comillas, 2003.
Courtine, Jean-François. Nature et empire de la loi: Études suaréziennes. Paris: Vrin, 1999.
De Lubac, Henri. Le mystère du surnaturel. Paris: Aubier, 1965.
Decock, Wim. “From Law to Paradise: Confessional Catholicism and Legal Scholar-
ship.” Rechtsgeschichte 18 (2011): 12–34.
Decock, Wim. Theologians and Contract law: The Moral Transformations of the Ius com-
mune. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Eisenberg, José. “Cultural Encounters, Theoretical Adventures: The Jesuit Missions to
the New World and the Justification of Voluntary Slavery.” In Politische Metaphysik,
edited by Matthias Kaufmann and Robert Schnepf, 357–83. Frankfurt am Main: Pe-
ter Lang, 2007.
Filmer, Robert. Patriarcha and Other Writings. Edited by Johann P. Sommerville. Cam-
Gordley, James. The Philosophical Origins of Modern Contract Doctrine. Oxford: Oxford
Höpfl, Harro. Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State c.1540–1630. Cam-
Höpfl, Harro. “Scholasticism in Quentin Skinner’s Foundations.” In Rethinking the Foun-
dations of Modern Political Thought, edited by Annabel S. Brett and James Tully, 113–
29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
James Waterworth, ed. and trans.The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumeni-
cal Council of Trent. London: Dolman, 1848.
Lavenia, Vincenzo. L’infamia e il perdono: Tributi, pene e confessione nella teologia mo-
rale della prima età moderna. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004.
Leinsle, Ulrich G. Introduction to Scholastic Theology. Washington, DC: Catholic Uni-
versity of America Press, 2010.
Adoption of Moral Probabilism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
Molina, Luis de. De iustitia et iure. Mainz, 1614.
Pachtler, G.M. [Georg Michael]. “Vorbereitung der Ratio studiorum.” In Ratio studio-
rum et institutiones scholasticae Societatis Jesu, vol. 2, Ratio studiorum ann. 1586, 1599,
1832, edited by G.M. Pachtler. Berlin: A. Hofmann, 1887.
Parker, T. [Thomas] M. “The Papacy, Catholic Reform, and Christian Missions.” In The
New Cambridge Modern History, edited by R.B. [Richard Bruce] Wernham, 3:44–71.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Pascal, Blaise. Les lettres provinciales. Edited by H.F. [Hugh Fraser] Stewart. London:
Longmans, 1920.
Pinckaers, Servais. Sources of Christian Ethics. Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 1995.
Plans, Juan Belda. La Escuela de Salamanca. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos,
2000.
212 Haar
Prodi, Paolo. Eine Geschichte der Gerechtigkeit. Munich: Beck, 2003.

Ratio studiorum et institutiones scholasticae Societatis Jesu, vol. 1, Ab anno 1541 ad an-
num 1599. Edited by G.M. [Georg Michael] Pachtler. Berlin: A. Hofmann, 1887.
Sánchez, Tomás. De sancto matrimonii sacramento. Antwerp, 1607.
Schüßler, Rudolf. Moral im Zweifel, vol. 1, Die scholastische Theorie des Entscheidens un-
ter moralischer Unsicherheit. Paderborn: Mentis, 2003.
Schüßler, Rudolf. Moral im Zweifel, vol. 2, Die Herausforderung des Probabilismus. Pad-
erborn: Mentis, 2006.
Schüßler, Rudolf. “Moral Self-ownership and Ius possessionis in the Late Scholastics.”
In Transformations in Medieval and Early Modern Rights Discourse, edited by Virpi
Mäkinen and Petter Korkman, 149–72. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006.
Schüßler, Rudolf. “On the Anatomy of Probabilism.” In Moral Philosophy on the Thresh-
old of Modernity, edited by Jill Kraye and Risto Saarinen, 91–114. Dordrecht: Springer,
2005.
Seelmann, Kurt. “Theologische Wurzeln des säkularen Naturrechts: Das Beispiel Sala-
manca.” In Die Begründung des Rechts als historisches Problem, edited by Dietmar
Willsoweit, 215–28. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2000.
Sommerville, Johann P. “From Suárez to Filmer: A Reappraisal.” Historical Journal 25,
no. 3 (1982): 525–40.
Suárez, Francisco. Tractatus quinque theologici ad Primam secundae D. Thomae. Lyon,
1628.
Tejero, Eloy. “El doctor Navarro en la historia de la doctrina canónica y moral.” In Estu-
dios sobre el Doctor Navarro en el iv centenario de la muerte de Martín de Azpilcueta,
125–80. Pamplona: Eunsa, 1988.
Theiner, Johann. Die Entwicklung der Moraltheologie zur eigenständigen Disziplin. Re-
gensburg: Pustet, 1970.
Chapter 9
Political Thought
Erik De Bom
1 Introduction
At first glance, there is an apparent paradox at the heart of the Jesuits’ intellec-
tual profile: on the one hand, the order’s members strived for a life that was de-
voted to spirituality and asceticism—a life that was not dominated by wealth,
honor, and lust; yet, on the other, the Jesuits are widely known for their active
involvement in the world. However, for the Jesuits, there was no paradox be-
tween faith and the world but a natural synthesis.1 In a unique way, the Jesuits
bridged the world of contemplation and action by striking a balance between a
condemnation of transitory goods and a worldly commitment. This balance is
the backbone of Ignatian spirituality itself, which is characterized by a search
for God’s majesty in the whole world and, at the same time, the aspiration to
spread that majesty all over the world. As a consequence, it was simply impos-
sible for the Jesuits to avoid engaging with the world of secular rule. This in
turn serves to explain why the Jesuits were not preoccupied with producing
purely abstract philosophical works on the nature of the respublica.2 All their
ideas, not least their political ones, had a direct connection to the practical
world.
The Exercitia spiritualia explicitly state that it is possible to live a Christian
life in the world of politics.3 Although most Jesuits were not “politicians,” their
adversaries would frequently propagate the image of Jesuits leaving their mark
in one way or another on important policy matters. This allegation gained
1 See Toon Van Houdt and Wim Decock, Leonardus Lessius: Traditie en vernieuwing (Antwerp:
Maria-Elisabeth Belpaire, 2005), 34–38.
2 This was especially true of the Jesuits writing and working in the Netherlands. See Harro
Höpfl, “The Political Thought of the Jesuits in the Low Countries until 1630,” in The Jesuits
of the Low Countries: Identity and Impact (1540–1773): Proceedings of the International Con-
gress at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven (3–5 December 2009), ed. Rob
Faesen and Leo Kenis, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium (Leuven:
Peeters, 2012), 43–63.
3 See Robert Bireley, “Les jésuites et la conduite de l’état baroque,” in Les jésuites à l’âge baroque
(1540–1640), ed. Luce Giard and Louis de Vaucelles (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 1996), 229–42,
here 231–32.

214 De Bom
further traction due to the lack of transparency in the Jesuits’ relations with
statesmen and the nature of their involvement in public affairs. Thus Muzio
Vitelleschi, the Society’s sixth superior general (in office 1615–45), reported in
one of his letters the complaint that the Jesuits were more like “politicians [po-
liticos]” than solidly spiritual men.4 For the Jesuits, the frequent use of the word
“politicus” in these kinds of accusations was an extremely severe insult.5 What
was at stake is illustrated by the Dutch Jesuit Carolus Scribani (1561–1629), for
whom “politicians” were outright simulators, people “who profess something
with their mouth and conceal another thing in their mind.” Such people “must
be shunned, for they nearly storm like a savage and lapse into cruelty as soon
as they have seized power.”6 Since these were the kinds of qualities associated
with the word “politicus,” Scribani wanted to make it clear that the term did
not apply to the Jesuits. In his mirror-for-princes, Politico-Christianus, Scribani
consequently sought to redefine the concept of “politicus” by bringing it into
harmony with a concept with which it seemed irreconcilable, namely “Chris-
tianus.” His prince is “not only a politician, but, of all kinds of men, a Christian
man in faith, piety and character.”7 Indeed, if there was one goal shared by all
members of the Society when writing about politics during this period, it was
to reconcile the profession of politics, tainted by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–
1527), with the moral standards of religion.
Apart from being ambiguous, the Jesuit policy on the relationship between
religion and politics was also inconsistent. The Society was not a monolithic
bloc, and it is hard to discern any kind of uniformity in the Jesuits’ political
ideas, even on such an important topic as the relationship between politics
4 Quoted in Robert Bireley, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years’ War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 26.
5 On the history of the concept of “politicus” in general, see the insightful contribution by
Nicolai Rubinstein, “The History of the Word Politicus in Early Modern Europe,” in The Lan-
guages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden, Ideas in Context 4
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 41–56.
6 Carolus Scribani, Politico-Christianus (Antwerp: Martinus Nutius, 1624), 160.
7 Scribani, Politico-Christianus, “Letter to the Reader.” In his correspondence, Scribani stressed
this time and again. See Louis Brouwers, Brieven van Carolus Scribani (1561–1629), uitgegeven
met de medewerking van de Universitaire Stichting van België (Antwerp: Vereeniging der Ant-
werpsche bibliophielen, 1972), which contains Scribani’s letters to, among others, the magis-
trate of Antwerp, the magistrate of Brussels, and fellow Jesuits. See also Erik De Bom, “Caro-
lus Scribani and the Lipsian Legacy: the Politico-Christianus and Lipsius’s Image of the Good
Prince,” in (Un)masking the Realities of Power: Justus Lipsius and the Dynamics of Political
Writing in Early Modern Europe, ed. Erik De Bom et al., Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History
193 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 283–305, here 288–89. On Scribani’s political thought, see also Höpfl,
“Political Thought of the Jesuits in the Low Countries,” 59–60.
Political Thought 215
and religion. There were, however, some “official” directives. The Fifth General
Congregation (1592–93) summed up the order’s position quite clearly:
Let no one at all meddle in any way in the public and secular affairs of
princes, [that is, those] which pertain to reason of state, as people call it;
and let them not even dare or presume to deal with political matters of
that sort, irrespective of who it is that requires or asks them to do so, and
however hard they press.8
But although Jesuits were not allowed to hold any government office—they
were even instructed to avoid giving the appearance of holding formal political
power—the Society soon came to recognize that balancing between the spiri-
tual and earthly world would not be so straightforward. As a result, Vitelles-
chi eventually came to permit a practice that was already a regular custom
by allowing the Jesuits to intervene in political matters, albeit under certain
circumstances:
Although involvement with matters of reason of state was normally for-

eign to the religious vocation, when it was a question of preserving the
faith or advancing the neighbors’ spiritual good or the glory of God, then
the Jesuit in a position to do so not only could but was obliged to inter-
vene in political matters.9
2 The Almighty Confessor
In order to fulfill their “political” duties, the Jesuits carried out many respon-
sibilities and often held influential positions, such as court preacher, political
counsellor, and confessor.10 But what exactly was “political” about their “po-
litical” duties? In an expression that was frequently used by Ignatius of Loyola
(c.1491–1556), the Jesuits’ core task was “to help souls.”11 And since “all members
of the body participate in the welfare of the head, and all subjects in the welfare
of the prince, […] so we ought to esteem the spiritual assistance that we give
8 Harro Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630, Ideas
in Context 70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 58. I am much indebted to
this masterful overview of the Jesuits’ political thought.
9 Bireley, Jesuits and the Thirty Years’ War, 270.
10 For the Jesuits as political counsellors, see esp. the special issue “Jesuits as Counsellors in
the Early Modern World,” ed. Harald E. Braun, Journal of Jesuit Studies 4 (2017): 175–289.
11 See John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
216 De Bom
to these [princes] more highly than the assistance that we provide others.”12
As heads of state, princes not only had countless responsibilities; they also had
to make and implement far-reaching decisions that would affect all members
of society—an obvious example being the decision to wage war and the way
in which it should be conducted.13 Consequently, princes faced greater risks to
their conscience and needed to invest more effort into finding consolation and
reconciliation with God, which was the ultimate goal of every human being.
As confessors, the Jesuits played a vital role not only in overseeing the well-
being of the prince but also that of the whole society. During the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, most European Catholic kings had clergymen from
different orders at their side. The Jesuits, who were well represented among
these clergymen, assisted princes and rulers in countries ranging from Spain,
Portugal, Austria, and France to the Italian states, the Holy Roman Empire,
and Poland. In their role as confessors, the Jesuits had privileged access to the
highest echelons of power. Yet this access also brought with it inherent risks:
thus, as Superior General Claudio Acquaviva (in office 1581–1615) clarified in
his Instructio pro confessariis principum (Instruction for princely confessors
[1602]), the Jesuit confessor should “beware of meddling in external and po-
litical matters and be mindful of those things which the Fifth Congregation in
its canons 12 and 13 decreed with the utmost severity; he must only attend to
what pertains to the prince’s conscience.”14 However, Vitelleschi would later
expand on Acquaviva’s directive by explaining that what was prohibited was
to be “involved in public consultations or negotiations about these or similar
issues,” which opened up the possibility of giving advice in confession or even
in a private forum. This in turn placed the Jesuits in a position to “use the sac-
rament of confession to penetrate the designs of princes and to manipulate
consciences to their own purposes.”15 By operating in the gray area of princely
spiritual assistance and blurring the line of the two persons of the prince, as
12 Quoted from Bireley, Jesuits and the Thirty Years’ War, 27.
13 A good example is given by João Manuel A.A. Fernandes, “Luis de Molina: On War,” in A
Companion to Luis de Molina, ed. Matthias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele, Brill’s Com-
panions to the Christian Tradition 50 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 227–55, here 229–34.
14 Canons 12 and 13 of the Fifth Congregation refer to “any public or secular activities of
princes which pertain to matters of state.” Jesuits “should not dare or presume to attend to
the handling of these sorts of political matters, regardless of who requests or asks them to
do so. […] Neither should they be occupied in other secular affairs, even if these peculiar
affairs pertain to their blood relatives, friends, or anybody else.” The full text of canons 12
and 13 is presented in John P. Donnelly, S.J., ed., Jesuit Writings of the Early Modern Period,
1540–1640 (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006), 209–10.
15 Bireley, Jesuits and the Thirty Years’ War, 3.
Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) called it, the one private and the other public,16
the Jesuit confessor’s exact role was far from easy to pin down.
The confessor’s far-reaching role gained legitimacy due to the outcome of
a vehement and complicated discussion on the exact relationship between
civil and papal authority.17 Far more than a theoretical issue, the question had
a direct impact on the “real” world. This is illustrated by the publication his-
tory of the Defensio potestatis Summi Pontificis (Defense of papal power) of the
Flemish Jesuit Leonard Lessius (1554–1623). Lessius had written his treatise in
1609, but Archduke Albert (r.1598–1621) and Archduchess Isabella (r.1598–1633)
from the Southern Catholic Netherlands refused to approve it for publication.
Nevertheless, the work eventually appeared in print in 1611 due to the efforts
of English Jesuits in Saint-Omer. Although Pope Paul v (r.1605–21) was very
pleased with the work, its circulation had to be prohibited because fear arose
that it would invigorate the opposition against the Society, which was already
widespread in France. Superior General Acquaviva consequently collected all
copies of the work and placed them under strict surveillance in order to safe-
guard the existence of the Society itself. The issue at stake was the nature of
papal authority, which could ultimately decide on the deposition of princes,
the transfer of their authority to others, the annulment of their laws, and the
release of their subjects from their duty of obedience and fidelity. The question
of papal authority also touched on the highly controversial topic of regicide,
which, as we will see, cast a shadow on the Society’s reputation. The ques-
tion was not whether the pope was the final arbiter in matters of faith and
morals—for Catholics, it was beyond doubt that the pope had the ultimate
responsibility for the spiritual welfare of all Christians, which in turn gave him
the authority to condemn any acts carried out by rulers that endangered their
subjects’ souls—but whether his authority entailed any political or coercive
power.18
The more or less standard account, as articulated by Luis de Molina
(1535–1600), among others, claimed that church and commonwealth were
separate entities.19 They both had their own independent origins, their own
ends, organizations or orders, personnel, jurisdictions, competences, author-
ity, powers, and so on. The respublica christiana and the respublica civilis were
16 See esp. Nicole Reinhardt, Voices of Conscience: Royal Confessors and Political Counsel in
Seventeenth-Century Spain and France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 68–72.
17 Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 339–65.
18 Ibid., 209–17.
19 For Molina, see also Frank B. Costello, The Political Philosophy of Luis de Molina S.J. (1535–
1600), Bibliotheca Instituti Historici S.I. 38 (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu,
1974).
218 De Bom
communitates perfectae in their own right, acknowledging no superior in their

respective domains. As a consequence, the pope could not meddle in temporal
affairs. Another argument was that Christ as man was neither king of the Jews
nor lord of the world. Although all power was given to him by God, he chose
not to use it. This decision in no way authorized Peter’s successors as bishops
of Rome to assume these powers. However different and independent the au-
thority of the civil and ecclesiastical community, it was not the case that papal
authority could not be reconciled with the existence of a temporal authority
that was “perfect” in its own right. Any secular authority, at least if it was held
by Christian princes, would ultimately find legitimation in the service of the
church. This was the basis of the mediating doctrine of the potestas indirecta,
the indirect power of the pope. Although the pope ruled over spiritual affairs
in the first instance, it was precisely in virtue of his spiritual authority that he
had a certain indirect power to intervene, if necessary, in worldly affairs. This
doctrine had far-reaching consequences because it gave the vicar of Christ the
authority to take action against the prince whenever his decisions endangered
his subjects’ salvation. In extreme cases, the doctrine even allowed the pope to
dismiss subjects from their duty of obedience, and, even worse, to question the
legitimacy of a prince to the extent that he could be killed as a tyrant.
The most influential elaboration of the doctrine of indirect power was
provided by Cardinal Bellarmine in his De summo pontifice (On the supreme
pontiff)—and, in his wake, in Francisco Suárez’s (1548–1617) De defensione fidei
catholicae (The defense of the Catholic faith), which was the third volume of
his Controversiae.20 By presenting his ideas in the form of a “controversy,” Bel-
larmine was following a well-established tradition. However, contrary to his
predecessors, he grounded the polemical aspect of the work on a more solidly
theological, Thomistic foundation. Much was at stake, since the contemporary
heresies, which questioned, among other things, the power of the Holy See,
20 On Bellarmine’s doctrine of the pope’s potestas indirecta, see the rich and thought-pro-
voking study by Stefania Tutino, Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Com-
monwealth, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
On Suárez’s theory of the indirect power of the church, see Wim Decock, “Counter-Refor-
mation Diplomacy behind Francisco Suárez’s Constitutionalist Theory,” Ambiente jurídico
11 (2009): 69–92. On Suárez’s political philosophy more generally, see, among others, Jean-
Paul Coujou, “Political Thought and Legal Theory in Suárez,” in A Companion to Francisco
Suárez, ed. Victor M. Salas and Robert L. Fastiggi, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tra-
dition 53 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 29–71, and Jean-François Courtine, Nature et empire de la loi:
Études suaréziennes (Paris: Vrin, 1999). Information on the genre of the controversies can
be found in Joep van Gennip, Controversen in Context: Een comparatief onderzoek naar de
Nederlandstalige controversepublicaties van de jezuïeten in de zeventiende eeuwse Repub-
liek (Hilversum: Verloren, 2014), with a discussion of Bellarmine’s central role on 51–54.
were more dangerous than the previous ones because they had penetrated the
heart of the social and political body of the Christian church.
Both the temporal and spiritual domain were monarchies. That was the best
form of government, as already argued by Thomas Aquinas (c.1224/25–74). But
as Francisco de Vitoria (1492–1546) pointed out, Aquinas was not fully con-
sistent, as on one occasion he had described monarchy as the best form of
government, while on another he had claimed that a mixed form of govern-
ment was best. The solution was simple: the best form of government “simply
and per se” is monarchy; it is a mixed form “with regard to circumstances and
persons.” The distinction revealed a difference between the temporal and spiri-
tual. According to Bellarmine, the former could not be anything other than a
mixed form of government, not so much because of “circumstances and per-
sons,” but because of the “corruption of human nature”:
It is not necessarily required for the preservation of the political realms

that all provinces maintain the same civil laws and rituals, as they can
make use of different laws and institutions according to the variety of
places and people, and therefore it is not required that there is one person
who maintains them all in unity. But it is necessary for the preservation
of the Church that all convene in the same faith, the same sacraments
and the same precepts drawn from heaven, which cannot happen unless
they form one people and they are maintained in unity of one person.21
Bellarmine’s work focused on this one person, the authority and institution of
the pope, who had theological as well as political power. He repeated the well-
received idea that the pope was neither “dominus totius mundi” (Lord of the
whole world) nor “dominus totius Orbis Christiani” (Lord of the whole Chris-
tian world). Therefore, the source of his power differed from that of the tem-
poral ruler. The pope’s dominium was not founded on grace or faith, but on free
will and reason; it did not spring from the ius divinum (divine right) but from
the ius gentium (law of nations). This implied that political government was
always legitimate, even in the absence of Christian rulers.22 Accordingly, the
pope could not have any direct jurisdiction in temporal matters whatsoever,
let alone any kind of authority over non-Christians. His jurisdiction pertained
to the spiritual realm, the empire of souls, which covered all Christians all over
the world. In order to clarify his doctrine, Bellarmine made use of a simile:
political and spiritual authority are like the flesh and spirit of the soul—the
21 Bellarmine, De summo pontifice, quoted in Tutino, Empire of Souls, 28–29.

22 Bellarmine, De summo pontifice, 5, 6, and Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 54.
220 De Bom
S ociety’s primary task was to take care of the soul—which means that they
could exist independently, as was the case with a heretical prince, and togeth-
er, as was the case with a Christian ruler. But since the spirit is more important
than the flesh, the spiritual is superior to the political, which is exactly the rea-
son why the spiritual might rule over the temporal and political “for the sake of
the spiritual end.” As historian Stefania Tutino points out, whenever the pope
intervened in temporal matters, he could only do so by virtue of his spiritual
authority, without any “quasi-temporal” authority or any “true and proper ju-
risdiction,” as Vitoria wrote and Jesuits such as Suárez and Molina repeated
after him.
Bellarmine’s discussion of the potestas indirecta23 was remarkable because
it explicitly mentioned the soul as the juridical area of influence of the visible
monarchy of the pope. Thus the forum of conscience was not simply an area
of spiritual influence; it was a proper juridical area over which the pope ruled
as the ultimate judge. This forum internum was constructed as a kind of par-
allel jurisdiction that competed for normative power with the external court
(forum externum) of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities.24 The importance
the Jesuits attached to the internal court is an expression of their worldview,
in which people maintain all kinds of relationships with each other. These re-
lationships consist of mutual rights and obligations, which can be enforced in
the regular courts, the fora externa, but also in the fora interna whenever some-
one’s conscience was at stake. Due to the tremendous responsibilities princes
23 See Tutino, Empire of Souls, 158: “Bellarmine’s potestas indirecta stirred a profound pan-
European and cross-confessional effort to rethink the theoretical and theological identity
of early modern governments and the nature of their relationship with the ecclesiastical
authority […]; the debate over Bellarmine’s potestas indirecta was a central moment not
only for the structure of the Catholic Church but also for the process of formation and
consolidation of the theoretical and theological backbone of early modern states.”
24 See esp. Wim Decock, “From Law to Paradise: Confessional Catholicism and Legal Schol-
arship,” Rechtsgeschichte: Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für europäische Rechtsge-
schichte 18 (2011): 12–34. On the relationship between forum internum and forum externum
more generally, see Paolo Prodi, Una storia della giustizia: Dal pluralismo dei fori al mo
derno dualismo tra coscienza e diritto (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000); Harald Maihold, “‘Him-
mel und Erde’ Die Abgrenzung von forum internum und forum externum in der frühen
Neuzeit,” in Das Gewissen in den Rechtslehren der protestantischen und katholischen Refor-
mationen, ed. Michael Germann and Wim Decock, Leucorea-Studien zur Geschichte der
Reformation und der Lutherischen Orthodoxie 31 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt,
2017), 51–71; and Laurent Waelkens, “The Forum internum and Its External Features,”
in Germann and Decock, Das Gewissen in den Rechtslehren der protestantischen und
katholischen Reformationen, 17–32. See also Wim Decock, Theologians and Contract Law:
The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune (ca. 1500–1650), Legal History Library 9
(Leiden: Brill, 2013), esp. 69–104.
had to bear in the public realm, special care had to be taken of their burdened
conscience, and this task was assumed by the many royal confessors, whose
physical presence personified the power of the pope over the conscience at
court. Given that the expertise of the confessor was not only highly valuable
in judging actions after they had taken place but also in evaluating the moral
dimensions of political decisions before they had been made, a great deal of
power was concentrated in his hands; this in turn enabled the pope to inter-
vene in political decisions.
3 The Medium Is the Message
The well-being of the state depended to a large extent on the integrity of the
confessor and the influence he had on the prince’s decisions. The confessor’s
privileged access to the prince turned him into a pivotal figure who was re-
sponsible for ensuring that the ruler’s policy was in accordance with morally
acceptable standards. For that reason, the confessor was tasked with making
use of all possible means to directly appeal to the royal conscience. This is also
apparent in the Jesuits’ political works, many of which were written by authors
who were also confessors at the same time. If there is one characteristic that is
distinctive in their thinking and writing about politics, it is their masterly abil-
ity to rely on, develop, and merge a plethora of different political languages.
Moreover, the Jesuits not only based their ideas on a wide range of sources and
authorities but they also renewed well-known existing genres. These works
had one aim: to get into the mind of the prince. Just like their religious texts,
the Jesuits’ political writings testified to a practical concern that appealed di-
rectly to their readers’ senses and affections and encouraged them to personal
sanctification.
The most common genre to address a prince was the mirror-for-princes. The
genre’s pedagogical–didactic nature proved to be an ideal instrument that was
subtly refined by many of the Jesuits. In line with the manuals of prominent
humanists such as Francesco Patrizi (1529–97), Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503),
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), and Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), who turned
the genre into a high-standing tool of counsel by presenting an ideal model,
many Jesuits exploited the epideictic character of the genre to move the prince
to a morally outstanding life. The exemplarity of the ideal presented to the
prince was a subtle but strong exhortation, which showed how predecessors
had dealt with particular cases in the most virtuous ways. The list of required
virtues was one of the backbones of the genre. In his mirror-for-princes De offi-
cio principis christiani (The duties of a Christian prince), published in Rome and
222 De Bom
Antwerp in 1619, Bellarmine offered the dedicatee of his work, the young prince
Władysław of Poland (1595–1648), a catalog of virtues that sprang from piety
(pietas), ranging from paternal love (charitas paterna) and wisdom (sapientia)
to prudence (prudentia), justice (iustitia), and magnificence (magnificentia).25
Bellarmine’s exhortative manual was not intended as an explicit reminder of
the prince’s responsibilities as much as a form of encouragement to continue
his pious and just government.26 The rhetorical device of exemplarity was fully
deployed by Scribani in his voluminous Politico-christianus (1624) for the Span-
ish king Philip iv (r.1621–65). Fully aware that it was not easy to find an inspir-
ing exemplar that was beyond reproach, he advised the following:
And if you do not find one great man among all, select from different
individuals the greatness in which they excel, and follow what you find as
the most praiseworthy in them. Imitate the courage in Alexander, mod-
esty in August, clemency in Caesar, temperance in Trajan, affability in
Antony, liberality in Titus, courteousness in Theodosius, piety in Ludovi-
cus, and the other virtues in other emperors and kings.27
However, it seemed as if Scribani had in fact found such an excellent character

in the person of Archduke Albert of the Southern Netherlands, who is lavishly
praised at the end of each chapter of the second book as the embodiment of
the virtue under discussion.
As Scribani’s account reveals, the Jesuits were fully aware that it was far
from possible to implement a kind of monolithic ideal. Each situation in its
own place and time required its own action. This insight was not unique to
the Jesuits, though it is certainly the case that they were far more concerned
with the practical orientation and implementation of their work than their
25 On Bellarmine’s mirror-for-princes, see esp. Sylvio Hermann de Franceschi, “Le modèle

jésuite du prince chrétien: À propos du De officio principis christiani de Bellarmin,” xviie
siècle 59, no. 4 (2007): 713–28. Still valuable is Franz X. Arnold, Die Staatslehre des Kardi-
nals Bellarmin: Ein Beitrag zur Rechts– und Staatsphilosophie des konfessionellen Zeitalters
(Munich: Hüber, 1934).
26 See Robert Bellarmine, De officio principis christiani libri tres ad Serenissimum Principem
Wladislaum Sigismundi iii Poloniæ et Sueciæ regis filium (Antwerp, 1619), i–ii.
27 Scribani, Politico-Christianus, 4. The passage is reminiscent of a passage in the opening
chapter of Lipsius’s mirror-for-princes for Archduke Albert, Monita et exempla politica
(Leuven, 1605), where the Dutch humanist compares the ideal prince to the painter Zeux-
is who assembled the most beautiful girls of Agrigentum to select from each of them their
most beautiful characteristic with which he composed his painting of the goddess Juno.
For a comparison of Scribani’s work with that of Lipsius, see De Bom, “Carolus Scribani
and the Lipsian Legacy.”
contemporaries. This partly explains why the Jesuits attached such importance
to a juridical approach toward day-to-day practices, because it was the most
efficient way to capture social behavior and the rights and obligations it en-
tailed. On a more fundamental level, the Jesuits realized that the “exemplarity
model” would only be persuasive if the prince was willing and able to imitate
it. The advice in these kinds of mirrors-for-princes was actually nothing more
than that: simple advice that, however valuable, was not enforceable. As a con-
sequence, such works entailed the danger of leaving too much discretionary
power to the prince, as a result of which he might endanger his conscience
because his behavior could not be judged according to objective standards.
These standards were represented in a comprehensive juridical framework to
which the Jesuits paid more attention than any of the other moral theologians.
As moral theologians, the Jesuits followed the lead of their Dominican pre-
decessors from Salamanca in considering “no argument or controversy on
any subject […] foreign to [their] profession,” to cite Vitoria’s words.28 Thus it
was impossible to separate politics from theology: political theory was under-
pinned by theology, and political views could have theological consequences.29
This basic assumption explains why most of the Jesuit texts on political thought
fitted so well within the branch of theology. The model they adopted was that
of the so-called Spanish Scholastics, who had institutionalized the revival of
Thomism at the University of Salamanca, which they developed “into a highly
sophisticated science of the moral order.”30 The degree of sophistication was
directly related to their superior acquaintance with the ius commune, canon
law, and natural law traditions, as well as the juridical thinking of their time.
Following the lead of Domingo de Soto (1464–1560), among others, numer-
ous Jesuits were highly successful in integrating this juristic-theological frame-
work within the genre of the mirrors-for-princes. They were unparalleled in
their mastery of both the Scholastic and humanist traditions and in bringing
about a synthesis between them.31 A case in point is Lessius’s De iustitia et iure
28 Francisco de Vitoria, Political Writings, ed. Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 3, in the prologue to his Reflection on Civil
Power.
29 See Tutino, Empire of Souls, 50.
30 Annabel S. Brett, Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought,
Ideas in Context 44 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 123.
31 See Wim Decock and Christiane Birr, Recht und Moral in der Scholastik der Frühen Neuzeit,
1500–1750, Methodica, Einführungen in die rechtshistorische Forschung 1 (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2016), 17. Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 368–69 rightly remarks: “The boundaries
between ‘scholastic’ and other approaches (notably the ‘humanist’ approach) to doctrina
civilis had by then become entirely blurred in any event. […] Conversely, when scholasti-
cally trained Jesuits wrote mirrors of princes or political Streitschriften, they as often as
224 De Bom
(On justice and law), which he presented in a “classical” way as a mirror-for-

princes to Archduke Albert, reiterating the age-old panegyrical idea of the
prince as illuminating example:
First of all you, eminent Prince, in your sublime position, offer a brilliant
and splendid image and ideal representation of the main virtues that are
discussed here. In your position, you function as an example that should
be followed by princes and all citizens. For all eyes are directed toward
the Prince as the substitute of the Almighty God, and all direct their life
and behavior toward the lead he sets out.32
On closer inspection, however, his text radically differs from such classical hu-
manist models as those of Erasmus and Lipsius in that its nature was not per-
suasive and exhortative, but juridical. There was a shift in the genre of mirrors-
for-princes, the importance of which can hardly be overstated, whereby works
written in this genre no longer looked for ideal behavior, but for behavior that
was permissible. Based on a stringent syllogistic type of argumentation, mir-
rors-for-princes now set out a prince’s rights and obligations in the light of jus-
tice and eternal truth. The result was the demarcation of a domain of minimal
morality with a set of principles based on natural law, which the prince should
not violate under any circumstances.33 It was only by operating in accordance
with this set of principles that he could avoid a burdened conscience. As will
be discussed further below, by delineating the contours of a minimal morality,
the Jesuits paradoxically helped to broaden the discretionary powers of the
not conformed to current canons of rhetoric, whatever the fons et origo of their thinking
might have been.”
32 Leonard Lessius, De iustitia et iure ceterisque virtutibus cardinalibus libri quattuor, editio
quinta, auctior et castigatior, cum appendice de Monte Pietatis (Antwerp: Officina Plan-
tiniana, 1621 [1605]), *2. De Soto, who was of course not a Jesuit but was one of the first
to write a treatise On Justice and Right, as many other Jesuits would after him, explicitly
called his De iustitia et iure a “Carolopaedia” that offers “the beauty of justice and at the
same time of the most fortunate prince.” See Domingo de Soto, De iustitia et iure libri de-
cem/De la justicia y del derecho en diez libros, edición facsimilar de la hecha por D. de Soto
en 1556, con su versión castellana correspondiente, Introducción histórica y teológico-
jurídica por V.D. Carro (Madrid: n.p., 1967), 3. For a detailed discussion of the Scholastic
manuals De iustitia et iure as mirrors-for-princes, see Erik De Bom, “The Late Scholas-
tics as Political Advisors: Domingo de Soto’s De iustitia et iure as a Mirror-for-Princes,”
in Mirrors-for-Princes in Antiquity and Their Reception, ed. Erik De Bom, Geert Roskam,
and Stefan Schorn, Lectio. Studies in the Transmission of Texts and Ideas 8 (Turnhout:
Brepols, forthcoming).
33 On this minimalistic concept of morality, see Decock, Theologians and Contract Law,
73–82.
prince. Due to their efforts, he was no longer expected to live up to an ideal, but
.
was only obliged to operate within the “safe” zone of minimal morality.
Lessius’s and other Jesuits’ political writings are a good example of how
the mirror-for-princes literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
responded to the proliferation of cases of conscience in contemporary mor-
al theology.34 This tendency reformed the role of exemplarity. An apogee of
this evolution can be found in the work of the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mari-
ana (1536–1624), not least in his mirror-for-princes De rege et regis institutione
(On the king and the royal institution) dedicated to the Spanish king Philip
iii (r.1598–1621). He succeeded in combining different traditions and different
sorts of texts with the aim of interpreting the legal idiom in terms of political
prudence. Mariana did so with far-reaching consequences. He questioned the
value of exemplarity by using a series of exempla that encouraged the reader
to abandon familiar distinctions, which granted him an unusual amount of
autonomy. The only reason for doing so stemmed “from [the reader’s] helpless-
ness when confronted with the task of extracting moral guidance from the re-
calcitrant and unchangeably corrupt reality of politics.” According to historian
Harald E. Braun, Mariana was even “prepared to push the boundaries of moral
theology to the extent that he [was] prepared to render familiar casuistic ter-
minology meaningless.”35
4 Reason of State, Prudence, and the Problem of Contingency
Casuistry had a central place in the Jesuits’ methodology.36 They originally

applied it to political theory in the form of a reflection on reason of state.37
Life was complex, and so was the Jesuits’ answer to the problem of achieving
harmony between the active live and the Christian virtues. The Jesuits did not
condemn the reason of state discourse outright but reworked it by making use
34 See Harald E. Braun, “Conscience, Counsel and Theocracy at the Spanish Habsburg
Court,” in Contexts of Conscience in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1700, ed. Harald E. Braun
and Edward Vallance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 56–66, here 56.
35 See his authoritative study, Juan de Mariana and Early Modern Spanish Political Thought,
Catholic Christendom 1300–1700 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 131–32. On Mariana’s politi-
cal thought, see also Ronald W. Truman, Spanish Treatises on Government, Society and Re-
ligion in the Time of Philip ii: The De regimine principum and Associated Traditions, Brill’s
Studies in Intellectual History 95 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 315–60.
36 See also Philipp Schmitz, “Kasuistik: Ein wiederentdecktes Kapitel der Jesuitenmoral,”
Theologie und Philosophie 67 (1992): 29–59.
37 Tutino, Empire of Souls, 15.
226 De Bom
of the subtle arts of casuistry to theorize a “good” reason of state.38 Such a form
of moral guidance that was based on the toolkit of Jesuit casuistry made it
possible to avoid imposing impossible burdens on the princely conscience—
which was of utmost importance because the temporary well-being of the res
publica christiana depended on it. The strategy is well illustrated in Pedro de
Ribadeneyra’s (1526–1611) Tratado de la religión y virtudes que debe tener el prín-
cipe cristiano (Religion and the virtues of the Christian prince [1595]), in which
he severely attacked Machiavelli’s immoral prince but also granted permission
to dissimulate for reasons of state, under the important restriction that those
reasons were carefully balanced against Christian morality.39 The book was
written “against the teaching of Machiavelli and the politiques of these times,”
as the title continues, and contained a program of reform on how to govern in
order to obtain God’s favor and avoid sin (which in the end resulted in catas-
trophes, such as the Armada). Ribadeneyra seems to have been one of the first
to associate Machiavelli with these “politici,” whose chief characteristic was
the contention that successful government was not possible without departing
from God’s law. True reason of state, however, only knows one maxim: “Summa
ratio est, quae pro religione facit” (The highest reason is that which promotes
religion). Every Catholic prince operating within the constraints of God’s law
could be successful in maintaining a powerful state.
As is clear from the case of Ribadeneyra, the Jesuits could not simply dis-
card Machiavelli’s realist approach. Among other things, they had to speak out
on the use of deceit and (dis)simulation, and the sacrosanctity of promises,
pacts, and treatises. In other words, they had to spell out the different aspects
of reason of state, ranging from the business of ruling to the methods or ways
of acting and the reasons for acting that were typical of rulers. The maxim that
underpinned this kind of reason of state was that the useful and the honorable
were intrinsically interwoven with each other, just as Cicero had proclaimed
in antiquity and contrary to what Machiavelli had made of it. One of the first
to argue for this unity and the ideal of the successful Christian politician was
Giovanni Botero (1544–1617), who left the Society in 1580. Botero used the ex-
pression “reason of state” as the title of his book, which originally appeared
in Italian and became a best-seller.40 When he published his Ragione di stato
38 For the Jesuits and reason of state, see Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 84–111.
39 For Ribadeneyra, see Robert Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince: Anti-Machiavellism
or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1990), 111–35.
40 During his lifetime, ten editions appeared in print, and it was also translated in Span-
ish, French, Latin, and German. For Botero’s political thought, see, e.g., Bireley, Counter-
Reformation Prince, 45–71, and Enzo A. Baldini, ed., Botero e la “Ragion di Stato”: Atti del
convegno in memoria di Luigi Firpo (Torino 8–10 marzo 1990) (Florence: Leo S. Olschki,
1992).
in 1589, the expression was already quasi-synonymous with Machiavellianism,

although Botero and others—not least Ribadeneyra—devoted a great deal of
energy to distinguishing between two kinds of reasons of state, a good one
and a bad (i.e., Machiavellian) one.41 Yet notwithstanding all their efforts, they
could not prevent the concept of reason of state, just like that of Machiavel-
lianism, from coming to denote something that was morally compromised and
suspect. The Jesuits, moreover, would even incur the odium of Machiavellian-
ism on themselves, because in the perception of the wider world they lusted
for wealth, power, and the favor of the great in order to attain a brighter glory
for the Society.42
Notwithstanding manifold individual differences, the anti-Machiavellian
character and the promotion of an active life in harmony with the Christian
virtues became the dominant aim of the Europe-wide Jesuit movement.43
These characteristics reoccur in Bellarmine’s De officio principis christiani; the
Englishman Thomas Fitzherbert’s (1552–1640) An sit utilitas in scelere, vel de
infelicitate principis Machiavelliani, contra Machiavellum et politicos eius sec-
tatores (Does crime pay? Or on the misfortune of the Machiavellian prince,
against Machiavelli and his political followers); Scribani’s Politico-christianus;
and the German Adam Contzen’s (1571–1635) Politicorum libri decem (Ten
books on politics). Following the lead of Botero, they all explored the means
that were suitable for founding and even increasing a “dominio,” but above all
for conserving a dominio, which was already a considerable challenge because
of the variability of all things human. That was what the Jesuits understood by
“reason of state.” Time and again, they stressed the need for a vigorous govern-
ment in which the typical Jesuit attitude of obedience of the subjects toward
their superior was acknowledged and institutionalized.44 Such a government
was founded on a genuine practice of virtuousness. Contrary to Machiavelli,
41 In fact, as Harald Braun points out, it seems that Botero himself was much less concerned
about Machiavelli than is commonly assumed. His primary aim was to develop a reason
of state that was based on a new concept of knowledge that combined different fields of
learning. See Harald E. Braun, “Knowledge and Counsel in Giovanni Botero’s Ragion di
stato,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 4, no. 2 (2017): 270–89.
42 During the seventeenth century, the Machiavellian Jesuit was something of a cliché. See
also Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 85.
43 Some of the most ardent adversaries of the Florentine were the Jesuits, whose “aggres-
sive anti-Machiavellism became virtually the Society’s official doctrine.” See Höpfl, Jesuit
Political Thought, 86; see also De Franceschi, “Le modèle jésuite du prince chrétien,” 716,
and Bireley, Counter-Reformation Prince.
44 On the importance the Jesuits attached to the virtue of obedience and its role in their
political thought, see also Silvia Mostaccio, Early Modern Jesuits between Obedience and
Conscience during the Generalate of Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615) (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2014).
228 De Bom
the Jesuits denied that virtues could be feigned, because then they would no
longer be virtues but only mere shadows. Moreover, the appearance of virtu-
ousness was never enough to establish an enduring reputation, which could
only be based on reality.
The issue of reputation was not a minor point of interest. Together with
love among the people, it was considered to be of foundational importance for
the prince’s rule. Reputation was invariably discussed within the framework
of prudence, which became a central concept in the understanding of the
prince as a politician who combined moral goodness with political skill. More
precisely, the Jesuits aimed for a Christian doctrine of political prudence.45 In
their scheme, political prudence corresponded to what they understood by
good reason of state. What was more, it was in the development of the con-
cept of political prudence that the Jesuits could bring about a grand synthesis
between humanist reasoning and Scholastic casuistry based on theology and
jurisprudence. Political prudence was a kind of competence and judgment in
handling affairs that went beyond merely knowing rules and could only be
learned by practice and experience. Prudence required knowledge, provided
by the moral theologians, and experience, which could only be gained over
the years and through the reading of history. According to a widely accepted
view, historical experience not only complemented but enhanced and even
exceeded pure human reason. Thus most of the Jesuits’ mirrors-for-princes
were interspersed with examples taken from a range of historians. One of the
authors regularly quoted by the Jesuits was Tacitus. Botero was among the first
to use the Roman historian as a valuable alternative to Machiavelli, citing him
at least seventy-three times in his own writings.46
The predilection for Tacitus as the ultimate source of prudence, so to speak,
fitted within a broader movement of which the Dutch humanist Lipsius, with
his Tacitean mirror-for-princes Politica (1589), was the absolute champion.47
45 See Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 164–85.

46 It is important to note that not everyone was as enthusiastic about Tacitus. Indeed, Rib-
adeneyra must have been one of the first Spanish writers to attack Tacitus on the grounds
that his views were uncomfortably close to those of the Florentine author.
47 For Lipsius and Tacitus, see Mark Morford, “Tacitean Prudentia and the Doctrines of Justus
Lipsius,” in Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, ed. Torrey J. Luce and Anthony J. Woodman
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 129–51. For the impact of Tacitus on early
modern political thought in general, see Alexandra Gajda, “Tacitus and Political Thought
in Early Modern Europe, c.1530–c.1640,” in The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, ed. A.J.
[Anthony John] Woodman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 253–68; Pe-
ter Burke, “Tacitism, Scepticism and Reason of State,” in The Cambridge History of Politi-
cal Thought, 1450–1700, ed. J.H. [James Henderson] Burns and Mark Goldie (Cambridge:
He was closely acquainted with many prominent Jesuits such as Antonio Pos-
sevino (1533–1611) and Bellarmine, and left his mark on the political thought
of many of them. The impact of Tacitism in early modern political thought
can hardly be overestimated. Among the Jesuits, Mariana incorporated much
of the Tacitists’ approach to politics and came to similar conclusions as those
of Lipsius. The Roman historian was chosen as a model because he provided a
discourse that translated historical experience into rules of prudent conduct in
politics. But although Tacitus was the best source for information on the work-
ings of a court and the damaging effects of tyrannical rule, his work also set out
the potential pitfalls involved in attempting to form general rules of conduct
from particular cases. If he taught one thing, it was the acknowledgment of
the difficulty of making use of history as a reliable tool. Historical knowledge
afforded little moral and epistemic certainty, because “the mutability of time,
incalculability of events and corruption and fickleness of human nature per-
petually challenge the intellectual and moral faculties of even the most pru-
dent of princes,” and, as a result, “prudentia is as contingent as the reality it
confronts and endeavours to shape.”48
5 Pushing the Boundaries of What Is Permissible
However valuable prudential knowledge was for sound government, its con-
tingent nature meant that it was a difficult tool to use in practice. The knowl-
edge it provided was very specific—even to the point that it was perhaps
too specific to be exploited in a more general way; it left too much room for
moral uncertainty. Although each case certainly had to be judged in its own
right, doing so required a framework within which a prince could act with a
“safe” conscience. In order to solve the problem of moral uncertainty, the Je-
suits adopted and refined the doctrine of probabilism that had begun with
the Spanish Dominican Bartolomé de Medina (1527–80),49 who had adopted a
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 479–98; and Jacob Soll, Publishing the Prince: History,
Reading & the Birth of Political Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005).
48 For the impact of the Tacitean language on Mariana’s conception of politics, see Braun,
Juan de Mariana (with quotations from 114).
49 On probabilism, see, among other studies, Rudolf Schüssler, Moral im Zweifel: Band i; Die
scholastische Theorie des Entscheidens unter moralischer Unsicherheit, and especially Band
ii: Die Herausforderung des Probabilismus, Perspektiven der Analytischen Philosophie
(Paderborn: Mentis, 2003 and 2006); and Jean Delumeau, L’aveu et le pardon: Les difficul-
tés de la confession, xiiie–xviiie siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 123–39. For the Jesuits and
230 De Bom
well-known distinction between speculative and practical uncertainty. When-

ever one has speculative doubts, one need not be troubled by these doubts
in situations where one has to make a practical decision. If, however, one has
practical doubts with regard to a certain action that one intends to do, one has
to choose the safest option. Medina revolutionized the further development
of this doctrine by stating that one is not obliged to follow the more probable
opinion, but that it is sufficient to simply follow the probable opinion. Lessius
in particular took up this option and clarified that there was no obligation to
follow the safer opinion.50 Of course, the more probable opinion one would
follow, the better one would eventually behave. But acting on a less probable
opinion is nevertheless a licit option. There was a sharp distinction between
what was binding in all respects and what aimed at the perfection of the in-
dividual’s life. The former was expressed through precepts, the latter through
counsels. Only precepts were absolute and stringent and left no room for any
negotiation, while counsels simply made an appeal to the individual’s free
choice. Precepts belonged to the domain of justice, counsels to the domain of
supererogation and charity. As confessors, Lessius and his fellow Jesuits only
engaged in the former. They set out what was licit and what was illicit. They
delineated, once more, the domain of minimal precepts, not the ideal of moral
perfection. But by only determining the minimal moral precepts and allowing
the prince to decide on the basis of a probable opinion—whether or not there
was a more probable opinion—they eventually left more discretionary power
to the prince than any of their predecessors. This is best illustrated by means
of two questions that were much debated at the time. First, to what extent was
it permissible to make use of deceit, and, second, how tolerant should one be
of heretics?
Whereas secretiveness as a princely virtue was not considered to be a moral
problem, it was much harder to draw the line between outright lying, which
was always forbidden, and various sorts of deception, some of which were per-
missible as part of prudence. There was no single Jesuit doctrine with regard to
lying; the only point on which they seemed to agree was that it was definitely
probabilism, see Philipp Schmitz, “Probabilismus: Das jesuitischste der Moralsysteme,”

in Ignatianisch, Eigenart und Methode der Gesellschaft Jesu, ed. Michael Sievernich and
Günter Switek (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1990), 354–86; Robert A. Maryks, Saint Ci-
cero and the Jesuits: The Influence of the Liberal Arts on the Adoption of Moral Probabilism
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008); and Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casu-
istry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 167–70.
50 For Lessius’s interpretation and use of probabilism, see Van Houdt and Decock, Leonar-
dus Lessius, 49–52.
wrong when done for an evil purpose. But whereas even Ribadeneyra even-
tually had to concede that dissimulation might be necessary, Scribani, in his
Politico-Christianus, openly struggled with the right balance between idealism
and realism. Just like Lipsius, among others, he recognized that he who did not
know how to dissimulate did not know how to govern. Being familiar with life
at court, Scribani knew that lying was taken for granted. The advice he gave
to his prince was “to be constant but not of stone or steel.” Scribani knew that
the ruler, if he wanted to survive, had to take recourse to a form of deceit, al-
though he also made an appeal to his sense of honor by encouraging him not
to lose his integrity. Another example is Mariana, who seemed to adopt a rigid
stance on moral authenticity and the use of deceit, but who, on closer inspec-
tion, undermined his position with his own rhetoric and historical examples.
The crucial word in his exposition on lying is “modestius.” Mariana presented
a more cautious and moderate position after weighing the pros and cons of
mendacity. It turned out that only under pressure of necessity (necessitas)
could a prince use deceit—a position that bore far more similarities to that of
Machiavelli than Mariana would have wanted us to believe.
As should be clear from the above discussion, a plethora of concepts was
used (dissimulation, lying, deceit) by the Jesuits in these works. It is charac-
teristic of the prudential and casuisic approach that a neat distinction be-
tween all these terms was made and that it was precisely defined under which
circumstances which kinds of deceit might be used. A good example is Les-
sius.51 In his De iustitia et iure, he followed the traditional Scholastic distinc-
tion between deception by means of words and deception by means of deeds.
The former was further qualified as either simply by words (fallacia) or as ac-
companied by an oath (periurium). When deception by means of deeds was
at stake, it referred to deceit centering on an object or a task (fraus). The in-
terpretation of deceit became more complicated in the blurring of another
distinction, namely the distinction between deliberately telling a lie and with-
holding or concealing the truth. The complication was due to the introduction
of the doctrine of equivocation and mental reservation.52 The former grew out
51 See the discussion in Toon Van Houdt, “Word Histories and Beyond: Towards a Concep-
tualization of Fraud and Deceit in Early Modern Times,” in On the Edge of Truth and Hon-
esty: Principles and Strategies of Fraud and Deceit in the Early Modern Period, ed. Toon Van
Houdt et al., Intersections: Yearbook for Early Modern Studies 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 1–32,
here 6–13; and Van Houdt and Decock, Leonardus Lessius, 77–95.
52 See Johann P. Sommerville, “The ‘new art of lying’: Equivocation, Mental Reservation, and
Casuistry,” in Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, ed. Edmund Leites, Ideas
in Context 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 159–84.
232 De Bom
of the situation of hard and persistent questioning to which many Catholic

priests and subjects were exposed by heretical regimes. It referred to the idea
that utterances could be true in one sense and false in another, with the per-
son heard hoping that his questioner would misunderstand him, as a result of
which he would be saved. Mental reservation or restriction was a special kind
of equivocation that not only made things more confusing but also, and even
worse, morally more problematic. This was a theory of “mixed propositions”
that was based on the distinction between spoken (or written) language and
mental language. A statement consisted on the one hand of a part that was
spoken and as it stood was a blatant lie, and on the other hand, of a part that
was an unspoken mental addition. The two parts together made the proposi-
tion true. There is no need to repeat here that the Jesuits in general and Lessius
in particular faced severe criticism for their position, given that they seemed to
be true Machiavellians who were seeking to defend the use of fraus and deceit
under the pretext of equivocation and mental reservation.
No less delicate than the question of deceit—an issue that revealed how flex-
ible casuistry could be—was the problem of religious toleration.53 Although it
was beyond doubt that secular authority should partake in the elimination of
heresy whenever it had a chance to do so, there was much more disagreement
among the Jesuits over how flexible they should be when dealing with her-
etics. Their attitude was rather ambiguous, to say the least. On the one hand,
the Jesuits defended a strict condemnation of heresy to the extent that they
legitimated brutalities to stamp out that evil. As such, it is easier to understand
why they failed to condemn the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572
or the atrocities committed by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo (1507–82), better
known as the Duke of Alva, in the Netherlands. A notorious representative of
this hardline position toward heretics was Mariana, who called for religious
uniformity irrespective of the cost, because the eventual and inevitable col-
lapse of religious co-habitation, in his view, would lead to more suffering and
cause a direct threat to the existence of monarchy itself. On the other hand, a
large number of Jesuits left some room for deviation from this lofty ambition.
Central in their argumentation was the concept of necessity, which allowed for
toleration, because all other actions would cause even greater harm.
It is hard to deny that even the Jesuits’ defense of religious unity was indebt-
ed to the language of reason of state. Apart from the principled justification for
suppressing heresy (i.e., the salvation of the soul), most of their arguments had
a clear political twist. Time and again, the Jesuits stressed the political dangers
of heresy, because without observing a Catholic orthodoxy the civic bond of
53 Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 112–63.

society would have been endangered. It was the social, civic function of reli-
gion (vinculum societatis) that guaranteed contracts, alliances, covenants, and
so on. Allowing some kind of religious toleration would not only undermine
the fabric of religion itself but also that of society and government. As a con-
sequence, in a well-ordered society, there could be only one religion, because
that was what the conservation of the prince’s state required. Obviously, there
was no discussion among the Jesuits about which religion this was. Botero was
one of the first authors to use this kind of argumentation and to claim that
religious differences were the main source of division within states. Numerous
authors, including Possevino, Ribadeneyra, Bellarmine, and Scribani, would
follow his lead by advocating a prudential attitude and repeating over and over
again that religious unity was essential to the power of the state.
As often, the discussion of religious freedom and toleration was very subtle.
A good example of this is the contrasting position of Bellarmine and Martin
Becanus (1563–1624), who was the author of a three-volume Summa theologiae
scholasticae, as well as a Disputatio de fide haereticis servanda (Disputation on
whether heretics should preserve their faith) and Quaestiones miscellaneae de
fide haereticis servanda (Miscellaneous questions on whether heretics should
preserve their faith).54 The context in which Becanus was writing was the Ger-
man situation after the Peace of Augsburg (1555) that attempted to stabilize
confessional boundaries by granting to both Catholicism and Lutheranism
the right to be professed in the territories of the empire and by strengthen-
ing the authority of the secular ruler in establishing the religion of his terri-
tory. Against this background, Becanus wondered whether promises made to
heretics were morally binding. The basic assumption was clear and straight-
forward: all promises that did not concern illicit acts were morally binding,
including those made to heretics. This had important implications for the
scope of the Peace of Augsburg and the stance the Roman emperor had to take
toward Lutherans living in his territories. He had to make and respect certain
concessions toward them. Although it would be morally right for Catholics to
refuse to tolerate the heretics, it made more sense in the time and place where
Becanus lived to allow Catholic princes the ability to grant measures of tol-
eration, because without doing so it would create grave disturbances for the
commonwealth. In essence, granting forms of limited toleration was a politi-
cal strategy that fostered the survival of Catholicism in territories divided by
confession. A different stance was taken by Bellarmine, who drew attention
to a difference between toleration and freedom. For him, Becanus’s position
boiled down to granting a form of religious freedom, which was something
54 See esp. Tutino, Empire of Souls, 212–20.

234 De Bom
different from accepting a form of toleration when it was not possible to exter-
minate the heretics without causing greater harm. The former was an evil act
that could never be accepted, because that kind of freedom of religion had the
potential to undermine the supremacy of the pope and the Catholic Church in
Europe. But, as Becanus noted, Bellarmine’s rigid stance could only work in “a
political context in which religious uniformity was still a theological goal but
not a politically concrete possibility.”55
6 Legitimate Political Authority
As this brief presentation of the Jesuit discussion on the use of deceit and the
place of religious toleration reveals, the application of prudential knowledge
was far from well defined. That is one of the reasons why the Jesuits, as already
pointed out, put so much energy into the development of a more objective set
of principles that could be enforced in a court that was specifically adapted
to the well-being of the soul. As no one before them, the Jesuits came to real-
ize that this kind of authority, that is, purely moral authority, depended on
the personal qualities and attributes of the prince. Their works remained com-
pletely silent about the justification of institutional authority. It was one thing
to discuss all the peculiarities of moral authority; it was another to explain
why some people were endowed with this authority. There was no guarantee
that rulers and office-holders would have the moral authority that qualifies
them to “direct.” So, on a more fundamental level, it brought them to a thor-
ough investigation into what exactly was the nature of political authority. For,
as intellectual historian Harro Höpfl rightly points out, “despite their endemic
personalisation of principatus, Jesuits were assuming a greater wisdom in in-
stitutions and laws than in persons.”56 They recognized that, for social life to be
possible, a structure was needed whereby inferiors observed the directives of
one or more superiors, that is, ideally, the directives of someone with superior
moral authority. But, at the same time, this authority ought to be more than
simple moral authority. After all, these superiors also had the power to coerce
people to live up to the common good of the society. That was the essence of
their power, because most people are driven by profit and are inclined to put
55 Ibid., 220.
56 Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 210. Besides his very informative exposition and the one
offered by Braun, Juan de Mariana, 15–41, see also Domenico Ferraro, “Bellarmino, Suárez,
Giacomo i e la polemica sulle origini del potero politico,” in Bellarmino e la Controriforma:
Atti del simposio internazionale di studi; Sora, 15–8 Ottobre 1986, ed. Romeo de Maio et al.
(Sora: Centro di Studi Sorani “Vincenzo Patriarca,” 1990), 191–250.
their personal good before the common good. But what placed them in such
a position?
The Jesuits had endless discussions about the nature of political authority
in the wake of the Spanish Scholastics. Although it is not possible to repeat
those expositions in detail here, in essence their argument was that political
authority does not naturally inhere in any individual or group. It was the com-
monwealth as a whole that was the bearer of political authority. To illustrate
this, they referred to the kinds of naturally legitimate associations as presented
by Aristotle in the first book of his Politica, where he shows how the more com-
plex forms of associations, such as the city or province and the commonwealth,
grew out of more simple forms, such as the family and the vicus. It needs to be
stressed that this was a natural and thus divinely sanctioned process; secu-
lar authority as such was legitimate according to the ius naturae and to ius
divinum. Importantly, what was described was not a historical process of how
commonwealths had come into being,57 nor was it intended to explain how po-
litical authority was transmitted in some way or another from the family to the
commonwealth. Every kind of association has its own form of potestas, com-
mensurate with its ends, and so has the societas perfecta. The authority in the
family was not identical to the authority in the commonwealth; there simply
was no political authority in the primordial association. This implied that no
legitimate regime or political office was the product of nature nor that anyone
could claim such an office by nature. It was for the commonwealth itself to de-
cide which form of government it would take, which institutions were needed
for that kind of regime, and which personnel would be suited to exercise power
on behalf of the commonwealth. The power of the commonwealth was not a
matter of nature, but a matter of fact: it depended on the ius humanum. The
indisputable role that was given to the prince was thus not directly authorized
by God and divine right—as was secular authority as such—but agreed upon
by the commonwealth itself. Although the Jesuits did not doubt that monarchy
was the best form of government because it most resembled God’s government
of the universe, it was ultimately the product of a human choice.
The foregoing discussion also makes it clear that, according to the Jesuits,
civil society was not an association of individuals, let alone an association
of previously (or conceptually) free and equal individuals.58 The component
57 It is remarkable that in Mariana there is an “element of historicity not found in any other
Jesuit or Dominican account of the lineage of civil society.” See Braun, Juan de Mariana, 21.
58 The concept of a “state of nature” (in which individuals are conceptually free and equal)
as a method of considering the bases and necessity of political power first emerged
in the work of Francisco Suárez and Thomas Hobbes (1588–1670). See Harro Höpfl,
236 De Bom
parts are the lesser associations, which means that no one can transfer a right
that he or she does not have. This problem was outlined by Molina:
If civil authority were in some way based on the individuals which make
up [the commonwealth] conceding some of their rights to the common-
wealth, then if any one cohabitant was unwilling to give his consent, […]
the others would have no right or authority over him […]. Consequently
everyone newly born, or newly come into the commonwealth, would
have to be asked whether he consents to the authority of the common-
wealth over him, and his consent would have to be waited for, which is
ridiculous.59
The potestas politica did not derive from the potestas of individuals and asso-
ciations; it derived from the requirements of the communitas perfecta and its
common good.
This technical and typically Scholastic discussion had direct and very im-
portant implications. It touches upon what might be the most controversial
doctrine, for which the Jesuits were notorious, not to say despised: the question
of tyrannicide or regicide.60 It also touched upon the previously discussed rela-
tionship between the temporal and spiritual powers, as well as the only natu-
ral right that Jesuits regarded as entirely uncontentious, which was the right
of self-defense or self-preservation. Killing a tyrant in essence meant killing a
natural superior, which not only had potentially disastrous consequences for
the accepted hierarchical order but also invariably laid bare whoever had the
right to decide whether or not a prince had lapsed into tyranny. The outcome
meant that whoever had that authority automatically enjoyed an authority
superior to that of the prince. Thus, among other things, the Jesuits were ac-
cused of being more like “a political party than a religious order” (Étienne Pas-
quier [1529–1615]) and of being “fifth columnists” (Pierre Coton [1564–1626]).
“ Scholasticism in Quentin Skinner’s Foundations,” in Rethinking the Foundations of Mod-

ern Political Thought, ed. Annabel Brett, James Tully, and Holly Hamilton-Bleakley (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 113–29, here 127–28.
59 Molina, De iustitia et iure, 2, 22. Translation quoted from Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought,
206.
60 Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 314–38; Mario Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide de
l’Antiquité à nos jours (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), 535–53; Stefania Tu-
tino, “Huguenots, Jesuits and Tyrants: Notes on the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos in Early
Modern England,” Journal of Early Modern History 11, no. 3 (2007): 175–96. For the anti-
Jesuit reaction, see, e.g., Cesare Cuttica, “Anti-Jesuit Patriotic Absolutism: Robert Filmer
and French Ideas (c.1580–1630),” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 4 (2011): 559–79.
In the eyes of many, they were “traitors” and “secret plotters”: “They have ei-
ther a Jesuit or someone altogether Jesuited [sic] in most of those royal Coun-
cils who for the good of the Society must without scruple deliver to them all
known details about the secrets of their sovereigns” (Christopher Bagshaw
[d. c.1625]). And for King James vi and i (1566–1625), they were a bunch of crim-
inal “preachers” who had “busied themselves most to stir up rebellion under
cloak of religion.”61 What was the basis for this bad reputation? Part of the an-
swer definitely lay in some of their writings. No less important were the alleg-
edly Jesuit-orchestrated attempts on the lives of Kings Henry iii (r.1574–89)
and Henry iv (r.1589–1610) of France.62
A crucial element in the Jesuit discussions on this topic was the distinction
Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1313–57) made between a legitimate ruler who be-
haved tyrannically and an invader or usurper of the throne. In the latter case,
there was not much controversy as there was a natural right “to repel force with
force” (vim vi repellere), with only one restriction, namely that the action must
not threaten to make the situation worse. This was a safe position that was
endorsed by the vast majority of Catholic theologians, the Jesuits included.
However, the position became less safe when the Jesuits looked for a morally
and legally convincing way of extending the principle vim vi repellere to a legiti-
mate prince who behaved tyrannically, or, in the legal jargon, to a tyrant with
a title. This brought up difficult questions: Who was to judge whether or not
a prince had turned into a tyrant? Who was to decide how to proceed against
him? The official line, which could be found in all handbooks of theology and
law, was that in all cases—some highly exceptional situations excluded—
inferiors owed their rulers obedience. As Francisco de Toledo (1515–82) rea-
soned, a tyrant with a title should not be killed; his subjects were required to
suffer his rule even to the point of their own destruction. An inferior and pri-
vate person killing a superior and public person was inherently unjustifiable.
A way out was to focus not on the individual but on the commonwealth as a
whole. The commonwealth had the right to establish and execute a valid judi-
cial procedure to depose a tyrant. But this inevitably raised the problem of the
authority on which this right was based.
Molina tried to solve this problem by claiming that a commonwealth could
depose a legitimate king ruling tyrannically by “passing sentence on him if his
61 See Cesare Cuttica, “Tyrannicide and Political Authority in the Long Sixteenth Century,”
in The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Henrik Lagerlund and
Benjamin Hill (New York: Routledge, 2017), 265–92, here 272–82.
62 On the complicated relationship between Henry iv and the Jesuits, see Eric Nelson, The
Jesuits and the Monarchy: Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590–1615) (Al-
dershot: Ashgate, 2005).
238 De Bom
excesses and the common good demand it, and punishing him once he is de-
posed.” But he did not explain who exactly the agent is who is pronouncing
the judgment and the procedure that was to be followed. Lessius suggested a
somewhat different solution. In his account, a legitimate ruler ruling tyranni-
cally should be declared a public enemy and deposed by the commonwealth
or a council of the kingdom. The prince would have “to cease to be a prince”
before he could be sentenced and punished by the commonwealth. Besides
the influential expositions of Molina and Lessius, the most controversial ac-
count was offered by Mariana, who presented his ideas as a commentary on
the decline and demise of Henry iii of France, whose murderer he seemed to
eulogize. He proceeded by outlining a quasi-juridical way in which a private
individual could deal with a tyrant with a title. First, a prince must be admon-
ished, and if he complies, the people must be satisfied. If, however, the prince
persists, the commonwealth should meet to discuss, decide upon, and even
publicly announce his disposition. Similar to Molina and Lessius, Mariana en-
titles the respublica to declare the king a public enemy on the ground of the
law of vim vi repellere, and, by doing so, entitles a private person to kill him.
If it turned out that the commonwealth, represented in its legitimate assem-
blies, was consistently prevented by the prince from gathering and proceeding
against him in an orderly fashion, private individuals did not have to await a
public condemnation and may well resolve to kill him on their own initiative.
This was the core of Mariana’s deliberately ambiguous and controversial
argument. He outlined the potential of existing legal doctrines under which
private individuals might assume to have a right to take action without having
sought permission of the cortes, estates, or magistrates. Tyranny might turn
private citizens into both jury and executioner, which is, to say the least, im-
mensely dangerous. The juridical basis to kill a tyrant was clearly weak. But
that was not the point Mariana wished to make. His story about Henry’s assas-
sination in a quasi-juridical narrative, first and foremost, had an educational
purpose. It had to shock princes, so that they would realize that they would
lose their power if they squandered the trust and respect of the people:
Many examples, both ancient and modern, are available to demonstrate

how great is the strength of a multitude angered with hatred for a ruler,
and that the ill-will of the people results in the destruction of a prince
[…]. This is the main point: that the prince should be persuaded that the
authority of the commonwealth as a whole is greater than that of one
man alone.63
63 Braun, Juan de Mariana, 89–90.

7 Conclusion
If this overview has made one thing clear, it is that Jesuit political ideas in the
early modern period were far from monolithic. They varied not only by au-
thor but by region. Jesuit political thought is characterized by a great many
tensions, beginning with the existential question of the extent to which they
should meddle in politics at all. Time and again, the Jesuits looked for justifica-
tions for their worldly involvement. That is why they put so much effort into
making clear that worldly involvement was not in conflict with their spiritual
responsibilities. As Contzen pointed out in his Politicorum libri decem, both are
directed toward the same goal:
And I am not neglecting either my spiritual duties or my office when I

discuss worldly government and secular matters, because the temporal
republic must be ordered in such a way that terrestrial good and happi-
ness conduce to the spiritual and celestial. The purview and end of my
teaching is to show how all human matters both private and public are to
be directed towards the highest good and the ultimate object.64
The highest good, however, could only be reached when it was achieved in a
safe way. The greatest contribution of the Jesuits was in developing a political
morality that was firmly rooted in reality without endangering the moral well-
being of those who were active in daily politics.
Operating in a world of princes, the Jesuits sought various ways to assist
them by offering them sound counsel on how to govern completely in accor-
dance with the principles of Christian morality. In order to find an alterna-
tive to the disruptive mechanisms deployed by Machiavelli, they successfully
developed and integrated the languages of reason of state and casuistry. By
doing so, they were able to employ a sophisticated set of tools that would help
the prince act in the real world without endangering his conscience. His con-
science would only be safe if it could stand the standards of the forum inter-
num, which operated, just like the external courts, with objective rules that
could be enforced. As no one before, the Jesuits were responsible for this ju-
ristic outlook of their “political advice.” By making use of a legal vocabulary,
they tried to exert firmer control over the prince’s government and to delin-
eate the contours within which it was safe for a prince to act. One of the most
far-reaching consequences of this approach was that they did not present a
64 Contzen, Politicorum libri decem, 1, 1, 1–4, translation quoted from Höpfl, Jesuit Political
Thought, 63.
240 De Bom
moral ideal to which princes had to live up, but a minimalist morality that safe-
guarded the prince’s conscience. In doing so, they paradoxically broadened the
field of action for the prince. In that context, it is important to recall the wide
range of possibilities that was opened to them by the specific way in which the
Jesuits developed the doctrine of probabilism. Although it might be better to
follow the safer opinion, it was enough—and thus licit—to follow any opinion
that was deemed safe. This sheds light on the role of the confessor, who as
a member of the vast princely entourage had privileged access to the ruler’s
mind and ultimate decisions. As the personification of the potestas indirecta
of the church at court, he tried to subject the ruler to the precepts of Christian
morality. But only these minimal precepts based on a legal–theological rea-
soning were binding. All his counsels merely made an appeal to the prince to
choose the path of charity and supererogation. And strictly speaking, the latter
was not the primary concern of the confessor.
The more objectified approach of the forum internum was at the roots of a
tendency to focus more on the institutions than on the actual serving prince
himself. In this context, it is important to note that the Jesuits put a great deal
of effort into the conception of political power as an independent entity. But
this laid bare another internal tension. Notwithstanding their focus on institu-
tional matters, the Jesuits at the same time never lost sight of the inspiring and
exemplary behavior of singular princes. As Fitzherbert remarked in his First
Part of a Treatise concerning Policy and Religion (31, 22): “No lawes or edicts can
so move the minds of men, as doth the life of the governour.” However much
they invested in actual state-building, as did Contzen in his monumental Ten
Books on Politics,65 the Jesuits repeatedly stressed the importance of the ex-
emplarity of the prince as the most effective means of (re-)Catholicization.
This becomes nowhere more apparent than in the work of Mariana, who suc-
ceeded in blending various political languages, ranging from humanist to late
Scholastic discourses, from moral–theological to legal languages. The Jesuits
employed all possible means to control and influence their rulers. Whether
they wanted to be involved in politics or not, they did not have much choice,
because, as Antonio Santarelli (1569–1649) pointed out in a letter to Wilhelm
Lamormaini (1570–1648): “Without [the prince’s] support, our labor can ac-
complish very little or even nothing in many places.”66
65 See esp. Wolfgang Weber, Prudentia gubernatoria: Studien zur Herrschaftslehre in der
deutschen politischen Wissenschaft des 17. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1992).
66 Quoted in Bireley, Jesuits and the Thirty Years’ War, 273.
Bibliography
Arnold, Franz X. Die Staatslehre des Kardinals Bellarmin: Ein Beitrag zur Rechts– und
Staatsphilosophie des konfessionellen Zeitalters. Munich: Hüber, 1934.
Baldini, Enzo A., ed. Botero e la “Ragion di Stato”: Atti del convegno in memoria di Luigi
Firpo (Torino 8–10 marzo 1990). Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1992.
Bellarmine, Robert. De officio principis christiani libri tres ad Serenissimum Principem
Wladislaum Sigismundi iii Poloniæ et Sueciæ regis filium. Antwerp, 1619.
Bireley, Robert. The Counter-Reformation Prince: Anti-Machiavellism or Catholic State-
craft in Early Modern Europe. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina
Press, 1990.
Bireley, Robert. “Les jésuites et la conduite de l’état baroque.” In Les jésuites à l’âge ba-
roque (1540–1640), edited by Luce Giard and Louis de Vaucelles, 229–42. Grenoble:
Jérôme Millon, 1996.
Bireley, Robert. The Jesuits and the Thirty Years’ War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors.
Braun, Harald E. “Conscience, Counsel and Theocracy at the Spanish Habsburg Court.”
In Contexts of Conscience in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1700, edited by Harald E.
Braun and Edward Vallance, 56–66. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Braun, Harald E. Juan de Mariana and Early Modern Spanish Political Thought. Catholic
Christendom 1300–1700. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
Braun, Harald E. “Knowledge and Counsel in Giovanni Botero’s Ragion di stato.” Journal
of Jesuit Studies 4, no. 2 (2017): 270–89.
Brett, Annabel S. Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought.
Ideas in Context 44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Brouwers, Louis. Brieven van Carolus Scribani (1561–1629), uitgegeven met de medewer
king van de Universitaire Stichting van België. Antwerp: Vereeniging der Antwerp-
sche bibliophielen, 1972.
Burke, Peter. “Tacitism, Scepticism and Reason of State.” In The Cambridge History
of Political Thought, 1450–1700, edited by J.H. [James Henderson] Burns and Mark
Goldie, 479–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Costello, Frank B. The Political Philosophy of Luis de Molina S.J. (1535–1600). Bibliotheca
Instituti Historici S.I. 38. Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1974.
Coujou, Jean-Paul. “Political Thought and Legal Theory in Suárez.” In A Companion to
Francisco Suárez, edited by Victor M. Salas and Robert L. Fastiggi, 29–71. Brill’s Com-
panions to the Christian Tradition 53. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015.
Courtine, Jean-François. Nature et empire de la loi: Études suaréziennes. Paris: Vrin, 1999.
Cuttica, Cesare. “Anti-Jesuit Patriotic Absolutism: Robert Filmer and French Ideas
(c.1580–1630).” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 4 (2011): 559–79.
242 De Bom
Cuttica, Cesare. “Tyrannicide and Political Authority in the Long Sixteenth Century.” In
The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth-Century Philosophy, edited by Henrik Lager-
lund and Benjamin Hill, 265–92. New York and London: Routledge, 2017.
De Bom, Erik. “Carolus Scribani and the Lipsian Legacy: the Politico-Christianus and
Lipsius’s Image of the Good Prince.” In (Un)masking the Realities of Power: Justus
Lipsius and the Dynamics of Political Writing in Early Modern Europe, edited by Erik
De Bom, Marijke Janssens, Toon Van Houdt, and Jan Papy, 283–305. Brill’s Studies in
Intellectual History 193. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011.
De Bom, Erik. “The Late Scholastics as Political Advisors: Domingo de Soto’s De iustitia
et iure as a Mirror-for-Princes.” In Mirrors-for-Princes in Antiquity and Their Recep-
tion, edited by Erik De Bom, Geert Roskam, and Stefan Schorn, Lectio: Studies in the
Transmission of Texts and Ideas 8. Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming.
De Franceschi, Sylvio Hermann. “Le modèle jésuite du prince chrétien: À propos du De
officio principis Christiani de Bellarmin.” xviie siècle 59, no. 4 (2007): 713–28.
Decock, Wim. “Counter-Reformation Diplomacy behind Francisco Suárez’s Constitu-
tionalist Theory.” Ambiente jurídico 11 (2009): 69–92.
Decock, Wim. “From Law to Paradise: Confessional Catholicism and Legal Scholar-
ship.” Rechtsgeschichte: Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für europäische Rechtsge-
schichte 18 (2011): 12–34.
Decock, Wim. Theologians and Contract Law: The Moral Transformation of the Ius
Commune (ca. 1500–1650). Legal History Library 9. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013.
Decock, Wim, and Christiane Birr. Recht und Moral in der Scholastik der Frühen Neuzeit,
1500–1750. Methodica, Einführungen in die rechtshistorische Forschung 1. Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2016.
Delumeau, Jean. L’aveu et le pardon: Les difficultés de la confession, xiiie–xviiie siècle.
Paris: Fayard, 1990.
Donnelly, John P., S.J., ed. Jesuit Writings of the Early Modern Period, 1540–1640. India-
napolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 2006.
Fernandes, João Manuel A.A. “Luis de Molina: On War.” In A Companion to Luis de Mo-
lina, edited by Matthias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele, 227–55. Brill’s Compan-
ions to the Christian Tradition 50. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014.
Ferraro, Domenico. “Bellarmino, Suárez, Gacomo i e la polemica sulle origini del
potero politico.” In Bellarmino e la Controriforma: Atti del simposio internazionale di
studi; Sora, 15–8 Ottobre 1986, edited by Romeo de Maio, Agostino Borromeo, Luigi
Gulia, Georg Lutz, and Aldo Mazzacane, 191–250. Sora: Centro di Studi Sorani “Vi-
cenzo Patriarca,” 1990.
Gajda, Alexandra. “Tacitus and Political Thought in Early Modern Europe, c.1530–
c.1640.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A.J. [Anthony John]
Woodman, 253–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Höpfl, Harro. Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630.
Höpfl, Harro. “Scholasticism in Quentin Skinner’s Foundations.” In Rethinking the
Foundations of Modern Political Thought, edited by Annabel Brett, James Tully,
and Holly Hamilton-Bleakley, 113–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006.
Höpfl, Harro. “The Political Thought of the Jesuits in the Low Countries until 1630.”
In The Jesuits of the Low Countries: Identity and Impact (1540–1773); Proceedings of
the International Congress at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leu-
ven (3–5 December 2009), edited by Rob Faesen and Leo Kenis, 43–63. Bibliotheca
Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium. Leuven, Paris, and Walpole, MA:
Peeters, 2012.
Jonsen, Albert R., and Stephen Toulmin. The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral
Reasoning. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1988.
Lessius, Leonard. De iustitia et iure ceterisque virtutibus cardinalibus libri quattuor. Edi-
tio quinta, auctior et castigatior, cum appendice de Monte Pietatis. Antwerp: Of-
ficina Plantiniana, 1621 [1605].
Maihold, Harald. “‘Himmel und Erde’ Die Abgrenzung von forum internum und forum
externum in der frühen Neuzeit.” In Das Gewissen in den Rechtslehren der protestant-
ischen und katholischen Reformationen, edited by Michael Germann and Wim De-
cock, 51–71. Leucorea-Studien zur Geschichte der Reformation und der Lutherischen
Orthodoxie 31. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017.
Adoption of Moral Probabilism. Aldershot and Rome: Ashgate and Institutum His-
toricum Societatis Iesu, 2008.
Morford, Mark. “Tacitean Prudentia and the Doctrines of Justus Lipsius.” In Tacitus and
the Tacitean Tradition, edited by Torrey J. Luce and Anthony J. Woodman, 129–51.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Mostaccio, Silvia. Early Modern Jesuits between Obedience and Conscience during the
Generalate of Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014.
Nelson, Eric. The Jesuits and the Monarchy: Catholic Reform and Political Authority in
France (1590–1615). Aldershot and Rome: Ashgate and Institutum Historicum Soci-
etatis Iesu, 2005.
O’Malley, John W. The First Jesuits. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University
Press, 1993.
Prodi, Paolo. Una storia della giustizia: Dal pluralismo dei fori al moderno dualismo tra
coscienza e diritto. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000.
Reinhardt, Nicole. Voices of Conscience: Royal Confessors and Political Counsel in Seven-
teenth-Century Spain and France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
244 De Bom
Rubinstein, Nicolai. “The History of the Word Politicus in Early Modern Europe.” In The
Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden, 41–56.
Schmitz, Philipp. “Probabilismus: Das jesuitische der Moralsysteme.” In Ignatianisch,
Eigenart und Methode der Gesellschaft Jesu, edited by Michael Sievernich and Günt-
er Switek, 354–86. Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1990.
Schmitz, Philipp. “Kasuistik: Ein wiederentdecktes Kapitel der Jesuitenmoral.” Theolo-
gie und Philosophie 67 (1992): 29–59.
Schüssler, Rudolf. Moral im Zweifel: Band i; Die scholastische Theorie des Entscheidens
unter moralischer Unsicherheit. Perspektiven der Analytischen Philosophie. Pader-
born: Mentis, 2003.
Schüssler, Rudolf. Moral im Zweifel: Band ii; Die Herausforderung des Probabilismus.
Perspektiven der Analytischen Philosophie. Paderborn: Mentis, 2006.
Scribani, Carolus. Politico-Christianus. Antwerp: Martinus Nutius, 1624.
Soll, Jacob. Publishing the Prince: History, Reading & the Birth of Political Criticism. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Sommerville, Johann P. “The ‘new art of lying’: Equivocation, Mental Reservation, and
Casuistry.” In Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, edited by Edmund
Leites, 159–84. Ideas in Context 9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Soto, Domingode. De iustitia et iure libri decem/De la justicia y del derecho en diez libros.
Edición facsimilar de la hecha por D. de Soto en 1556, con su versión castellana
correspondiente, Introducción histórica y teológico-jurídica por V.D. Carro. Madrid:
n.p., 1967.
Truman, Ronald W. Spanish Treatises on Government, Society and Religion in the Time
of Philip ii: The De regimine principum and Associated Traditions. Brill’s Studies in
Intellectual History 95. Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 1999.
Turchetti, Mario. Tyrannie et tyrannicide de l’Antiquité à nos jours. Paris: Presses Univer-
sitaires de France, 2001.
Tutino, Stefania. “Huguenots, Jesuits and Tyrants: Notes on the Vindiciae Contra Ty-
rannos in Early Modern England.” Journal of Early Modern History 11, no. 3 (2007):
175–96.
Tutino, Stefania. Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth.
Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Van Gennip, Joep. Controversen in Context: Een comparatief onderzoek naar de Neder-
landstalige controversepublicaties van de jezuïeten in de zeventiende eeuwse Repub-
liek. Hilversum: Verloren, 2014.
Van Houdt, Toon. “Word Histories and Beyond: Towards a Conceptualization of Fraud
and Deceit in Early Modern Times.” In On the Edge of Truth and Honesty: Principles
and Strategies of Fraud and Deceit in the Early Modern Period, edited by Toon Van
Houdt, Jan L. de Jong, Zoran Kwak, Marijke Spies, and Marc van Vaeck, 1–32. Inter-
sections: Yearbook for Early Modern Studies 2. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2002.
Van Houdt, Toon, and Wim Decock. Leonardus Lessius: Traditie en vernieuwing. Ant-
werp: Maria-Elisabeth Belpaire, 2005.
Vitoria, Francisco de. Political Writings. Edited by Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Law-
rance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Waelkens, Laurent. “The Forum internum and Its External Features.” In Das Gewissen
in den Rechtslehren der protestantischen und katholischen Reformationen, edited by
Michael Germann and Wim Decock, 17–32. Leucorea-Studien zur Geschichte der
Reformation und der Lutherischen Orthodoxie 31. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlag-
sanstalt, 2017.
Weber, Wolfgang. Prudentia gubernatoria: Studien zur Herrschaftslehre in der deutschen
politischen Wissenschaft des 17. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1992.
Part 3
Authors
∵
Section 3.1
The Roman College
∵
Chapter 10
Francisco de Toledo: Setting a Standard

for Jesuit Philosophy
Anna Tropia
Francisco de Toledo (Cordoba, 1532–Rome, 1596), one of the most eminent

commentators of his day, is among the most important figures in the So-
ciety’s early history.1 He belongs to the first generation of Jesuit theologians
who taught philosophy and theology, wrote commentaries and handbooks,
and thus began building a distinctively Jesuit orthodox doctrine.2 Toledo’s
academic and political career was filled with success. From the start of his
career at Salamanca, where he studied theology and gave his first cursos de
artes (courses of philosophy),3 Toledo’s abilities were recognized by contem-
poraries such as his professor Domingo de Soto (1494–1560), who described
him as “prodigious.”4 After entering the Society in 1558, he was missioned to
teach philosophy (1559–62) and then theology (1563–69) at the prestigious
1 For biographical notes on Toledo, see the preface by Miguel Vázquez in Toledo’s Commentarii
in evangelium secundum Lucam (Paris: Ex typis Jametii Mettaier, 1600); Giuseppe Paria, Pro
legomena, in Francisci Toleti in Summam theologiae s. Thomae […] enarratio, 4 vols. (Rome:
Typis S. Congregationis de propaganda fide, 1869–70), 1:v–xxxi; Vida del Cardenal Francisco de
Toledo, in Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, Firmamento religioso de luzidos astros en algunos claros
varones de la Compañia de Jesus (Madrid: Por M. De Quiñones, 1644), 608–13; Carlos Som-
mervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels: O. Schepens, 1890–1932), 8:64–82;
Hugo von Hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae, 3 in 6 vols. (Innsbruck: Libre-
ria academica wagneriana, 1907), 3:247–52; Marcial Solana, Historia de la filosofía Española,
3 vols. (Madrid: Real Academia de ciencias exactas, físicas y naturales, 1940–41), 3:311–12;
Charles B. Lohr, Latin Aristotle Commentaries: Renaissance Authors (Florence: Olschki, 1988),
458–61; Klaus Reinhardt, “Toledo, Francisco de,” in Biographisch–Bibliographisches Kirchen
lexikon, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz and Traugott Bautz, 12 vols. (Herzberg: Verlag Traugott
Bautz, 1997), 288–91.
2 On the concept of Jesuit orthodoxy, see Jacob Schmutz, “Les normes théologiques de
l’enseignement philosophique dans le catholicisme romain moderne (1500–1650),” in Philoso
phie et théologie à l’époque moderne, ed. Jean-Christophe Bardout, Anthologie tome 3 (Paris:
Cerf, 2010), 129–50.
3 See Enrique Esperabé de Arteaga, Historia pragmática é interna de la universidad de Salaman
ca, 2 vols. (Salamanca: Francisco Núñez Izquierdo, 1917), 2:308; Toledo is mentioned among
the teachers of the “curso de artes” in the years 1557–58.
4 See Laínez 8:443 (mhsi 55): “Su Mtro. Fray Domingo de Soto dezía [de él] que era prodigio”;
see also Hurter, Nomenclator, 3:248.

252 Tropia
Roman College.5 The texts of his lectures were soon adopted as Scholastic
handbooks within Jesuit colleges and became bestsellers once published.6 In
1569, Toledo began a brilliant diplomatic career as the pope’s ambassador and
counselor, during which time he would participate in some of the most im-
portant events of his day, such as the reconciliation between King Henry iv
of France (r.1589–1610) and the papacy,7 and the revision of the Latin Vulgate
(1592–98), the s o-called Sixto-Clementine Vulgate.8 In recognition of his ser-
vices, the pope elevated Toledo to cardinal in 1593—the Society’s first.9
This chapter seeks to explain the reasons for this success and to outline
Toledo’s contribution to Jesuit pedagogy. By interrogating his works from a
philosophical perspective, the chapter aims to improve our understanding of
Toledo’s thought and to link the question of Toledo’s “originality” as a philoso-
pher to the historical context in which he lived and which inevitably informed
his work.
1 Philosophical Works: The Constitution of the Cursus studiorum
Scholars usually divide Toledo’s works into three genres, namely philosophy,
theology, and exegesis,10 a division that follows the different stages of Toledo’s
life: he was a professor of philosophy and then of theology before becoming an
exegete of theological and biblical texts. Toledo’s commentaries on Aristotle,
from his years of teaching at the Roman College, are usually considered his
5 See Borja 3:454 (mhsi 35).

6 Sommervogel states that Toledo is the first Jesuit to have been published in the New
World, namely in Mexico. See Sommervogel 8:65.
7 Henry of Navarre (1553–1610) was an exponent of the Anti-Catholic League and took part
in the wars of religion opposing Protestants and Catholics in France. He embraced Catho-
lic faith out of political reasons some years after he became Henry iv.
8 See Klaus Reinhardt, Bibelkommentare spanischer Autoren (1500–1700), 2 vols. (Madrid:
csic, 1999), 2:Autoren M–Z, 340–44; Guy Bedouelle and Bernard Roussel, eds., Le temps
des réformes et la Bible (Paris: Beauchesne, 1989), 350–54.
9 They were even popular among Lutherans and Calvinists; see, for example, the text by
the Protestant theologian Johann Franz Budeus, Isagoge historico-theologica ad theolo
giam universam (Leipzig: Ex officina Thomae Fritschii, 1727), 1, lib. 2, caput 4, §10, 630:
“Iungamus hisce Franc. Toletum […] cuius magna eo tempore, quo vixit, quove Aristo-
telico-scholastica adhuc regnabat philosophia, tum in theologorum, tum philosophorum
scholis fuit auctoritas.”
10 See, for example, Hurter, Nomenclator, 253–58; Solana, Historia de la filosofía española,
3:312f.; Francisco J. Rodríguez Molero, “Toledo,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1991), 15:1014–17.
Francisco de Toledo 253
philosophical works.11 His printed commentaries on Aristotle include the In

troductio in dialecticam Aristotelis (Introduction to Aristotle’s Dialectic [Rome,
1560]); the Commentaria in universam Aristotelis logicam (Commentaries on
Aristotle’s entire logic [Rome, 1572]); the Commentaria una cum quaestionibus
in octo libros Aristotelis de physica auscultatione (Commentaries and questions
on Aristotle’s eight books of the Physics [Venice, 1573]); the Commentaria una
cum quaestionibus in duos libros Aristotelis de generatione et corruptione (Com-
mentaries and questions on Aristotle’s two books On Generation and Corrup
tion [Venice, 1575)]; and the Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros
Aristotelis de anima (Commentaries and questions on Aristotle’s three books
On the Soul [Venice, 1575]). Toledo’s theological writings, on the other hand, in-
clude the commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s (c.1224/25–74) Summa theologiae,
published by the Jesuit Giuseppe Paria (1814–81) in 1869, and the bestselling
Summa casus conscientiae (Summa of cases of conscience [Lyon, 1599]), re-
published in an extended version as Instructio sacerdotum ac de septem pecca
tis mortalibus (Instructions for the priests and on the seven deadly sins [Rome,
1601]). Finally, his exegetical works consist of commentaries on the Gospel of
John (Rome, 1588) and the Gospel of Luke (Rome, 1600), as well as on Paul’s
Letter to the Romans (Rome, 1602).
These texts reflect Toledo’s tasks as a Jesuit professor as well as the
instructions given by Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556) in the Constitutions.12
11 For the chronology of Toledo’s teaching, see Luis Gómez Hellín, “Toledo lector de filosofía
y teología en el Colegio romano,” Archivo teológico granadino 3 (1940): 7–18. Toledo’s first
appointment in Rome was to teach a course of metaphysics, which remained unpub-
lished. According to Charles Lohr (Latin Aristotle commentaries, 460), the MS Rome,
Archivum P. Universitatis Gregorianae 375A (1563), containing “Physica et metaphysica
secundum dictate Petri Parrae et Francisci Toleti,” preserves Toledo’s dictata in metaphysi
ca (academic year 1561/62). Lohr provides a list of the manuscripts preserving Toledo’s
commentaries on Aristotle, but a comprehensive list of Toledo’s (many) manuscripts dis-
seminated in the libraries all over Europe has not yet been edited. On the exclusion of
the metaphysics from his published works, see Wilhelm Risse, introduction to Francisco
Toledo, Opera omnia philosophica, 2 vols. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1985 [1615–16]),
1:viii. All the quotations from Toledo’s philosophical works are from this edition.
12 See Monumenta ignatiana, 3rd series, 3:150–51: “In theologia legentur vetus et novum
Testamentum, et doctrina scholastica divi Thomae; et in ea, quam positivam vocant, eli-
gentur auctores, qui ad scopum nostrum magis convenire videbuntur. […] In Logica, et
Philosophia naturali, et morali, et Metaphysica, doctrina Aristotelis sequenda est, et in
aliis Artibus Liberalibus, et in commentariis tam huiusmodi auctorum, quam Humanio-
rum Litterarum, habito eorum delectu, nominentur, quos videre discipuli, quosque ipsi
Praeceptores prae aliis in doctrina quam procedet iuxta id, quod in universali Societate
magis convenire ad Dei gloriam iudicabitur.”
254 Tropia
The Constitutions emphasize two major authorities for Jesuit professors:

Aristotle,13 whose corpus provided the basis for the three-year course of stud-
ies in philosophy, and Aquinas, whose authority increased significantly in
the wake of the Council of Trent (1545–63).14 Toledo thus responded to the
Society’s expectations by commenting on Aristotle, thereby providing his stu-
dents with official Jesuit views of the disciplines constituting philosophy: logic,
physics, biology, and psychology.
During this period, the Society’s own pedagogical identity was in the process
of being constructed, and it is clear from the remarks of some of his illustrious
colleagues in Rome—who included Benet Perera (1536–1610), Manuel de Sá
(1528/30–96), Juan de Mariana (1536–1624), and Diego de Ledesma (1519–75)—
that his classes were highly regarded. His introduction to Aristotle’s dialectics,
for example, was soon adopted as a course book by Pedro Parra (1531–88) and
José de Acosta (1540–1600).15
Toledo’s philosophical works are characterized by their clarity of exposi-
tion. The introduction to Aristotle’s dialectics and his commentary on Aris-
totle’s Logic16 offer good examples of this. The first is not a commentary on
Aristotle, but a text in five chapters on terms, supposition, enunciations,
and syllogisms, as well as topics and fallacies. The aim was to familiarize stu-
dents with both the terminology and the main issues of Aristotle’s logic, thus
13 On the lectures the Jesuits gave on Aristotle, see: Charles B. Lohr, “Jesuit Aristotelianism
and Sixteenth-Century Metaphysics,” in Paradosis: Studies in Memory of Edwin A. Quain
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 203–20; Paul R. Blum, Philosophenphilosophie
und Schulphilosophie: Typen des Philosophierens in der Neuzeit (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 1998), 175–81; Der Aristotelismus in der Früher Neuzeit: Kontinuität oder Wiedera
neignung?, ed. Günter Frank and Andreas Speer (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007),
43–97, 191–258.
14 On Aquinas’s authority in the post-Tridentine period, see Jacob Schmutz, “Bellum scho-
lasticum: Thomisme et antithomisme dans les débats doctrinaux modernes,” Revue
thomiste 108 (2008): 5–56; see, in particular, 15ff.; Raymond M. Martin, “L’introduction of-
ficielle de la ‘Somme’ de Saint Thomas à l’ancienne université de Louvain,” Revue Thomiste
18, no. 2 (1910): 230–39; Robert Guelluy, “L’évolution des méthodes théologiques à Louvain
d’Erasme à Jansenius,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 37 (1941): 31–144; Philippe Lécrivain,
“La somme théologique de Thomas d’Aquin aux xvie–xviiie siècles,” Recherches de sci
ence religieuse 91, no. 3 (2003): 397–427.
15 See their De distributione materiae in docenda philosophia, in Monumenta paedagogica,
new ed., 2:444–48. Toledo’s Logic was part of the syllabus at the Roman College for at
least three decades, and its teaching was recommended together with the commentary by
Pedro da Fonseca in the Ratio studiorum (1599). See also William A. Wallace, Galileo and
His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo’s Science (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984), passim, but especially 10–13.
16 The Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in universam Aristotelis logicam.
roviding them with an overview of all logic. The second is a more extensive
p
work that synthesizes an important selection of Aristotelian texts, namely the
Categories, On Interpretation, and the Posterior Analytics, as well as On the Six
Principles (De sex principiis) by Gilbert of Poitiers (1070–1154) and Porphyry’s
(233/34–c.305) Isagoge.17 Unlike Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), who loosely fol-
lows the Stagirite in his commentaries, Aristotle’s text precedes Toledo’s in the
aforementioned synthesis, including numerous notes and explanations. In his
commentary on Aristotle’s Logic, the most obscure notions are “reduced” to
very plain terms, as historian Marcial Solana has observed.18 This is the case,
for example, in the commentary On Interpretation, specifically with the digres-
sion on the future contingents.
Logic was usually studied during the first year of the cursus studiorum, fol-
lowed by the study of natural philosophy.19 This included Aristotle’s Physics,
On Generation and Corruption, the Meteors, the Soul, and the Short Treatises
on Nature (Parva naturalia). Toledo explains the order of the syllabus in the
following way:
What is contained in natural philosophy is either about the principles or

about the things composed out of the principles. The book of the Physics
is about the principles of all natural things and their common properties
[…]. As for the composite, because generation and corruption and not
only composite but also the simple elements themselves are common to
all, On Generation and Corruption first discusses the one and the others.
Of composite, some are inanimate and some animate. […] Among inani-
mate things some are sublime, like meteors […]. The books of the Mete
ors are about them. Some are beneath us in intrinsic parts of the earth,
like metals and stones, which are treated in the books of Minerals. As for
animate things, because the soul is common to them, they are treated
first of all in the three books of De anima, and then certain things that
17 For an analysis of the commentary’s content, see Wallace, Galileo and His Sources, 10–3.
On the influence of Toledo’s logic on his successors, see Petr Dvořák, “The Relational Log-
ic of Franciscus Toletus and Petrus Fonseca,” Forum philosophicum: International Journal
of Philosophy 14, no. 1 (2009): 87–99. The importance of Toledo’s logic has also been un-
derlined by Wilhelm Risse, Die Logik der Neuzeit: i Band; 1500–1640 (Stuttgart: Frommann,
1964), 1:382–85; Mirella Capozzi and Gino Roncaglia, “Logic and Philosophy from Human-
ism to Kant,” in The Development of Modern Logic, ed. Leila Haaparanta (Oxford: Oxford
18 Solana, Historia de la filosofía española, 3:320.
19 See Toledo’s own “De distributione materiae in docenda philosophia,” in Monumenta
paedagogica, new ed., 2:436–38.
256 Tropia
proceed from the soul, namely sleep, waking, youth, age, life, death, and
the like are treated in the book of Parva naturalia.20
Scholars such as Roger Ariew have observed that Toledo is responsible for
the accepted order of approach to the above-mentioned texts, and this order
would not change until the seventeenth century.21 Soon adopted and reprint-
ed many times, these works played a founding role in the Jesuit program of
studies; together with those by Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99), they represent a
Scholastic standard and an example of clarity,22 of the adhesion to Ignatius’s
rules, and, at the same time, of a certain doctrinal freedom. Until the publica-
tion of the famous commentaries by the Conimbricenses (1592–1606)—and,
indeed, even after this, as demonstrated by René Descartes’s (1596–1650) letter
to Father Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) describing what he had retained of his
experience at the Jesuit College of La Flèche23—Toledo’s works remained an
important reference point for Jesuit pedagogy.
2 The Space between the Authorities: Aristotle and Thomas
Toledo’s commentaries reveal his indebtedness to the most authoritative au-

thors, such as Aristotle and Aquinas, whose texts structured the three-year pe-
riod of philosophy studies. In order to understand how Toledo read Aristotle,
this part of the chapter analyzes some passages of his commentary On the Soul,
20 Toledo, Prolegomenon to the Commentaria in octo libros Aristotelis de physica ausculta

tione, q. 2, tertio, in Opera omnia philosophica, 2:6. I quote the English translation by Roger
Ariew, Descartes and the First Cartesians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 72.
21 See Ariew, Descartes, 72: “For Toletus, the order of the physical sciences is clearly specified;
the principle of order dictates the sequence from principles to things composed of them
and from simples to composites. And with very minor deviations, through a multitude of
attempts to reconceptualize these materials under a variety of conceptual schemes, the
order described by Toletus remained set for the seventeenth century.”
22 Toledo and Fonseca are mentioned in the Regulae professoris philosophiae: see Ratio stu
diorum: Plan raisonné et institution des études dans la Compagnie de Jésus, ed. Adrien De-
moustier and Dominique Julia (Paris: Belin, 1997), 125: “Explicet primo anno Logicam eius
summa primo circiter bimestri tradita, non tam dictando, quam ex Toleto seu Fonseca,
quae magis necessaria videbuntur, explicando.”
23 In the letter of September 30, 1640, Descartes asked Mersenne what were the most widely
used handbooks of the day within the Jesuit colleges in order to study them as prepara-
tion for receiving Jesuit objections to the Meditationes. He was only able to recall the
Conimbricenses’s, Toledo’s, and Antonio Rubio’s (1548–1615) works. See René Descartes,
Oeuvres complètes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, 12 vols. (Paris: Vrin, 1974–86),
3:185, l. 12: “Ie ne me souuiens plus que des Conimbres, Toletus & Rubius.”
before going on to examine a quaestio from his commentary on Aquinas’s Pars

prima. Both texts serve as examples of the method as well as the relative free-
dom that is typical of Toledo’s work.
Like the aforementioned works, which drew on his years of teaching in
Rome, Toledo’s commentary On the Soul follows the order of Aristotle’s trea-
tise, the text of which is presented, divided into short sentences, and followed
by notes and questions that make a number of points on subjects relating to
those in De anima but which are not directly discussed there, such as the in-
telligible species doctrine.24 The commentary was as successful as the others
Toledo edited; it exhibits the same clarity that made his commentaries such
useful Scholastic handbooks. The marginal notes in the Salamanca manuscript
of Suárez’s De anima25 are a good example of its popularity, as one of the copy-
ists compares the two Jesuits’ works before concluding that Toledo’s is prefer-
able to Suárez’s more analytical treatise, which the copyist views as adhering
less strictly to Aristotle.26
24 The species theory, based on certain passages of Aristotle’s De anima (3.8.431b26–432a1;

De anima 2.12.424a17–19), was mainly employed by medieval philosophers to account for
the interaction between the powers of the soul (the intellect and the senses) and the ex-
ternal world. Toledo’s account of the intelligible species has been commented on by Leen
Spruit, Species intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1994–95),
1:ii; Renaissance Controversies, Later Scholasticism, and the Elimination of the Intelligible
Species in Modern Philosophy, 282–87. See also Hermann J. Müller, Die Lehre vom verbum
mentis in der spanischen Scholastik (Münster: Münster Universität, 1968), 29.
25 Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS 583. Suárez’s De anima collects the classes held
by the Jesuit in Segovia in 1572; the text was published posthumously in 1621.
26 See Salvador Castellote Cubells, introduction to Francisco Suárez, Commentaria una
cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima, 3 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad de estudios
y publicaciones, 1978), 1:xlv: “En los márgenes de algunos folios se encuentran anotacio-
nes escritas con una grafía que parece ser la del tercer amanuense del texto. A vece son
meras indicaciones marginales, referentes al contenido, a manera de índices […]. Otra
veces se trata de explicaciones o de ampliaciones con citas de autores no indicados por
Suárez. Se advierte un particular interés por aducir la autoridad del P. Francisco de Toledo
(1532–1596), en su tratado De anima, y la de Pedro da Fonseca (1528–1599), en su Metafísi
ca. Ambos autores son correligionarios y contemporáneos de Suárez. Quizás por ello no
suele éste citarlos. De aquí podemos deducir que se trata de interpolaciones hechas por
el amanuense correspondiente, discípulo seguramente de estos autores. El f. 70 no da
la confirmación de esto, ya que dice: ‘de dentibus […] et aliis huiusmodi, quid sentiat
Pater Suarez non invenio, ideo breviter dico cum Patre Toleto […].’ Etc.” On the difference
between Suárez’s and Toledo’s style of commentary, see Tuomo Aho, “Suárez on Cogni-
tive Intentions,” in Mind, Cognition and Representation: The Tradition of Commentaries on
Aristotle’s De anima, ed. Paul J.J. Bakker and Johannes M.M. Thiessen, Ashgate Studies in
Medieval Philosophy (Farnham: Ashgate, 2005), 179–203.
258 Tropia
Yet, as far as adherence to authorities is concerned, Toledo was no less inde-

pendent than his Spanish colleague. His epistemology in his commentary on
De anima often departs from Aquinas to rejoin John Duns Scotus (c.1266–1308)
or the nominalists in a composite framework that is typical among Jesuits of
this period. In contrast to Thomas, for example, Toledo defends the direct in-
tellection of the singulars, which is not a Thomist thesis:27
Just like the sense, the intellect knows the singular by a proper species.
This opinion, held by Cajetan of Thiene and Burleus, in i Phys., is also
common to other Theologians, such as Durandus, in 2. Sententiarum,
Scotus, in 4 Sent. d. 45 q. 3, and Gregorius, in i Sent. d. 3 q. i art. 2 […].
As this opinion seems to me the most probable, I shall expose it. First
conclusion: the intellect knows the determinated singular by itself and
by itself, not only through the senses, forms a concept of it. This is against
the first opinion, and against Cajetanus.28
This passage provides essential information on Toledo’s way of proceeding and

his overall method. First, Toledo holds a thesis that is “also almost common
among theologians” (etiam Theologorum fere communis) and has not been de-
fended merely by a few. If Thomas had claimed that the intellect never forms a
direct concept of the singulars, most of the theologians of his day—including
27 For the reconstruction of the debates among the Dominicans and the Franciscans on the
intellection of the singulars, see Camille Bérubé, La connaissance de l’individuel au Moyen
Age (Montréal: Université de Montréal, 1964).
28 Toledo, De anima, lib. iii, cap. iv, text. xvi, q. 12, in Opera omnia philosophica, 1:139r: “Intel-
lectus cognoscit singulare per propriam speciem sicut sensus cognoscit. Haec opinio est
Caiet. Thien., et Burlei i Phys. est etiam Theologorum fere communis, Duran. 2. Senten,
d. 3. q. 7. et Scot. 4 Sent. d. 45 q. 3 et Gregor. i Sent. d. 3. q. i art. 2. […] Superest, ut quod
probabilius mihi videtur, proponam. Sit igitur prima Conclusio. Intellectus per se cognos-
cit singulare determinatum, ipsiusque intellectionem format, et non tantum per sensum.
Haec est contra primam sententiam, et contra Caietanum.” The primacy of the singulars
is also defended by Toledo in his Physics: cf. Toledo, Physica, 1, cap. 1, text 5, q. 5, 12va: “Inter
universalia conceptus specificus est primum cognitum ab intellectu nostro. Dico inter
universalia, quia forsan primo cognitum est via originis vagum singulare, ut dicit Philo.
sed hoc non disputatur modo, sed inter universalia. Per conceptum specificum non intel-
ligo conceptum speciei specialissimae cum Scoto, sed conceptum quemcunque abstrac-
tum ab individuis immediate, sive sit species, sive genus, ut conceptus viventis abstractus
ab his, et illis individuis dicitur specificus. Similiter conceptus corporis, et aliorum supe-
riorum.” On the difference between Toledo’s and Scotus’s account of the “specie specialis-
sima,” see Sascha Salatowski, De anima: Die Rezeption der aristotelichen Psychologie im 16.
und 17. Jahrhundert (Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 2006), 271–74.
the Thomists29—held the opposite view. In so doing, Toledo adheres to the

spirit of the Constitutions, which recommend that Jesuits teach and defend
only the most certain and common doctrines: “The doctrine which they ought
to follow in each branch should be that which is safer and more approved, as
also the authors who teach it” (Const. 4.5.4). Nevertheless, Toledo does not at-
tribute the opposite thesis—the intellect does not have any direct knowledge
of the singulars—to Aquinas. In his doxography, the “first opinion” listed refers
to Themistius (317–c.390 ce), Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. 200 ce), and Aver-
roes (1126–98).30 Toledo only recognizes that the thesis of the direct intellec-
tion of the singulars goes against Thomas Cajetan (1469–1534), with whom he
does not associate Aquinas. Although the indirect intellection of the singulars
is a Thomistic doctrine, with a history and controversies internal to the Domin-
ican order, the point here is that Toledo does not openly contradict Aquinas.
Like most of his peers,31 he prefers to refute Cajetan instead.
Although Toledo’s texts are characterized by their clarity, it is not always easy
to understand which authority he is siding with. Scholars such as Leen Spruit,
for example, claim that the psychology he illustrates is a blend of the “Thomis-
tic and Scotistic traditions,” and that Toledo should consequently be defined as
an “eclectic.”32 Some examples of this can be seen in the way Toledo handles
the cognitive problems inherent to the doctrines of species, namely regard-
ing the production of intellective knowledge. Like many Scholastics of his age,
Toledo reuses the medieval tradition of the doctrine of the intelligible species
in his account of cognition. In the wake of the parallelism made by Aristotle
between senses and intellect, Toledo claims that they both need species to me-
diate between them and the external world. In the cognitive process, he claims
that the first object grasped by the intellect are the singulars, like all the Jesuits
of his generation do. Toledo also holds as probable the theory defended by
Durandus of Saint-Pourçain (c.1275–1332/34), according to which it is un-
necessary to distinguish between possible and agent intellect.33 This claim is
29 See Bérubé, La connaissance, 227–77.

30 Cf. Toledo, De anima, lib. 3, cap. 4, text 16, q. 12, in Opera omnia philosophica, 1:138v.
31 Suárez, for example.
32 Spruit, Species intelligibilis, 2:282. For a similar opinion, see also Eckhard Kessler, “The In-
tellective Soul,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance philosophy, ed. Quentin Skinner
and Eckhard Kessler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 485–534.
33 Cf. Toledo, De anima, in lib. 3, cap. 5, text 20, q. 13, in Opera omnia philosophica, 1:142vb–
143ra: “Puto esse sententiam Durandi probabilem, et eorum qui negant intellectum agen-
tem, aut saltem sola ponunt ratione distinctum. Neque enim duos habemus intellectus, ut
videtur, sed unum, sicut nec duas voluntates, nec duas memorias, nec duos appetitus, nec
duas imaginationes, sed unam. Et secundo, quia ille unus satis esse videtur ad producen-
dum lumen, et postea eliciendum species, et producendum in se notitiam. Nil enim vetat
260 Tropia
somewhat surprising, as Toledo builds up, again discussing Cajetan’s position,

a complex theory of the agent intellect’s illumination on the species to explain
how the cognitive process takes place, namely how the singulars and the uni-
versals are known by the intellect.34 On the one hand, Toledo uses the concept
of agent intellect to define the functioning of the intellective power and to ex-
plain how the species of the objects are formed; on the other, he states that the
distinction between the two intellects is unnecessary, thus siding with Duran-
dus. In this sense, Spruit argues that Toledo claims the necessity of the agent
intellect only out of a sense of philosophical conformism, since most Scholas-
tics held the distinction between agent and possible intellect. Nevertheless,
Toledo weakens the distinction between the two intellects, without taking a
strong position on it.
The elimination of this distinction helps to simplify the intellect’s opera-
tions. Such an elimination can be found in commentaries by other Jesuits.
In his De anima commentary (1572), for instance, Suárez defends the same
thesis—held as “probable,” more or less in the same way as Toledo—which he
attributes to Agostino Nifo (c.1473–1538/45).35 Juan de Maldonado (1533–83),
the famous Jesuit exegete and former student of Toledo in Salamanca, also
in seipsum agere actione perfectiva. Et tertio, quia nulla est ratio contra hoc conveniens.
Tamen, quia nec in contrarium rationes habentur convincentes, sequimur communem
sententiam.” On Toledo’s agreement with Durandus, see also Toledo, Physica, 1, cap. 1, text
5, q. 5, ad. 1, in Opera omnia philosophica, 2, 12r.
34 See Toledo, De anima, in lib. 3, cap. 5, text 20, q. 13, in Opera omnia philosophica, 1:142va:
“Quinta conclusio. Non est satis, ut intellectus agens producat lumen illud secundum ac-
tum apparentiae ab externo tantum, faciens in phantasmate apparere universalia. Haec
est contra Caiet. […] Sexta conclusio: Lumen intellectus agentis illustrat quidem species
intelligibiles productas non solum extrinsece, sed interne, phantasmata vero extrinsece.
Etc.” Against the theory of the intellect’s illumination proposed by Cajetan, Toledo ex-
plains that the agent intellect’s first illumination concerns the phantasms “extrinsece”:
such an illumination reveals the singular nature contained within the phantasm. The
second illumination, instead, is “intrinseca” and concerns the intelligible species pro-
duced by the cooperation between intellect and phantasm. On these complex passages
of quaestio 13, see Spruit, Species intelligibilis, 2:286–87, and Kessler, “Intellective Soul,”
512.
35 Suárez, De anima, 3:disp. 9, q. 8, 3, 17–8: “Probabilis quidem est haec sententia, quam inn-
uit D. Thomas, dicta q. 79, a. 7, etc. et tenent omnes discipuli eius. […] Opposita nihilomi-
nus sententia est valde probabilis, quam tenet Niphus, lib. De intellectu, cap. 4, quoniam
sine tali distinctione potest facile intelligi munus intellectus agentis, nam eadem potentia
potest esse activa specierum, et ut sic dicitur intellectus agens, et operativa per illas, et sic
dicitur intellectus possibilis. Neque de his actibus spiritualibus est necessarium princi-
pium agendi et recipiendi esse res distinctas.”
holds to this thesis in his treatise On the Immortality of the Soul (1564),36 as
does the Italian Jesuit Girolamo Dandini (1554–1634) in his De corpore animato
(On the animated body [Paris, 1610]).37
Toledo’s commentary On the Soul demonstrates a degree of independence
from the Society’s major authority, Aquinas. His account of cognition provides
the reader with a rearrangement of the species theory, which, as we have seen,
was shared, with some variations,38 by many of his fellow Jesuits. The medi-
eval framework gave these Scholastics the terms and the “actors” of the cogni-
tive process: possible and agent intellect, phantasms, the images of the things
that the immaterial intellect illuminates to grasp the essence of the external
substances. Just like many of his contemporaries, Toledo organizes an ample
number of authorities to weaken this medieval doctrine from within. While
the species are not at the core of his account of knowledge, the focus is on
the intellect’s operations and actions in the cognitive process just as in the
aforementioned Jesuits’ works. Toledo’s rearrangement and setting of the Aris-
totelian treatise shows that, in the commentaries to Aristotle, in his day, such a
usage of the sources was not only appreciated by the Jesuits but that it was so
popular that a large number of them adopted similar solutions. The authorities
of Aristotle and Aquinas were thus part of the medieval framework offering
the ground for the discussion.
The balance between authority and freedom changes when looking at To-
ledo’s commentary on Aquinas. Toledo lectured on the Summa theologica in
Rome in 1563, but the text of his lectures was only published after his death.
The lecture he gave on the theme of predestination probably constitutes
the only blemish on Toledo’s otherwise brilliant career. In the same year, at the
close of the Tridentine Council, he was the first Jesuit to expose the doctrine
36 Maldonado’s treatise “De origine natura et immortalitate animae” has never been pub-
lished and is preserved in the Paris MS BnF 6454 A (accessible on Gallica.fr); see fols.
67v–68r.
37 Girolamo Dandini, De corpore animato (Paris: Apud Chappeletum, 1610), fol. 1982: “Non
enim passivus est intellectus natura sua, inquit Alexander in 2 de anima cap 19 ut ab alio
fiat et patiatur, quemadmodum sensus: sed activus est. Nisi fortasse passivum dicere velis,
quatenus formarum apprehensivus est. Pati namque videtur id, quod recipit atque ap-
prehendit. Quapropter commune cum sensu habet, ut activus sit earum formarum, quas
excipit. Atque hoc est illud in tex. 17 (necesse est has in anima differentias existere) cum
enim non ab alio perfici queat intellectus, a seipso perficiatur necesse est; idemque ipse
et agentis et patientis vim habeat.”
38 Both Maldonado and Dandini, for example, refute the intelligible species’ doctrine in
their accounts of cognition.
262 Tropia
of predestination based on the foreseen good deeds (“post praevisa merita”).39

In his work on predestination and grace (1931), Jesuit theologian Xavier-Marie
Le Bachelet stated that, on this topic, Toledo precedes his fellow Jesuits Luis
de Molina (1535–1600), Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604), Gregorio de Valencia
(c.1550–1603), and Leonard Lessius (1554–1623).40
While lecturing on Pars prima, q. 23, a. 5, in the period before the contro-
versy “de auxiliis”41 and right after the close of the Council of Trent, Toledo
claimed that man is saved by God according to the combination of his free will
and the divine foreknowledge of his acts. More precisely, Toledo stated that
God condemns man owing to his foreknowledge of his evil deeds and saves
him owing to his foreknowledge of the good.42 Although in a sort of captatio
benevolentiae he explains his intention as not being to introduce any novelty
in order to solve the question,43 Toledo was clearly aware that he was going
against the main authorities: “The immediate causes of predestination are
foreseen good actions, but the first cause is God’s will only. This conclusion is
against Aquinas, Scotus and many others; be this as it may, with God’s help we
shall prove it.”44
Hence Toledo’s works demonstrate a degree of academic freedom in taking
positions as well as in choosing the authorities with which to side. Neverthe-
less, just like in the passage from the De anima discussed earlier, in this case too
39 See Feliciano Cereceda, “La predestinación post praevisa en las disputas de la gracia,” Es
tudios eclesiásticos 13 (1934): 479–91.
40 See Xavier-Marie Le Bachelet, Prédestination et grâce efficace, controverses dans la Com
pagnie de Jésus au temps d’Acquaviva, 1610–1613: Histoire et documents inédits, 2 vols. (Lou-
vain: Museum Lessianum, 1931), 1:3: “Lessius rattache surtout son sentiment à celui de
Molina, en ajoutant les noms de Vasquez et Grégoire de Valence. Il aurait pu nommer
aussi Tolet, leur devancier.” See also Juan Cruz Cruz, “Predestination as Transcendent Te-
leology: Molina and the First Molinism,” in A Companion to Luis de Molina, ed. Matthias
Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 89–121.
41 There is a considerable bibliography on the “de auxiliis” controversy. For a synthesis, see
Sylvio Hermann de Franceschi, “Le Jansénisme face à la tentation thomiste: Antoine Ar-
nauld et le thomisme de gratia après les cinq articles de 1663,” Revue Thomiste 109 (2009):
5–54, as well as Paola Nicolas, introduction to Luis de Molina, Des secours de la grâce,
trans. Paola Nicolas (Paris: Belles Lettres, 2016).
42 Cf. Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, 1, 288: “Dic ergo, quod reprobat propter mala opera,
praedestinat bona praevisa.”
43 Cf. Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, 1, 287: “In hac difficultate dicam, quod ego sentio, non
animo contradicendi nec inducendi novitates; sed studio et desiderio veritatis, et ut multi
intelligant ea, quae Doctores sancti et columnae Ecclesiae dixerunt; nec statim, quod
probabile est, tamquam de fide recipient.”
44 Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, secunda conclusio, 1:287: “Praedestinationis ratio proxima
sunt praevisa opera bona; ratio tamen prima sola Dei voluntas. Haec conclusio est contra
S. Thomam, Scotum, et alios multos; sed adiutorio Dei sufficienter probabimus eam.”
he underlines that his solution does not go against most theologians and the
most common opinion. On the contrary, he claims that, if there were a com-
mon opinion (“communis sententia”), it would not automatically coincide with
the views held by Thomas, Scotus, or Durandus.45 In contrast to these figures,
he mentions Alexander of Hales (c.1185–1245), Albert the Great (c.1200–1280),
Henry of Ghent (c.1217–93), Bonaventure (1221–74), Gabriel Biel (c.1420–1495),
William of Ockham (c.1287–1347), and others who had stressed the importance
of human actions. They considered human actions as the causes of predes-
tination together with divine grace. Against the three authors he mentions,
Toledo aims to give free will and human choice wider space within the ques-
tion of predestination. If there is a “ratio discriminis,” namely a cause deter-
mining who is saved and who is condemned, this would depend primarily on
God’s will, but also on man’s free will: “Not all depends on God, but also man is
partly responsible” (Non totum est a Deo, sed aliquid homo facit).46 God knows
from eternity how man will react to his gifts of grace; thus he chooses whether
to save him or punish him. Augustine (354–450), and not only his “followers”
Aquinas, Scotus, and Durandus, is the main authority Toledo takes into ac-
count on this point. To prevent objections, Toledo reminds his readers that his
theory accords with the Council of Trent.47 He holds that Augustine’s doctrine
is too difficult to understand and tends to bring man into despair because it
confers to God’s will alone the power to choose who is saved without taking
into account human actions (opera).48
The whole question is marked by Toledo’s usual clarity of exposition and
echoes the debates originated by Martin Luther (1483–1546) that were dis-
cussed in Trent for almost twenty years. His solution is closer to Catholic truth,
which is neither the position of Luther nor Pelagius (c. 360–418),49 than to the
45 Cf. Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, 1, 289: “Dices, scholastici adherent omnes Augustino.
Attende, amore Dei, ne decipiaris. S. Thomas, Scotus et Durandus sunt isti; communis
sententia est in contrarium, quod multi non advertunt. Etc.”
46 See Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, 1, 290.
47 See the sixth session, canon 5, of the Council of Trent (decretum de iustificatione): “Si quis
liberum hominis arbitrium post Adae peccatum amissum et exstinctum esse dixerit, aut
rem esse de solo titulo, immo titulum sine re, figmentum denique a Satana invectum in
Ecclesia, etc.”
48 See Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, quarta conclusio, 291: “Sententia Augustini est proba-
bilis, nullo tamen modo populo praedicanda, quia non est populo persuasiva bonorum
operum.” See also Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, 288: “Ista opinio [Augustini] inducit
desperationem hominibus, et segnitiem in bonis operibus, et est occasio murmurationis
in Deum.”
49 See Toledo, Enarratio, Ia, q. 23, a. 5, 291: “Nota primo quod fuit haeresis Pelagii, qui ita
hominis arbitrium magnificabat, quod per se operari bene, et de condigno mereri absque
264 Tropia
Society’s authorities. A few years later, this doctrine would become almost
standard among the Jesuits, many of whom would teach and comment upon
it.50 Nevertheless, when Toledo originally formulated the doctrine, his col-
leagues at the Roman College protested and invoked the authority of Superior
General Diego Laínez (1512–65, in office 1558–65) to prohibit its teaching.
This painful event in Toledo’s life51 is important as it is one of the first epi-
sodes of censure in the Roman College’s history and that of the Society in gen-
eral. Moreover, it was a censure coming directly from Toledo’s peers.52 In the
beginning, Laínez did not feel it necessary to punish Toledo, nor did he view
his opinion as dangerous. Toledo’s opinion was not condemned by the church
and had already been put forward by other theologians such as Albert Pigghe
(c.1490–1542) and Johann Eck (1486–1543).53 Furthermore, Toledo’s reputa-
tion as an excellent teacher prevented him from any form of direct reproach.
Nevertheless, Laínez did remark that it could be problematic to introduce and
Dei gratia posset. Fuit in alio extremo sententia Lutheri, quod nihil facit hominis arbi-
trium, sed totum est a gratia. Veritas autem catholica est media: liberum arbitrium, sine
gratia nihil boni, quod sit dignum vita aeterna, facit, sed simul cum Dei gratia. Etc.”
50 See Le Bachelet, Prédestination et grâce, 1:passim. See also Diego Ledesma, “Tractatio bre-
vis de propositionibus philosophicis et theologicis prohibitis a R.P.N. Francisco Borgia,” in
Monumenta paedagogica Societatis Iesu quae primam Rationem Studiorum anno 1586 edi
tam praecessere, ed. Caecilius Gomez Rodeles et al. (Madrid: Typis A. Avrial, 1901), 566ff.
51 Cf. Lainii monumenta, 7, epist. 1820, 54: “El P. Toledo scrive muy fatigado a nuestro Padre,
que le ynbíe a leer a qualquiera parte fuera de Roma, por los muchos trabajos de mente
que ay tiene: y entre otros dize lo que ha passado sobre la materia de predestinatione,
y que de se trattava de hazerle dezir a sus auditores que no tubiesen ni dixesen aquella
opinión que él mostró ser suya (no improbando la de S. Augustin), y conforme a los di-
chos de muchos doctores. A nuestro Padre le pareze se deua compassion al dicho P. To-
ledo, pues su enfermedad, y peligro de caer en otra mayor, no sufre el apretarle mucho.
[…] Y antes la de S. Augustín no es la común, y muchos de los muy doctos y cathólicos
no la querrían predicar en ninguna manera. Mas como quiera que sea, no se deben en la
Compañía tomar estas opiniones particulares (como las que corren sobre esta materia de
predestinatión) tan fixamente, que por atarse a ellas se rompa o debilite la charidad, y se
dé scandalo. Y pues V.R. scrivió, que con un par de mançanas quitaría las afflictiones de
P. Toledo, veamos cómo lo hará, que en effecto él se muestra muy trabajado, y dize que ha
hechado sangre por la boca, y que el mtro. Alexandro le ha vedado el leer, aunque él lo ha
continuado por el amor que tiene a la Compañía, y al aprovechamiento de los studiantes;
y así no le pareze (come scrive) que le avían de pagar en tal moneda. Etc.”
52 See Lohr, “Jesuit Aristotelianism,” 211–12; Antonio Astrain, Historia de la Compañía de
Jesús en la asistencia de España, 7 vols. (Madrid: Administración de Razón y Fe, 1902–25),
2:562ff.; Ricardo García Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla sop
pressione della Compagnia di Gesù (Rome: Apud aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954),
75–76.
53 See Lainii Monumenta, 7n1858, 155. Both the Dutch theologian Albert Pigghe and the
German Johann Eck participated in the Council of Trent.
defend new doctrines that could give rise to controversies or provoke new de-
bates. At his death, in the decree “On the Opinions to Follow in Philosophy
and Theology” (1565), Laínez’s successor Francisco de Borja (1510–72, in office
1565–72) introduced a proposition directly concerning predestination that de-
clared it a matter falling outside the competence of Jesuit professors (praedes
tinationis non datur causa ex parte nostra).54 Toledo had to publicly recant his
teaching,55 and there is no reference to it in his other printed works.56
The Society’s ties to major philosophical authorities are not airtight: Jesuit
pedagogy organizes Aristotelian matter in a discussion extended to a great
number of other authorities and sources, aiming to provide students with an
overview of many philosophical positions, with particular attention to sources
from antiquity (Greeks and Arabs). The same freedom, within his commen-
taries on Aristotle, has been observed by scholars who have listed Toledo’s
“most original” theses (i.e., where Toledo differs from Thomas, Aristotle, or
other authorities).57 This is the case with Toledo’s discussion of the immor-
tality of the soul in the De anima commentary: like Duns Scotus and Pietro
Pomponazzi (1462–1525),58 Toledo does not hold the immortality of the soul
to be demonstrable through natural philosophy, though he thinks it is safer
to claim that it is.59 The example of his De anima commentary, as well as his
54 See “S. Franciscus de Borja praep. Gen. Decretum de opinionibus in philosophia et theo-
logia tenendis,” in Monumenta paedagogica, new ed., 3:385.
55 The episode is remembered in a manuscript biography of Vitelleschi; the text is cited by
Le Bachelet, Prédestination et grâce, 2:400: “De re nota Praepositum edocent, monentque
ne manare eam disciplinam latius patiatur; quam inde a Francisco Borgia constaret tanta
severitate proscriptam e Societate, ut cum eam Franciscus Toletus, is qui Cardinalis post-
ea fuit, in Romano Collegio docuisset, revocari ab eo publice, atque expungi ex auditorum
scriptis iusserit.”
56 Nevertheless, Toledo’s short, unpublished commentary on St. Paul’s ad Timotheum, pre-
served in MS Granada B. 31, returns to the question. The text has been edited by Augusto
Segovía, “Un tratado del cardenal Toledo sobre la voluntad salvífica de Dios,” Archivo
teológico granadino (1940): 43–68. In Toledo’s commentary on St. Paul’s Letter, he simply
skips the discourse on predestination: cf. Toledo, In epistolas B. Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos
commentarii et annotationes (Rome: Sumptibus Paulini Arnolfini Lucensis, apud Carolum
Vulliettum, 1602), c. Viii, annotatio xxxi.
57 See, e.g., Solana, Historia de la filosofía española, 3:324–36.
58 For a synthesis, see Antonino Poppi, “Consenso e dissenso del Pomponazzi con il ‘subtilis-
simus et religiosissimus Ioannes Scotus,’” in Pietro Pomponazzi: Tradizione e dissenso; Atti
del congresso internazionale di studi su Pietro Pomponazzi, Mantova 23–4 ottobre 2008, ed.
Marco Sgarbi (Florence: L. Olschki, 2010), 3–39.
59 See Toledo, De anima, 3, cap. 5, text 20, q. 16, in Opera omnia philosophica, 1:148v: “Unde
erravit Pompona. dicens, animam mortalem secundum Philosophiam: et quamvis non
esse fortasse error, dicere quod non potest demonstrati naturaliter animae immortalitas:
hoc enim dicit Scot. 4 Sent. d. 43 q. 2 […].” See also Toledo, De anima, 3, cap. 5, text 20,
266 Tropia
other commentaries on Aristotle, demonstrates Toledo’s erudition and the rel-

ative autonomy he enjoyed while lecturing on texts. But these examples also
reveal that such a method of work was accepted and appreciated by his peers.
In theology, however, the example of Toledo’s “accident” concerning predesti-
nation highlights the Jesuit tendency to avoid controversy by introducing new
theses.60 Not only does Toledo hold a doctrine for the first time in the history
of the Society but he also pronounced himself on a delicate matter, and in a
sensitive period, namely the same year of the Tridentine Council’s close. Nota-
bly, however, Toledo’s doctrine on predestination was eventually adopted, with
variations, by most of his peers.
Bibliography
Aho, Tuomo. “Suárez on Cognitive Intentions.” In Mind, Cognition and Representation:

The Tradition of Commentaries on Aristotle’s De anima, edited by Paul J.J. Bakker and
Johannes M.M. Thiessen, 179–203. Ashgate Studies in Medieval Philosophy. Farn-
ham: Ashgate, 2005.
Ariew, Roger. Descartes and the First Cartesians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Arteaga, Enrique Esperabé de. Historia pragmática é interna de la universidad de Sala
manca. 2 vols. Salamanca: Francisco Núñez Izquierdo, 1917.
Astrain, Antonio. Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la asistencia de España. 7 vols.
Madrid: Administración de Razón y Fe, 1902–25.
Bachelet, Xavier-Marie Le. Prédestination et grâce efficace, controverses dans la Com
pagnie de Jésus au temps d’Acquaviva, 1610–1613: Histoire et documents inédits. 2 vols.
Louvain: Museum Lessianum, 1931.
q. 16, 155r: “Tandem melius est, et tutius, sic opinari pro nobis, quam contra nos ipsos. Nam
aut haec fides et opinio vera est, scilicet animam esse immortalem, et tunc quidem, si quis
eam non crediderit, aut credere noluerit, post mortem luet penas, et feret supplicium
[…] aut non est vera opinio, animam scilicet immortalem, et tunc nihil erit periculi post
mortem, sic fuisse opinatos in vita.”
60 On the definition of the method to adopt by the Jesuit professors before the publica-
tion of the Ratio studiorum, see Lohr, “Jesuit Aristotelianism,” 211–20. See also Bellarm-
ine’s letter to Lessius, wherein he recalls Toledo’s case; I cite the text from Le Bachelet,
Prédestination et grâce, 1:157: “Meminerit, sententiam gratuitae praedestinationis esse
iam stabilitam in Societate nostra, tum quia B. Pater Ignatius in Constitutionibus iussit,
ut sequeremur S. Thomam, tum quia cum Cardinalis Toletus, tunc Pater Toletus, anno
1561 docuisset praedestinationem ex bono usu gratiae praeviso, R. Pater Franciscus Borgia
cum consilio Patrum iussit, ut ea doctrina non repeteretur neque defenderetur ullo modo,
et ipse Card. Toletus ab eo tempore contrario docuit, ut patet ex commentario in cap. ix
ad Romanos, quod idem docuerunt semper gravissimi Patres ex nostris, P. Olavius, P. Em-
manuel Sa, P. Ledesmius, P. Pererius, P. Parra, P. Augustinus, P. Suarez, et alii plurimi.”
Bedouelle, Guy, and Bernard Roussel, eds. Le temps des réformes et la Bible. Paris:
Beauchesne, 1989.
Bérubé, Camille. La connaissance de l’individuel au Moyen Age. Montréal and Paris:
Université de Montréal and PUF, 1964.
Blum, Paul R. Philosophenphilosophie und Schulphilosophie: Typen des Philosophierens
in der Neuzeit. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998.
Budeus, Johann Franz. Isagoge historico-theologica ad theologiam universam. Leipzig:
Ex officina Thomae Fritschii, 1727.
Capozzi, Mirella, and Gino Roncaglia. “Logic and Philosophy from Humanism to Kant.”
In The Development of Modern Logic, edited by Leila Haaparanta, 78–159. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009.
Cereceda, Feliciano. “La predestinación post praevisa en las disputas de la gracia.” Estu
dios eclesiásticos 13 (1934): 479–91.
Cruz, Juan Cruz. “Predestination as Transcendent Teleology: Molina and the First Mo-
linism.” In A Companion to Luis de Molina, edited by Matthias Kaufmann and Alex-
ander Aichele, 89–121. Leiden: New York: Cologne: Brill, 2014.
Dandini, Girolamo. De corpore animato. Paris: Apud Chappeletum, 1610.
Descartes, René. Oeuvres completes. Edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. 12 vols.
Paris: Vrin, 1974–86.
Dvořák, Petr. “The Relational Logic of Franciscus Toletus and Petrus Fonseca.” Forum
philosophicum: International Journal of Philosophy 14, no. 1 (2009): 87–99.
Franceschi, Sylvio Hermann de. “Le Jansénisme face à la tentation thomiste: Antoine
Arnauld et le thomisme de gratia après les cinq articles de 1663.” Revue thomiste 109
(2009): 5–54.
Frank, Günter, and Andreas Speer, eds. Der Aristotelismus in der Früher Neuzeit: Konti
nuität oder Wiederaneingnung? Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007.
Guelluy, Robert. “L’évolution des méthodes théologiques à Louvain d’Erasme a Janse-
nius.” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 37 (1941): 31–144.
Hellín, Luis Gómez. “Toledo lector de filosofía y teología en el Colegio romano.” Archivo
teológico granadino 3 (1940): 7–18.
Kessler, Eckhard. “The Intellective Soul.” In The Cambridge History of Renaissance Phi
losophy, edited by Quentin Skinner and Eckhard Kessler, 485–534. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1988.
Lécrivain, Philippe. “La somme théologique de Thomas d’Aquin aux xvie–xviiie siè-
cles.” Recherches de science religieuse 91, no. 3 (2003): 397–427.
Lohr, Charles B. “Jesuit Aristotelianism and Sixteenth-Century Metaphysics.” In Para
dosis: Studies in Memory of Edwin A. Quain, edited by Harry George Fletcher and
Mary Beatrice Schulte, 203–20. New York: Fordham University Press, 1976.
Lohr, Charles B. Latin Aristotle Commentaries: Renaissance Authors. Florence: Olschki,
1988.
268 Tropia
Martin, Raymond M. “L’introduction officielle de la ‘Somme’ de Saint Thomas à

l’ancienne université de Louvain.” Revue thomiste 18, no. (1910): 230–39.
Müller, Hermann J. Die Lehre vom verbum mentis in der spanischen Scholastik. Münster:
Münster Universität, 1968.
Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio. Firmamento religioso de luzidos astros en algunos claros va
rones de la Compañia de Jesus. Madrid: Por M. De Quiñones, 1644.
Paria, Giuseppe. Prolegomena. In Francisci Toleti in Summam theologiae s. Thomae […]
enarratio. 4 vols. Rome, Turin, and Paris: Typis S. Congregationis de propaganda
fide, Apud Petrum Marietti, and Apud Victorium Palmé, 1869–70.
Poppi, Antonino. “Consenso e dissenso del Pomponazzi con il ‘subtilissimus et reli-
giosissimus Ioannes Scotus.’” In Pietro Pomponazzi: Tradizione e dissenso; Atti del
congresso internazionale di studi su Pietro Pomponazzi, Mantova 23–24 ottobre 2008,
edited by Marco Sgarbi, 3–39. Florence: L. Olschki, 2010.
Ratio studiorum: Plan raisonné et institution des études dans la Compagnie de Jésus. Ed-
ited by Demoustier, Adrien and Dominique Julia. Paris: Belin, 1997.
Reinhardt, Klaus. Bibelkommentare spanischer Autoren (1500–1700). 2 vols. Madrid:
CSIC, 1999.
Reinhardt, Klaus. “Toledo, Francisco de.” In Biographisch–Bibliographisches Kirchen
lexikon, edited by Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz and Traugott Bautz, 288–91. 12 vols. Her-
zberg: Verlag Traugott Bautz, 1997.
Risse, Wilhelm. Die Logik der Neuzeit: i Band; 1500–1640. Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt:
Frommann, 1964.
Salatowski, Sascha. De anima: Die Rezeption der aristotelischen Psychologie im 16. und
17. Jahrhundert. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: B.R. Grüner, 2006.
Schmutz, Jacob. “Bellum scholasticum: Thomisme et antithomisme dans les débats
doctrinaux modernes.” Revue thomiste 108 (2008): 5–56.
Schmutz, Jacob. “Les normes théologiques de l’enseignement philosophique dans le
catholicisme romain moderne (1500–1650).” In Philosophie et théologie à l’époque
moderne, edited by Jean-Christophe Bardout, 129–50. Anthologie tome 3. Paris: Cerf,
2010.
Solana, Marcial. Historia de la filosofía española. 3 vols. Madrid: Real Academia de cien-
cias exactas, físicas y naturales, 1940–41.
Sommervogel, Carlos, ed. Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus. Brussels and Paris:
O. Schepens and A. Picard, 1890–1932.
Spruit, Leen. Species intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge. 2 vols. Leiden, New
York, and Cologne: Brill, 1994–95.
Suárez, Francisco. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima. 3
vols. Madrid: Sociedad de estudios y publicaciones, 1978.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentarii in evangelium secundum Lucam. Paris: Ex typis Ja-
metii Mettaier, 1600.
Toledo, Francisco de. Opera omnia philosophica. 2 vols. Hildesheim, Zürich, and New
York: Georg Olms Verlag and Nachdruck der Ausgaben Köln 1985 [1615–16].
Villoslada, Ricardo García. Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppres
sione della Compagnia di Gesù. Rome: Apud aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954.
Von Hurter, Hugo. Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae. 3 in 6 vols. Innsbruck:
Libreria academica wagneriana, 1907.
Wallace, William A. Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in
Galileo’s Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Chapter 11
Benet Perera: the Epistemological Question at

the Heart of Early Jesuit Philosophy
Marco Lamanna
1 Introduction
When the Jesuit Jerónimo Doménech (1516–92) first encountered Benet Perera
(1535–1610) in 1553, it must have been immediately clear to him that the young
man had great intellectual gifts. The meeting between the two took place in
Valencia, probably at the Society’s St. Paul College (Colegio San Pablo), and it
was as a result of this encounter with Doménech that Perera resolved to devote
his entire life to Christ and to the Roman Church, entering the Society of Jesus.
Perera was born in 1535 in Rusafa (or Ruzafa), a neighborhood of Valencia,
Spain. His name seems to have been finally recognized in its Catalan form of
Benet Perera after circulating for centuries in at least three other forms (Beni-
to Pereyra, Bento Pereira, Benedetto Pererio) and in the Latin of Benedictus
Pererius. In November 1553, Perera moved to the Roman College (Collegio Ro-
mano), which Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556) had personally founded just two
years earlier.
The first complete course of philosophy, which lasted for a period of three
years and was initiated at the Roman College on November 6, 1553, was com-
posed of teaching in logic, physics, and metaphysics. A day earlier (November
5), the young student, Perera, gave a public exposition of some questions on
rhetoric under the chairmanship of Fulvio Cardulo (1526–91), revealing his
“eminent qualities” and for which he received “applause.”1
After Perera’s studies came to an end in 1557, he was given the role of teach-
ing philosophy at the Roman College.2 He began teaching advanced classes in
1558, when he was twenty-three years old, with a course in physics. Between
1559 and 1561, Perera also taught metaphysics. The first complete three-year
1 See Ricardo García Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione
della Compagnia di Gesù (Rome: Apud Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954), 29.
2 “M. Benedetto [Perera] leggerà la mattina meza hora de lettione et mezze de exercitii, hor
ripetere hor comporre, hor variare. Dopo pranzo leggerà meza ora della Georgica [by Virgil],
cominciando da 19 e mezza.” See Monumenta paedagogica Societatis Iesu penitus retractata
multisque textibus aucta, vol. 2, 1557–1572, ed. László Lukács (Rome: ihsi, 1974), 423.

The Epistemological Question at the Heart 271
cycle of philosophy was assigned to him in 1561, with courses in logic, physics,
and metaphysics; he held this role until 1567.
The lessons given at the Roman College were an intellectual laboratory for
Perera, one that he used to revise and improve his philosophy. In the lectures,
he often drew upon authors whose doctrines had been condemned by the
Fifth Lateran Council (1512–17) (mainly Alexander of Aphrodisias [fl. second
to third centuries ce) and Averroes [1126–98]), which prescribed to Catholic
professors the confutation of the theses on the mortality of the human soul
(Alexandrism) and the unity of the intellect (Averroism).
During his lessons, Perera affirmed a criterion of truth, whereby truth was
not reducible to the philosophy of one sole author, according to the famous
maxim amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas (Socrates is a
friend, Plato also, but the greater friend is truth).3 According to Perera, traces of
truth could be found in every author and every philosophical work, even those
by pagans and Muslims.
As a result of this position, Perera faced accusations of Averroism from Diego
de Ledesma (1519–75) and Achille Gagliardi (1537–1607), the former a prefect of
studies and the latter a professor of philosophy at the Roman College.4 More-
over, the two Canisius brothers (Peter [1521–97] and Theoderic [c.1532–1606])
had denounced Perera to the Society’s superior general, Francisco de Borja (in
office 1565–72), because of the spread of Averroism among the students who
had returned to the German colleges after attending Perera’s lessons in Rome:
among these students were Adam Higgins (1563–1612) and Antonius Balduinus
(1533–85).5
The diatribe between Ledesma and Perera, which began in 1564, was of par-
ticular philosophical significance. It covered diverse subjects—the contents of
philosophical teachings, teaching methods, and, in general, faith in the ability
of human reason to discern truth from falsehood. Ledesma aimed to formu-
late a uniform doctrine that could be taught in the Roman College, whereas
3 Ibid., 2:no. 85, 671. On the long and intricate history of this philosophical maxim before and
after Perera, see Henry Guerlac, “Amicus Plato and Other Friends,” Journal of the History of
Ideas 39 (1978): 627–33. More recently, Marco Duichin, “Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas,”
Bollettino della Società Filosofica Italiana 182 (2004): 33–46.
4 Studies have examined Ledesma’s criticism of Perera in depth: Cristiano Casalini, “Pererio
‘cattivo maestro’: Su un cold case nella storia della pedagogia gesuitica,” Quaderni di Noctua 2
(2014): 59–110. Christoph Sander, “The War of the Roses: The Debate between Diego de Ledes-
ma and Benet Perera about the Philosophy Course at the Jesuit College in Rome,” Quaestio:
Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 14 (2014): 39–50.
5 In this regard, see Ulrich G. Leinsle, “Der Widerstand gegen Perera und seine Physik in der
oberdeutschen Jesuitenprovinz,” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 14 (2014):
51–68.
272 Lamanna
Perera intended to propose a new criterion, based on auctoritas, for the study
of philosophy, coherent with his “faith” in human reason: Ego multum Platoni
tribuo, plus Aristoteli, sed rationi plurimum (I attribute much to Plato, more to
Aristotle, but even more to reason).6
In a document on some of the institutional aspects of academic life at the
Roman College,7 Ledesma argued that Aristotle’s works should be exclusively
interpreted on the basis of Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–74) and that the com-
mentaries of other Greek or Islamic authors should be avoided, especially
those of Averroes.8 Unlike Ledesma, however, Perera argued that it was accept-
able to consult pagan and Muslim authors such as Alexander of Aphrodisia,
Themistius (c.317–c.388), Simplicius (sixth century ce), and Averroes.9
In 1586, over twenty years after the controversy with Ledesma, Perera con-
tinued to affirm that true sentences could also be found in Averroes and other
Gentile (i.e., non-Christian) authors,10 consistently diverging from the section
in the Ratio studiorum (1599) on the rules for the professor of philosophy.11
Thus the accusations of Ledesma, Gagliardi, and the two Canisius brothers had
evidently failed to stop Perera from using such an approach. In the meantime,
Perera had published, with the placet of Pope Gregory xiii (r.1572–85), his prin-
cipal philosophical work, the De communibus omnium rerum naturalium prin-
cipiis et affectionibus (On the principles and properties common to all natural
6 Benet Perera, “Praefatio,” in De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis et af-

fectionibus libri quindecim (Rome: Zanetti, 1576), fol. 2v (s.n.).
7 The incipit of the document is Quaedam circa studia et mores collegii romani data R.P.
Generali. In this regard, see Lukács, Monumenta paedagogica Societatis Iesu, 2:519–627.
8 Ibid., 2:487.
9 According to Perera: “Nel primo corso in luogo delli commentarii greci, che sono molto
longhi et oscuri, potrà leggere Themistio et Vicomercato. Leggere Averroe è molto utile,
sì per la sua dottrina, come per la fama che ha in Italia; et per poterlo intendere, leggerà
li suoi seguaci […]. Habbi il catalogo delli migliori commentarii, che si trovano, sopra
tutte le parti della philosophia, quale si è fatto a Roma. Et benchè deve il maestro seguire
li principali authori come sono tra li greci Alessandro, Simplicio, Themistio; fra gl’arabi
Averroe, fra li latini Alberto et S. Thomaso; nondimeno non deve esser sectario, massime
di authori latini, che discordano dalli antichi.” Ibid., 2:666.
10 “Placet totus ut iacet; excepto P. Pererio, cui videntur quaecunque et in Averroe et in aliis
gentilibus vere dicta sunt, simpliciter esse citanda atque docenda; praesertim cum in di-
gressionibus Averrois uberior soleat esse philosophiae doctrina.” Ibid., 6:261.
11 “He shall be very careful in what he reads or quotes in class from commentators of
Aristotle who are objectionable from the standpoint of faith, and he must be cautious
lest his pupils come under their influence. For this reason he shall not give separate treat-
ment to the digressions of Averroes (and this holds for others like him).” The Jesuit Ratio
studiorum of 1599, trans. Allan P. Farrell (Washington, DC: Conference of Major Superiors
of Jesuits, 1970), no. 3–4, 40.
things [1576]).12 Moreover, one of his accusers, Gagliardi, had been suspended
a divinis from the Roman College on behalf of the pope, and one of Gagliardi’s
students in Rome had been condemned for Averroism in Germany.13
From 1567 to 1570, Perera taught courses on Scholastic theology (theologia
scholastica), while from 1576 to 1590 he taught sacred scripture. In those years,
the publication of his commentaries on the book of Daniel (1587) and the book
of Genesis (1591–98) were tied to his treatise On Magic (1591). Perera’s works
had many editions, and included two translations in English.14
Perera’s philosophy also found remarkable fortune outside the Society of
Jesus, as well as outside Italy. As we shall see, Perera’s metaphysics and psy-
chology had a significant impact on Protestant Germany and Holland, with
authors such as Rudolph Göckel (1547–1628), Henning Arnisaeus (1575–1636),
and Johannes Maccovius (Makowski [1588–1644]) setting a new standard for
Scholastic metaphysics that endured until the criticism of Immanuel Kant
(1724–1804). Studies affirm that Perera’s theology supplied the model of exege-
sis favored by Galileo Galilei (1564–1642).15
In the Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine (1615), the Pisan scientist
sought to draw upon the principle that “truth is always congruent with truth”
( verum omne semper cum vero congru[i]t) from Perera’s commentary on Gen-
esis, thereby affirming a “concordist” position. According to this principle,
there is no contrast between the truth of science/philosophy and the truth of
the sacred texts, that is, between the truth of human reason and the truth of
divine revelation. In his commentary on Genesis, Perera had intended to reaf-
firm the so-called principle of the unity of truth as one of the rules for cor-
rectly interpreting the sacred texts, expressing the continuity of this principle
with the bull Apostolici regiminis (1513), which had been promulgated by the
Fifth Lateran Council. Through this principle, Galileo retained the ability to
challenge Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), who had affirmed the exis-
tence of two different levels of truth between sacred scripture and the natural
12 Referred to hereafter as De principiis.

13 Peter Canisius, Epistulae et Acta, ed. Otto Braunsberger (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder,
1913), 6:no. 1499, 60; no. 1510, 83; no. 1683, 357; no. 987, 622.
14 As to the twofold (1661; 1674) English translation of Perera’s De magia, entitled The Astrol-
oger Anatomiz’d, see Paul Richard Blum, “‘Cognitio falsitatis vera est’: Benedictus Pererius
critico della magia e della Cabala,” in La magia nell’Europa moderna: Tra antica sapienza e
filosofia naturale, ed. Fabrizio Meroi and Elisabetta Scapparone (Florence: Olschki, 2007),
345–62, esp. 295n3.
15 Pietro Redondi, “Natura e scrittura,” in Il caso Galileo: Una rilettura storica, filosofica,
teologica, ed. Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, and Franco Giudice (Florence:
Olschki, 2011), 153–62.
274 Lamanna
s ciences: in the case of the Bible, there is truth, in the case of science, there is
only a likeness of truth, or verisimilitude.
A similar debate, held after Perera’s death, confirms the main aim of his
philosophy: to redefine the epistemic status and nature of science. This pro-
found epistemological interest animated Perera’s reflections and inspired him
to begin work on redefining the status of the principal disciplines (first among
which were mathematics, psychology, metaphysics, theology), leading him to
intervene in the Renaissance debate on the status of mathematical demonstra-
tions (the so-called Quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum), falsifying cer-
tain assumptions about the Aristotelian syllogism, and proposing a dominant
standard of Scholastic metaphysics.
To assure a greater certainty to knowledge, Perera sought to examine some
of the most heretical authors and doctrines in the sixteenth century, from Al-
exander of Aphrodisias to Averroes, from the Corpus hermeticum to Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola’s (1463–94) Cabala.
It should be added that Perera’s predominant interest in epistemology was
often combined with an interest in the history of philosophy. Breaking with the
tradition of the medieval quaestio, Perera was keen to show the richness of the
different philosophical traditions, letting the truth of their positions emerge
from a reconstruction of the history of their origins.
The following sections now turn to each of the sciences that Perera dealt
with, paying particular attention to the manuscripts of the lessons held at the
Roman College.
2 Logic
The first book of Perera’s De principiis is entirely devoted to epistemological is-

sues. In this work, Perera sought to retrace the epistemic borders and statutes of
the principal theoretical disciplines of the Aristotelian tradition (metaphysics,
physics, mathematics) and to define the nature and rank of disciplines such as
psychology and logic. In doing so, he was responding to the important debates
of his time. The first of these was the intra-moenia debate over teaching and
scholarship at the Jesuit colleges in the period before the publication of the
Constitutiones and the Ratio studiorum, and the second was the complex series
of epistemological debates that originated at the University of Padua over the
nature and place of psychology (with authors such as Agostino Nifo [c.1469–
c.1539], Marcantonio Genua [d.1563], and Francesco Barozzi [1537–1604]), the
status of mathematics (with authors including Niccolò Tartaglia [1499–1577],
Pietro Catena [1501–76], Alessandro Piccolomini [1508–79]), and the nature
of logic (with authors such as Francesco Piccolomini [1523–1607] and Jacopo

Zabarella [1533–89]).16
Rejecting the tripartite division of philosophy into physics, ethics, and logic,
widespread among Platonists and Stoics, Perera accepted the Aristotelian dis-
tinction between theoretical and practical sciences. Logic, therefore, lost the
status of a science.
According to Perera, logic is not a science because it deals with rational be-
ings and not with real beings. During his lessons at the Roman College, Perera
claimed that logic was a scientia rationis or rationalis (science of reason), not a
scientia realis (real science), such as metaphysics or physics, which deals with
real beings (immaterial or material).17
Among these rational beings are the so-called second intentions (i.e., the
concepts of genus, species and difference). Together with methods, second
intentions are the instruments that logic provides to different disciplines in
order to improve the knowledge of their own subjects. Properly speaking, logic
is considered an instrumental discipline rather than a science.18 In this regard,
Perera followed the same trajectory as Giulio Cesare Scaligero (1484–1558) and
Zabarella in radically diverging from Pierre de la Ramée (1515–72), who attrib-
uted the status of science to logic, assigning it subject matter and objects that
had traditionally belonged to the realm of metaphysics (the concept of being)
or physics (the doctrine of causes).
Although nature and the role of logic appeared diminished in Perera’s work,
the logical doctrine of second intentions (genus and species) still played a
prominent part in Perera’s philosophy, especially in his epistemological reflec-
tions. Perera grounded the distinction between the metaphysical sciences on
the distinction between genus and species: prima philosophia (i.e., the science
of being in general, transcendental concepts, and categories) and metaphysica
(i.e., theology, the science of God and other immaterial substances like angels).
16 On these debates, see Anna De Pace, Le matematiche e il mondo: Ricerche su un dibat-

tito in Italia nella seconda metà del Cinquecento (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1993); Paul J.J.M.
Bakker, “Natural Philosophy, Metaphysics, or Something In-between? Agostino Nifo, Pi-
etro Pomponazzi, and Marcantonio Genua on the Nature and Place of the Science of the
Soul,” in Mind, Cognition and Representation: The Tradition of Commentaries on Aristotle’s
De anima, ed. Paul J.J.M. Bakker and J. [Johannes] M.M.H. Thijssen (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2007), 151–77.
17 See Benet Perera, Opus metaphysicum, MS Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Urb. Lat. 1308,
fol. 58v. “Praeterea si ens commune enti reali, et rationis, esset subiectum Metaphysicae,
nec posset dici scientia realis, nec scientia rationis: dicitur enim scientia realis, non quia
ipsa sit realis, sed ratione obiecti: Logica est rationalis, Physica realis, Metaphysica nec
posset dici realis, nec rationalis.”
18 Perera, De principiis, book 1, Chapter 2, 3; Chapter 3, 6; Chapter 18, 35–36.
276 Lamanna
According to this model, God must be considered a species of being, and not
the cause of the genus being, which is the subject matter of first philosophy.
After the doctrinal reorganization of the Council of Trent (1545–63), a clari-
fication of the relationship between theology and philosophy was necessary
from an epistemological perspective. The distinction between first philosophy
and theology according to genus and species resulted in an adequate solution
for Perera. The Jesuit uses this distinction to make a definitive separation be-
tween first philosophy and metaphysics, ontology and theology, while avoid-
ing any residual risk of trespassing from the universal and general realm (the
realm of being) to the particular and special realm (the realm of God).19
Perera examined the distinction between the first and the second intentions
during his lectures on logic at the Roman College, especially in his comments
on the Organon by Aristotle and the Isagoge by Porphyry. The manuscript
Scripta in Logicam Aristotelis (Writings on Aristotle’s Logic) contains a detailed
distinction of logical intentions.20 The Latin word intentio means “to tend to
something,” Perera stated, following the Latin etymon provided by Aquinas.21
The first intention is the mental representation of something that exists
outside our mind. In the case of “Cecil” the lion, the first intention is the con-
cept of “lion.” If the first intention is the first concept that our mind produces
of an extra-mental being, the second intention is a concept of a concept (for
example, “lionness”), which is abstracted from the concept of the first inten-
tion. Unlike first intentions, the objects represented by second intentions have
only an intra-mental and rational being derived from a further process of ab-
straction from real beings, such as lion, man, tree, and so on.
Up to this point, Perera’s doctrine of logical intentions was largely tradition-
al. However, in the same manuscripts, Perera affirmed that, like the first inten-
tion of a rational being, the first intention of something that does not exist
outside our mind, such as a chimera, is also conceivable. In this case, the first
19 See the paragraph on metaphysics below.

20 Benet Perera, Scripta in Logicam Aristotelis, MS Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Urb. Lat.
1295 (xvi), fols. 1r–52r, esp. 13v–14r: “P[rim]a intentio simplex est: una significat id, quod
h[abe]t esse reale, verum in natura, etsi ab intellectu non cognoscat[ur], ut leo. Altera
quae significat aliq[uid] reale non includens respectum ad intellectum. verum tale signifi-
catum reale no[n] existit in natura, sed fictum est ab ipso intellectu: ut chimera, hypocen-
taurus, et alia huiusmodi. Haec, tametsi apta sunt ficta <esse> ab intellectu, signific[ant]
aliqua[s] res, quae non habe[n]t respectum ad intellectum. 3[iu]s gradus p[rim]ae inten-
tionis est quod significat aliquid q[uo]d quidem non habet esse reale, sed s[olu]m habet
privationem, ut negationem alicuius entis realis, ut coecitas, et alia id g[radus] privatio-
nes, atque negationes variae.”
21 As to Thomas Aquinas, see Summa theologiae 1, q. 85, a. 2–3; 1–2, q. 12, a. 1, resp.; In senten-
tiarum 1.ii, d. 38, q. 1, a. 3.
intention is not necessarily a real being. Following this line of thought, Perera
affirmed the possibility of having first intentions of negations or privations
(e.g., “blindness”), both considered beings of reason and not real beings by
Scholastic metaphysics at that time. In so doing, Perera denied the traditional
identification of first intentions with real beings, and that of second intentions
with beings of reason.
There is no doubt, however, that Perera’s most radical use of logical inten-
tions concerned their application for dividing and classifying the domains and
objects of metaphysics. This operation, which only took place in De principi-
is and not in any of the manuscripts of his lectures, led Perera’s metaphysi-
cal model away from Aquinas and his prologue to the Commentary on the
Metaphysics.
3 Physics
De principiis was Perera’s most successful book, with over fourteen reprints be-
tween 1576 and 1618. The book personally obtained the placet of Pope Gregory
xiii, thereby ending the controversy surrounding Ledesma’s and Gagliardi’s
accusations of Averroism and the presumed heterodoxy of Perera’s philosophy.
Even though De principiis was primarily devoted to natural philosophy, physics
was not the field in which Perera had major influence or showed his greatest
originality. Perera’s contemporaries mostly read and commented on the parts
of the book that concerned the nature and status of mathematics, metaphys-
ics, or psychology, as well as the quaestio de primo cognito, and the distinction
between essence and existence;22 none of which belong to the field of physics.
Historian of philosophy Ulrich G. Leinsle23 highlights the innovations
contained in Perera’s physics and discusses the polemics they produced in
the German colleges of the Society of Jesus, where two of Perera’s students,
Higgins and Balduinus, had been accused of Averroism and heterodoxy. One of
the most contested of these doctrines concerned the affirmation of prime mat-
ter as a substratum and bearer of accidents, which Perera supported in order
to defend the Catholic doctrine of Eucharistic transubstantiation. Indeed, De
principiis affirms the possibility of assigning dimensions, such as length, width,
and depth, to prime matter.
22 See Giovanni Ventimiglia, “‘Magna est disceptatio tam inter philosophos quam inter the-
ologos’: Pererius e la questione della distinzione reale fra essenza ed esistenza,” Quaestio
14 (2014): 167–94.
23 Leinsle, Widerstand, 59–65.
278 Lamanna
As Leinsle demonstrates, similar affirmations were strongly contested at the

Jesuit College of Dillingen, with the accusation that they were not authenti-
cally Aristotelian. Moreover, the criticisms addressed by Perera in book 11 of De
principiis (especially Chapters 6–7) against the definition of place provided by
Aristotle were also clearly anti-Aristotelian.
Book 11 of De principiis attracted attention beyond the comparison with
Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. In his De innumerabilibus, immenso, et
infigurabili (Of innumerable things, vastness and the unrepresentable [books
1 and 3]), published in 1591, Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) drew upon the status
quaestionis provided by Perera regarding the place and position of the heavens
within the universe,24 debating whether the location of heaven should be con-
sidered in itself or rather accidentally.
In the physics of the Catholic Perera, Bruno found an attractive argument
for his cosmology and his famous heretical doctrine of the infinite universe.
Perera had put forward an argument, albeit only hypothetically and pro absur-
do, that sustained the possibility of an infinite creation (and not a finite one)
by God: “If this argument is valid, it might be concluded that God can originate
an infinitely perfect creature, such as affirmed by all theologians even if it is
absurd.”25 Perera had evidently affirmed this argument in order to remark on
the omnipotence of God over his creation, in the long line of tradition that
goes back to Peter Lombard (d.1160) and his question of “whether God can
make something in another or better way than he makes it.”26
In many points of De principiis, Perera reaffirmed the unbridgeable distance,
from an ontological point of view, between the infinity and perfection of God,
and the finitude and imperfection of his creation.27 Bruno, however, took ad-
vantage of Perera’s pro absurdo argument to answer the question: “Why should
the effect be [ontologically] inferior to its cause?”28 In doing so, Bruno tried
24 Perera, De principiis, book 11, Chapter 8.

25 Ibid., book 10, Chapter 11: “Quod si tale argumentum valeret, eodem concluderetur pos-
se fieri a Deo aliquam creaturam infinite perfectam, quod omnes Theologi habent pro
absurdo.”
26 Peter Lombard, In quatuor libros sententiarum (Frankfurt: Unveranderter, 1967), book 1,
d. 44.
27 For instance, Perera, De principiis, book 10, Chapter 11: “Nam quod est in Deo, simul prop-
ter eius perfectionem, non potest simul conferri in unam aliquam creaturam propter im-
perfectam eius naturam.” See also De principiis book 1, Chapter 7.
28 Giordano Bruno, De innumerabilibus, immenso, et infigurabili, in Opera latine conscripta,
ed. Francesco Fiorentino et al. (Florence: Le Monnier, 1879–91), 1:book 3, Chapter 1: “Cur
effectus vim suae causae referendo mentietur?”
to go beyond Christian theology by legitimizing the inference that an infinite

cause (God) produces an effect (universe), which is just as infinite.
The statement “an infinite cause must have an infinite effect,” as well as the
doctrine of the infinite universe, was strongly condemned during Bruno’s trial,
which was held in Rome under the supervision of another Jesuit, Cardinal Bel-
larmine. We know that Bellarmine was familiar with Perera’s theology29 and
that he probably attended some of his lectures on philosophy at the Roman
College in 1560–63.
4 Metaphysics
The most-debated theme of Perera’s philosophy was his metaphysics. In his De

principiis, Perera proposed a new and radical model of metaphysics, founded
on a clear distinction between the science of being (prima philosophia, or on-
tologia as it would be called a few years later)30 and the science of God (meta-
physica or theologia).31
According to Perera, ontology and theology are two different sciences, not
two (different) parts of the same science. This distinction was based on the dif-
ference between two logical intentions: genus and species. Being was therefore
considered genus, while God was considered a species of being. In addition,
29 We can find confirmation in a letter sent by Bellarmine to Leonard Leys (Lessius [1554–
1623]) on December 31, 1610, where the cardinal points out that there was a clear continu-
ity on the doctrine of praedestinatio mere gratuita between Thomas Aquinas (presumably
Summa theologiae 1, q. 23), Ignatius of Loyola’s Constitutiones, and Francisco de Toledo’s
(1532–96) lectures on metaphysics given at the Roman College in 1561. Furthermore, Bel-
larmine informs us that a similar doctrine was widely supported by most of the theo-
logians and philosophers at the early Roman College, such as Martín de Olave (d.1556),
Manuel de Sá (1530–96), Ledesma, Perera, Pedro Parra (1531–93), Francisco Suárez (1548–
1617), and others. See Epistola Bellarmini Lessio S.J., (December 31, 1610), in Epistolae S.
Roberti Card. Bellarmini inde ab initio Cardinalatu S.R. Eccl., collegit X.M. Le Bachelet S.J.,
complevit Seb. Tromp S.J., 9:fol. 2594a.
30 On the first occurrences of the term “ontology,” see Michaël Devaux and Marco Lamanna,
“Rise and Early History of the Term Ontology (1606–1730),” Quaestio: Yearbook of the His-
tory of Metaphysics 9 (2009): 173–208, esp. 181–82.
31 Perera, De principiis, book 1, Chapter 7, 14–16. As to the vast bibliography on Perera’s divi-
sion of metaphysics, see especially Elisabeth M. Rompe, “Die Trennung von Ontologie
und Metaphysik” (PhD diss., University of Bonn, 1968); Jean-François Courtine, Suarez et
le système de la métaphysique (Paris: puf, 1990); Marco Lamanna, “Mathematics, Abstrac-
tion and Ontology: Benet Perera and the Impossibility of a Neutral Science of Reality,”
Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 14 (2014): 69–89.
280 Lamanna
Aquinas spoke about common being (ens commune) as genus and subject
matter of metaphysics. Aquinas, however, did not consider God a species of
being, but rather the cause of being, the subject matter of metaphysics.32
In classifying God as a species of being in the Porphyrian tree, it could only
be admitted with difficulty, according to Perera and in contrast with Aquinas,
that a species (like God) could cause a genus (like being), since genus (being) is
a more extended concept than species and indeed encompasses it. Conceiving
of the creator as a species of being in general, God loses the power of causation
over the subject matter of ontology and the realm of ontology, while conserv-
ing his causation in the field of special metaphysics (i.e., theology). As a special
being, God could be the cause of other special beings, for example the cause
of other created and finite beings. This model builds ontology more on logic
than on theology or physics. In this way, Perera rejected Aquinas’s model in
the Summa contra Gentiles33 and the prologue to his Commentary on the Meta-
physics (i.e., a model that preserves the formal unity between metaphysics and
theology), highlighting the role of a causal nexus between God (the universal
cause) and universal or common being (the subject matter of metaphysics).
The reception of Perera’s metaphysics in Germany confirmed its opposition
to Aquinas’s model, by now considered an unstable model when compared
with the coherence and accuracy of the division of metaphysics based on the
distinction of logical intentions. This is apparent in the work of the German
Calvinist Göckel, who agreed with Perera on the status of theology as a special
and particular science.34 According to Göckel, theology should be intended as
32 “Haec autem triplex consideratio, non diversis, sed uni scientiae attribui debet. Nam prae-
dictae substantiae separatae sunt universales et primae causae essendi. Eiusdem autem
scientiae est considerare causas proprias alicuius generis et genus ipsum: sicut naturalis
considerat principia corporis naturalis. Unde oportet quod ad eamdem scientiam pertin-
eat considerare substantias separatas, et ens commune, quod est genus, cuius sunt prae-
dictae substantiae communes et universales causae. […] Secundum igitur tria praedicta,
ex quibus perfectio huius scientiae attenditur, sortitur tria nomina. Dicitur enim scientia
divina sive theologia, inquantum praedictas substantias considerat. Metaphysica, inquan-
tum considerat ens et ea quae consequuntur ipsum. Haec enim transphysica inveniuntur
in via resolutionis, sicut magis communia post minus communia. Dicitur autem prima
philosophia, inquantum primas rerum causas considerat.” Thomas Aquinas, Prooemium,
in Sententia super metaphysicam. On the subject of metaphysics according to Aquinas,
see Marco Forlivesi, “Approaching the Debate on the Subject of Metaphysics,” Medioevo
34 (2009): 9–59, esp. 23–26.
33 For instance, see Summa contra Gentiles, book 3, Chapter 25.
34 Rudolph Göckel, “Praefatio,” Isagoge in primam philosophiam (Hildesheim: G. Olms
Verlag, 1976 [1598]), §§5–7 and 19, 8–9.
“second philosophy,” losing the title of first and universal science (καθόλου ὅτι
πρώτη) attributed to it by the last lines of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 6, 1.35
Following the division of metaphysical realms into logical intentions, and
the distinction between metaphysical objects in the Porphyrian tree, the op-
position to Aquinas seems even more obvious. Aquinas could not concede to
breaking the formal unity between metaphysics and theology and, above all,
to transforming God into a simple species of universal being. Perera instead
seems to draw upon and develop his model from the distinction of metaphys-
ics provided by authors such as Al-Farabi (d.950/51), Avicenna (c.970–1037),
or John Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308). The analysis of Aquinas’s metaphysical
model during the lectures at the Roman College constituted the focal point on
which Perera set the direction of modern ontology, proposing one of its most
radical versions.
Even Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) explicitly affirmed that he arrived at his
Disputationes metaphysicae after his meditations on the Summa theologiae by
Aquinas, and in particular, on its third part.36 However, Suárez proposed a ver-
sion of metaphysics that was less radical than that of Perera, placing real be-
ing (ens in quantum ens reale) in the role of the subject matter of the science,
speaking of a division of metaphysics in parts (general and specific) and not
in separate sciences (ontology and theology), and preserving the formal unity
between metaphysics and (natural) theology in explicit continuity with Aqui-
nas’s prologue to his Commentary on the Metaphysics.37
In contrast to Göckel, other German Lutherans criticized Perera and his
metaphysics for its separation of ontology and theology. This opposition was
often carried out in the name of Suárez. Unlike Perera and Göckel, the Luther-
ans Jakob Martini (1570–1649), Henning Arnisaeus (1575–1636), Kaspar Finck
(1578–1631), and (above all) Christoph Scheibler (1589–1653) preferred a model
of metaphysics that preserved real being as its subject matter, its status as a
real science, and its formal unity with rational theology within the realm of
35 Göckel. Isagoge, disp. 2, 134: “Ex hac distinctione oritur divisio Philosophiae in univer-
salem & particularem. / Universalis agit de Transcendentibus & universalissimis rebus,
seu in communi & confuse res omnes, communesque earum affectiones exquirit. Ac est
Prima Philosophia / Particularis de rebus particularibus ut certis Entium speciebus. Ac est
Secunda Philosophia. / Porro res (particulares intellige) sunt Neceßariae vel Contingentes /
Necessariae sunt aut immateriales penitus, hoc est, & re, & ratione a materia secretae
separataeque: aut materiale omnino: aut mediae.”
36 Francisco Suárez, Ratio et discursus totius operis ad lectorem, in Disputationes metaphysi-
cae (Salamanca, 1597).
37 Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. 1, s. 3, n. 9.
282 Lamanna
the same science.38 In addition to the Lutherans, the Jesuits in Coimbra (the
so-called Conimbricenses) also rejected the division of metaphysics proposed
by Perera as being illegitimate and not authentically Aristotelian.39
5 Psychology
During his lectures at the Roman College on metaphysics and Aristotle’s De

anima, Perera expressed his opinion on the epistemic nature of the science of
the soul. Because of its nature, the rational soul cannot be exclusively consid-
ered a part of physics (i.e., as form and act of the body). Some predicates that
can be attributed to the human soul, such as immateriality and immortality,
pertain to the study of metaphysics and revealed theology, not to physics. In
the manuscripts of his lessons, Perera quoted Aquinas to validate his choices.40
He also sided with Aquinas in De principiis to defend Aristotle’s “true” doctrine
of the rational soul, but he no longer corroborated “the hypothesis of assigning
to revealed theology a part of the study of the soul.”41 Indeed, Aquinas’s science
of the soul is divided into the fields of natural philosophy and metaphysics;
revealed theology seems to have no direct impact on the status of Aquinas’s
psychology.42
In De principiis, Perera rejected the thesis of Alexander of Aphrodisias,
staunchly denying that the study of the soul exclusively belonged to natural
philosophy. The Jesuit discerned the causes of the rational soul together with
(1) its efficient cause, (2) its final cause, and (3) its formal cause.
38 See Henning Arnisaeus, De constitutione et partibus metaphysicae, tractatus (Frankfurt

an der Oder: Thimius, 1606), Chapter 8, fols. G1v and G3r; Jakob Martini, Exercitationum
metaphysicarum libri duo (Wittenberg: Shurer, 1608), book 2, exercitatio 2, theorema 4,
36–40; Christoph Scheibler, Opus metaphysicum (Giessen: Hampel, 1617), tomus 1, book 2,
Chapter 1, art. 5, no. 107–8, 40.
39 See “Prooemium,” Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu, in octo libros Phys-
icorum Aristotelis Stagiritae (Coimbra, 1592), q. 1, a. 2, 7: “Altera est opinio quorundam
aientium praeter illas tres philosophiae partes [i.e., metaphysica, physiologia, mathemati-
ca] dandas esse plures alias, ita ut metaphysica tres, minimum, scientias genere diversas
suo nomine et amplexu coerceat; unam, quae Deum contempletur; alteram, quae de in-
telligentiis agat; tertiam, quae de transcendentibus et generis summis disserat […]. Sed
neque vere, neque Aristotelice loquuntur […].” The Lutheran Martini confirms that this
criticism by Conimbricenses was clearly directed against Perera’s metaphysics. See Mar-
tini, Exercitationes metaphysicae, book 1, ex. 2, theorema 7, 47.
40 Perera, Opus metaphysicum, MS Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Urb. Lat. 1308, fols. 16v–17r.
41 Perera, De principiis, book 1, Chapter 9, 18.
42 See Thomas Aquinas, In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis expositio, book 2, lectio 4n175.
Considered as causa efficiens proxima (efficient cause) of the rational (hu-

man) soul, God can be known by the light of natural reason. However, this kind
of knowledge goes beyond the natural philosopher’s investigation.43
Apart from studying the efficient cause, physics does not deal with the study
of the ultimate goal of the soul, which, according to Perera, is the clear super-
natural vision of God (clara visio Dei). He does not admit to any difference be-
tween the whole and the parts. According to his theory, the death of the body
is the death of the man. The ultimate end of physics is natural death.44
The knowledge of the natural philosopher is also incomplete concerning

the rational soul’s quiddity, namely its formal cause. On the one hand, the
rational soul is the form of the matter (forma materiae) which it gives to
a being, so it is bound to the body. On the other, the rational soul is not
a form coming ex potentia materiae (from the power of the matter), and
this is why it is separable from matter, and thus immortal. If in the first
case the physicist is qualified to study the soul, then in the second only the
metaphysician is able to do so, as Aristotle—in Perera’s interpretation—
and Aquinas claim.45 The natural philosopher is not able to know the to-
tality of the rational soul’s quiddity. According to Perera, physics does not
have the authority to deal with the two distinctive powers of the rational
soul—intellect and will—which are incorporeal and separate; nor does
it seem that these two powers pertain to physics.
Having saved the science of the soul from being reduced to physics, Perera
also sought to preserve the scientia de anima (science of the soul) from be-
ing incorporated into the field of metaphysics (“Scientia animae non est omni
ex parte metaphysica”). In order to do so, he put forward seven arguments,
according to which the science of the soul pertained to natural philosophy:
(1) the human generation of the rational soul, in which man concurs with the
creation of God from the outside (externe) through copulation; (2) the union
between the rational soul and matter; (3) the different ways in which the ra-
tional soul modifies, vivifies, preserves, and supports the natural body; (4) the
43 Perera, De principiis, book 1, Chapter 9, 18–19.

44 Ibid., 19.
45 Ibid., 18: “Tertia [opinio] est D. Thomae qui arbitratur animum nostrum, etiam secundum
Aristotelem, & immortalem esse, & veram atque naturalem formam corporis: quarum
opinionum perspicue constat solam tertiam esse veram quaenam autem proprior & con-
gruentior sit doctrinae Arist. summa Philosophorum dissentione certatur, sed utcunque
sit (neque enim hoc loco talis controversia diudicanda est) illud certe affirmari potest
[…].”
284 Lamanna
way in which man takes his place in the species of living beings and can be
enumerated among natural beings; (5) the way in which the rational soul leads
the remaining faculties of the soul (vegetative; sensitive) that man shares with
other animals to excellence; (6) the relation between intellection, volition, and
the rational soul; and (7) the way in which man’s intellection depends on men-
tal images (phantasmata).46
If we want to know how God infused immortality into man’s mortal body,
the soul’s eschatological goal, or its postmortem condition, we have to read
the holy scriptures. The Bible provides abundant information and predicates
about the human soul. This is why Perera says that the status of the science of
the soul must be extended to three distinct forms of knowledge: physics, meta-
physics, and revealed theology.47 This does not mean, however, that the scien-
tia de anima is an intermediate and independent science among these three.
Perera stated that the science of the soul does not have an autonomous
status because it consists in the knowledge of predicates provided by phys-
ics, metaphysics, and the holy scriptures.48 Even though Perera does not make
the science of the soul independent, his statement received much attention in
the debate on psychology that developed in Reformed Germany and Holland
among authors such as Arnisaeus, Bartholomäus Keckermann (1571–1609),
46 Ibid., 21.
47 Ibid.: “Nonnulla sunt, quae neque physice, neque metaphysice, neque per ullam scien-
tiam humanam sciri possunt de anima rationali, sed habentur cognita ex sacris literis, &
per lumen fidei nobis divinitus infusum, cuius generis sunt haec. Primo, quis sit ultimus
finis simpliciter animae rationalis, & quae sint necessaria ad talem finem consequendum.
Secundo, quis sit status animae rationalis post mortem hominis, an maneat apud nos an
potius concedat alio, an omnes animae in unum locum conveniant, vel aliae in alium,
quae sit, & ubi, talis varietas locorum; quid intelligant, quid agant, & quomodo; an perpe
tuo erunt spoliatae corpore; an reversurae sint ad corpus, & unum ad idem an ad diversa;
quo possint fieri eiusmodi reversio, & quando. Tertio, si animus est immortalis, quonam
consilio iunxit illum Deus cum mortali corpore? Videtur enim monstrosa talis coniunctio,
nam licet praedictae obiectioni occurri possint dicendo, Deum a principio cum hominem
condidit, immortalitatem quam natura denegaverat, corpori per gratiam dedisse, ita ut si
praeceptis eius obediret homo, illo singulari munere adiutus & conservatus, mortis peni-
tus expers vitam ageret immortalem. Licet, inquam, hoc vere possit responderi, tamen
hoc naturaliter cognosci nequit, sed ex sacris literis acceptum, fide tenemus. Non est igi-
tur dubium, quin multa multa de anima rationali cognita habeamus, quae a nulla scientia
humana discere potuimus, sed sacrosanctae Christianae fidei referre accepta debemus.”
48 Ibid., Chapter 10, 22: “[Marginal note: Non est scientia animae rationalis una & simplex,
sed varia & multiplex] ego non video quomodo talis scientia partim physica, partim
metaphysica, partim etiam ex revelatione pendens, una & simplex scientia dici aut esse
possit.”
and Makowski.49 Not only did Perera defend the (philosophical) role played
by the holy scriptures in psychological issues but he also proposed permanent-
ly including theology in the philosophical debates on the soul. Unlike Pietro
Pomponazzi (1462–1525), Perera claimed that the role of the doctrina revelata
within the philosophical debate was not solely to justify questions of faith.
6 Mathematics
In De principiis, Perera comes to a peremptory judgment on the epistemic sta-

tus of mathematics: mathematics is not a science, claims the Valencian Jesuit,
as explained in the various chapters of the first book of his work. De principiis
is not, in fact, a work with a coherent and linear structure, but is evolutionary
in nature, so that conclusions are derived in the different chapters from the
various steps Perera took during his lectures at the Roman College.
This is particularly apparent in the lectures on logic, physics, and metaphys-
ics that the Jesuit gave from 1558 to 1567, before taking up the chair in theology.
In his lectures on Aristotle’s De anima in 1566–67, Perera argues that meta-
physics and mathematics both go beyond the science of the soul (scientia de
anima) in terms of dignity and nobility (metaphysics) and certainty (math-
ematics) respectively.
As Perera points out, however, if these two criteria (epistemic dignity and
certainty) are used jointly and not distinctly, the science of the soul exceeds
all other sciences in epistemic dignity and certainty.50 It is likely that Perera
was here re-reading the first book of De anima, in which Aristotle states that
the study of the soul should deserve the first place for the dignity of its object
(i.e., the soul).51
49 See Marco Lamanna, “Theology in Psychology: The Impact of Theology in the Early Mod-
ern Debate on Rational Psychology,” Wolfenbütteler Renaissance Mitteilungen 32 (2008–
10): 163–83.
50 Benet Perera, In libros De Anima Praefationes an[ni] 1566 et [15]67. Romae habitae, MS
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, D426 inf., fols. 8r–v: “Nam metaphysica: in dignitate, et math-
ematica in certitudine superant scientiam de anima. Si vero accipiat coniunctive, sic vera
erit sentenntia Aritotelis: scientia de anima certe prima omnium, nam licet disiuncte
metaphysica superet in dignitate scientiam de anima, tamen superatur in certitudine.
Sicut licet mathematica superet in certitudine, vincitur in nobilitate nulla igitur scientia
est, quae tantam certitudinem habeat coniunctam cum tanta nobilitate, et tantam nobili-
tatem cum tanta certitudine, quam habeat scientia de anima.”
51 Aristotle, De anima 1, 1, 402a1–4.
286 Lamanna
At the same time, Perera sought to join the important tradition of early
modern commentaries on De anima, which assigned to the science of the soul
a high—in some cases, the highest—degree of certainty within the sciences.
Among the authors of these commentaries were Nifo, Genua, and Barozzi, a
pupil of Genua’s at the University of Padua. These authors advocated a simili-
tude between the science of the soul and mathematics regarding the degree of
epistemic certainty, drawing upon the indication given by Aristotle (Met. 2, 3,
995a15–16) concerning the maximal accuracy (ἀκριβολογία) of mathematics.52
In the following years (c.1567–76), Perera’s interest in mathematics would
have increased because of another debate that originated at the University of
Padua: the so-called quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum. Perera was par-
ticularly attentive to the epistemological issues that derived from the episte-
mological debate in Italy and in Europe. His lectures at the Roman College
became the intellectual testing ground for new hypotheses, which, after the
publication of De principiis in 1576, stood out for their radicalism within the
ensuing Scholastic debate. The quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum was
generated by the criticisms at the University of Padua of Averroes’s interpreta-
tion of the passage already quoted from Aristotle’s Metaphysics 2, 3 concern-
ing the maximal accuracy of mathematics. The Commentator claimed that
demonstrationes nam mathematicae sunt in primo ordine certitudinis (math-
ematical demonstrations are first in the order of certainty),53 an interpretative
tendency embraced and disseminated in the following centuries by authors
such as Albert the Great (c.1200–80), Aquinas, Giles of Rome (d.1316) and Nifo;
these authors acknowledged the status of simple (simpliciter) and most cer-
tain (potissimae) demonstrations for mathematical argumentations. In his
Commentarium de certitudine mathematicarum (Commentary on the accuracy
of mathematics [1547]), Piccolomini was the first in Padua to raise objections
against Averroes’s interpretation of Metaphysics 2, 3, also put forward by the
Commentator in a series of annotations on the Organon.
According to Piccolomini, mathematical reasoning did not deserve the
status of demonstrationes potissimae (most certain demonstrations) because
its demonstrations did not respect, in some cases, the fundamental can-
ons given in Posterior Analytics, such as their full translation into syllogistic
52 Aristotle, Metaphysica 2, 3, 995a15–16. As to the status of scientia media for psychology

and the similitude with mathematics, see Bakker, “Natural Philosophy, Metaphysics, or
Something In-Between?,” esp. 160–62.
53 Averroes, Aristotelis Metaphysicorum libri xiiii: Cum Averrois Cordubensis in eosdem com-
mentariis, et epitome, in Aristotelis Stagiritae omnia quae extant opera commentarii (Ven-
ice: Apud Iunctas, 1562; repr. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1962), 8:book 2, Chapter 3, fol.
35v.
d emonstration. The middle term of mathematical syllogisms (mainly geome-

try syllogisms) does not always explicate the essential properties of its subject,
but often only accidental ones. In his De la sfera del mondo (On the sphere of
the world [1540]), Piccolomini diminished—indeed, almost disclaimed—the
epistemic status of mathematics.54
What should be questioned here is not the degree of certainty or the per-
fection of mathematical demonstration, but the very possibility of defining
mathematics as a science within the epistemological context of Scholastic
Aristotelianism at that time. According to Aristotle, three components are
required for a science to be a science: a subject (ὑποκείμενον), the principles
(ἀξιώματα) of this subject, and the properties (πάθη) of the subject.55 But the
subject of science should always be a substance, not an accident. Piccolomini
revealed an intrinsic weakness in the Aristotelian conception of mathematics.
Taking quantity as its subject matter, mathematics was founded on an acci-
dent, because quantity is an accident and not a substance. This argument was
emphasized and became more radical in Perera’s work. Drawing upon the sta-
tus quaestionis that had caused the quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum,
Perera had already denied that mathematics was a science. During his courses
on metaphysics, he had in fact proposed the status quaestionis from which the
quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum had originated, arguing that Aristotle
multis locis appellat mathematicam esse certissimam (in many passages claims
that mathematics is the most certain of all the sciences) and that according to
Averroes mathematical demonstrations are above all in primo grado certitudi-
nis (in the highest degree of certainty). In a manuscript, however, Perera denied
mathematics the same epistemic status as that of physics and metaphysics.56
Unlike mathematics, physics and metaphysics could also obtain knowl-
edge of the properties of their respective subject matters through a causal
concatenation. Like Piccolomini, Perera started to question the causal nature
of mathematical demonstrations by applying a syllogistic model to them.
54 “Le matematiche pure […] come sono la geometria, et l’aritmetica, hanno per loro oggetto
il più imperfetto accidente, […] che è la quantità: et questa non considerano in mate-
ria sensibile, ma fondata nella imaginatione non come cosa in tutto finta, et chimerica,
ma come cosa; la cui radice finalmente ha qualche congiungimento con la natura”; Ales-
sandro Piccolomini, De la sfera del mondo (Venice, 1548), book 1, 2. On Piccolomini and
Perera, see also Rivka Feldhay, “The Use and Abuse of Mathematical Entities: Galileo and
the Jesuits Revisited,” in The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, ed. Peter Machamer (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 80–146.
55 Aristotle, Analytica posteriora 1, 10, 76b12–25; Metaphysica 3, 2, 997a5–9 and 997a17–21.
56 Perera, Opus metaphysicum, MS Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Urb. Lat. 1308, fols.
23v–24r.
288 Lamanna
Some quotations from Plato’s Republic (book 7) and Proclus’s (412–85) Com-
mentary on Euclid’s Elements supported Perera in his decision to deny the status
of science to mathematics, even though—as Perera rightly admits—neither
Plato nor Proclus had hypothesized that mathematics is not a science.57
By affirming that in mathematics there are not necessarily demonstrationes
de perfectissimo genere (i.e., demonstrationes potissimae), Perera reduced the
status of mathematics to mere speculation (cogitatio), excluding from it the
titles of “discipline” and “science.” Exactly as in the case of Piccolomini, the im-
possibility of demonstratio potissima in mathematics is related to the problem
of the middle term in syllogisms. In mathematical syllogisms, the middle term
often does not express a cause (an essence implying that the properties should
be demonstrated), but an accident, as when the geometer demonstrates that
the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to 180° with a syllogism such
as the following:
1. A triangle is a geometric object that has three angles.
2. The exterior angle of a triangle is equal to the sum of the two opposite
interior angles not adjacent to it.
3. The sum of the interior angles of a triangle is two right angles (180°).58
The middle term indicated here by Perera is “exterior angle.” It must be noted,
however, that in the Latin text the Jesuit seems to reduce the polysyllogism
that should be formulated to demonstrate that the interior angles of a triangle
add up to 180° to a unique syllogism. For this, he refers to a middle term (“exte-
rior angle”), which belongs to a sole proposition of the polysyllogism. Accord-
ing to Perera, it is evident that “exterior angle” cannot be considered the cause
of the triangle’s properties that have to be demonstrated (that the sum of the
interior angles of a triangle is 180°), because “exterior angle” is something ex-
ternal to the triangle’s definition. In this case, the middle term (exterior angle)
represents an accidental definition with respect to the major term of the syl-
logism (“triangle”), unlike in the (more classic) syllogism:
1. The triangle has the sum of its interior angles equal to two right angles
(180°).
2. The isosceles is a triangle.
3. The isosceles has the sum of its interior angles equal to two right angles
(180°).
In this case, the middle term is “triangle”; the definition of “isosceles” is evi-
dently implied in the more general definition of “triangle.”
57 Perera, De principiis, book 1, Chapter 12, 24.

58 Ibid., 24–25.
For Perera, the fact that, in some syllogisms of geometry, the middle term
is an accident represents a sort of “lever” for raising the question related to
the unsuitability of the subject matter of mathematics (i.e., quantity [continu-
ous or discrete]). The status of a science cannot be founded on an accident,
as quantity is. This is the definitive (and innovative) sentence formulated by
Perera against the scientific legitimacy of mathematics. This does not imply,
however, that knowledge of accidents is not possible, but only that the epis-
temic status of a science cannot be founded on a notion such as that of acci-
dent. Unlike substance, accident is a notion inevitably related to another and
is not self-sufficient. According to Perera, mathematicians do not adequately
debate the nature of their own subject matter in their studies, since they fail
to consider quantity as a pure accident. They also fail to describe the proper-
ties of quantity. Many fallacies shown by some demonstrative syllogisms of
mathematics therefore derive from a defective epistemological reflection on
the subject matter and nature of this discipline.
7 Between Renaissance Philosophy and Scientific Revolution
Studies have highlighted the impact of humanist and Renaissance

philosophies—especially neo-Platonism—on Perera’s works. The Jesuit was a
great reader of ancient and late antique commentators on Aristotle, such as
Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius, up to neo-Platonists such as Am-
monius Saccas (c.175–242), Porphyry, and Simplicius. Confirming his “belief” in
the libertas philosophandi, as in the controversy with Ledesma, Perera wanted
to test his philosophy against some of the most heretical philosophies of his
time, from the Corpus hermeticum to Pico della Mirandola’s cabalistic philoso-
phy, from Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535) to the syncretism of Agostino
Steuco’s (1497–1548) philosophia perennis.
Perera was strongly convinced that truth in itself is greater than that of a sin-
gle philosophy, even including the philosophies of the champions of the Cath-
olic faith, such as Albert the Great and Aquinas. According to Perera, traces of
truth can be found in every author and every philosophical work; nevertheless,
philosophical truths cannot deny or contradict the truth of Christian faith.
This is the way in which Perera rethought the heritage of the Fifth Lateran
Council and extended the application of the principle of truth—“Omne verum
vero consonat” (All truth accords with truth)—established by the bull Apos-
tolici regiminis, to any philosophy and author, even those explicitly interdicted
by the council, such as Averroes. Perera reaffirmed this principle in his com-
mentary on Genesis (1591) with the formulation “cum verum omne semper
290 Lamanna
cum vero congruat.” In his Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine (1615), Gali-
leo drew upon this work by Perera and the principle of the unity of truth in
order to support his concordism between the truth of science and the truth
of faith.59 Galileo undoubtedly had a different conception of science (particu-
larly of physics) than that of Perera. The Pisan scientist agreed with the Jesuit,
however, on the necessity that the biblical and non-biblical information on a
given topic can and should be harmonized. In this regard, historian of science
Pietro Redondi has argued that Galileo preferred Perera’s model of biblical ex-
egesis over that of other authors.60
However, Perera also used another truth criterion in order to establish the
truth of a philosophy: epistemic certainty. In this regard, it is particularly inter-
esting to examine Perera’s judgments on the cabalistic philosophy of Pico della
Mirandola. As already shown by Paul Richard Blum, Perera was familiar with
Pico’s Conclusiones philosophicae cabalisticae et theologicae (Cabalist conclu-
sions [1486]), especially the passage in which the Italian humanist provides a
definition of “cabalistic science” (scientia cabalistica). Pico della Mirandola di-
vided the Cabala into two parts: practical and speculative; the latter is further
divided into four different parts:
Whatever other Cabalists say, I divide the speculative part of the Cabala
[the science of names] in four ways, corresponding to the four divisions
of philosophy that I generally make. The first is what I call the science of
the revolution of the alphabet, corresponding to the part of philosophy
that I call universal philosophy [ego voco philosophiam catholicam]. The
second, third, and fourth constitute the threefold merkabah [chariot],
corresponding to the three parts of a particular philosophy, concerning
divine, middle, and sensible natures.61
59 See Benet Perera, Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim tomus prior (1591) (Lyon:
Cardon, 1599), 24. Galileo Galilei, Lettera a Madama Cristina di Lorena, in Le opere di
Galileo Galilei, ed. Antonio Favaro (Florence: Barbera, 1968), 5:320. A further occurrence
of this principle can be found in Galileo Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del
mondo, in Favaro, Le opere di Galileo Galilei, 7:80.
60 Redondi, Natura, 159.
61 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones cabalisticae numero lxxi secundum opinio-
nem propriam ex ipsis Hebreorum sapientum fundamentis christianam religionem maxime
confirmantes, in Conclusiones dcccc publice disputandae (Rome: Silber, 1486), 1–2, fols.
30r–v; English translation by Paul Richard Blum, “Pico, Theology, and the Church,” in Pico
della Mirandola: New Essays, ed. Michael V. Dougherty (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2008), 37–60, esp. 53.
Particularly attractive for Perera was the statement on the nature and epis-
temic status of the universal philosophy (philosophia catholica) proposed by
Pico della Mirandola. Starting from alphabetic principles and primary symbols
of the kabbalistic tradition, and following the technique of the temurah, gema-
triah, and notarikon, the Kabbalah is for Pico della Mirandola the science of the
“revolution of the alphabet” (revolutio alfabetaria), which aimed to explain the
complexity of the world, unlocking the mysteries of divine creation. In his De
magia (On magic [1591]), Perera seems, on the one hand, to eulogize the sym-
bolic and semantic richness of cabalistic philosophy, together with its claim of
universality.62 Yet, on the other, the Jesuit strongly delegitimizes the universal
science of the Cabala from an epistemic point of view.
According to Perera, the universal philosophy of the Cabala was mistaken
because it intended to denominate a genus, a species, and an individual with a
single word,63 all terms that must be distinguished from a logical point of view.
As Blum points out: “It is linguistically impossible that a single word can to-
gether indicate first and second intentions, substances and accidents,”64 as in
the case of the first triads of the sefirot, namely keter (crown), binah (wisdom),
and hokhmah (understanding), in which each term simultaneously indicated
a genus, a species, and an individual. According to Perera, this claim must be
denied in every language, not only in ancient Greek and Latin but also in caba-
listic languages (i.e., Hebrew). Perera’s criticism was founded on a logical issue
that delegitimized the (universal) science of the Cabala in itself. The real uni-
versal science of reality is not the Cabala but prima philosophia (i.e. Scholastic
ontology), which is grounded on a clear distinction between subjects and ob-
jects according to logical intentions.
Although Pico della Mirandola mentioned the doctrine of first and second
intentions of the Scholastic tradition in his Conclusiones, he did not develop it
as far as Perera, who gave to genus and species a fundamental epistemological
role in obtaining an ontology that was distinct from theology (i.e., a sort of sec-
ularization of Scholastic metaphysics). We can therefore say that the Jesuit’s
intention was that of putting the “Porphyrian tree” against the “sephirot tree”
from an epistemological point of view.
62 Benet Perera, De magia, de observatione somniorum et de divinatione astrologica libri tres

(Cologne: Gymnich, 1598), book 1, Chapter 10, 53.
63 “Dicunt enim, nomina quae Deus per Adamum cunctis rebus secundum suas cuiusque rei
proprietates imposuit, fuisse Hebraica, quibus rerum omnium substantiae, qualitates &
proprietates exprimantur: quocirca his nominibus naturales res appellanti, confestim res
omnes se illi subijciunt.” Ibid., 54.
64 Blum, Cognitio, 355.
292 Lamanna
Perera’s conclusions were somewhat sardonic, bordering on irreverent. If

the Jewish philosophers (i.e., the Cabalists) had truly achieved such a power-
ful and universal knowledge of reality, they would have surely liberated their
people from oppression and misery over the course of the 1,600 years between
the coming of Christ and the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem (70 ce).65
Hence, according to Perera, the universal science of ontology had a more solid
foundation than that of the Cabala.
Perera thus seems to confirm the fundamental orientation of his philosophy
along two “axes”: the unity of truth (according to the Christian Revelation) and
the epistemological foundation for knowledge.
Bibliography
Arnisaeus, Henning. De constitutione et partibus metaphysicae, tractatus. Frankfurt an

der Oder: Thimius, 1606.
Averroes. Aristotelis Metaphysicorum libri xiiii: Cum Averrois Cordubensis in eosdem
commentariis, et epitome, in Aristotelis Stagiritae omnia quae extant opera commen-
tarii. Venice: Apud Iunctas, 1562; repr. Minerva, Frankfurt am Main, 1962.
Bakker, P. [Paul] J.J.M. “Natural Philosophy, Metaphysics, or Something In-Between?
Agostino Nifo, Pietro Pomponazzi, and Marcantonio Genua on the Nature and Place
of the Science of the Soul.” In Mind, Cognition and Representation: The Tradition of
Commentaries on Aristotle’s De anima, edited by P.J.J.M. Bakker and J. [Johannes]
M.M.H. Thijssen, 151–77. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
Blum, Paul Richard. “‘Cognitio falsitatis vera est’: Benedictus Pererius critico della ma-
gia e della Cabala.” In La magia nell’Europa moderna: Tra antica sapienza e filosofia
naturale, edited by Fabrizio Meroi and Elisabetta Scapparone, 345–62. Florence:
Olschki, 2007.
Blum, Paul Richard. “Pico, Theology, and the Church.” In Pico della Mirandola: New
Essays, edited by Michael V. Dougherty, 37–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2008.
Bruno, Giordano. De innumerabilibus, immenso, et infigurabili. In Opera latine conscrip-
ta, edited by Francesco Fiorentino, Felice Tocco, H Vitelli, and Vittorio Imbriani.
Florence: Le Monnier, 1879–91.
Canisius, Peter. Epistulae et Acta. Edited by Otto Braunsberger. Freiburg im Breisgau:
Herder, 1913.
Casalini, Cristiano. “Pererio ‘cattivo maestro’: Su un cold case nella storia della pedago-
gia gesuitica.” Quaderni di Noctua 2 (2014): 59–110.
Courtine, Jean-François. Suarez et le système de la métaphysique. Paris: PUF, 1990.
65 Perera, De magia, book 1, Chapter 10, 56.

Devaux, Michaël, and Marco Lamanna. “Rise and Early History of the Term Ontology
(1606–1730).” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 9 (2009): 173–208.
Duichin, Marco. “Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas.” Bollettino della Società Filosofica
Italiana 182 (2004): 33–46.
Farrell, Allan P., trans. The Jesuit Ratio studiorum of 1599. Washington, DC: Conference
of Major Superiors of Jesuits, 1970.
Feldhay, Rivka. “The Use and Abuse of Mathematical Entities: Galileo and the Jesu-
its Revisited.” In The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, edited by Peter Machamer,
80–146. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Forlivesi, Marco. “Approaching the Debate on the Subject of Metaphysics.” Medioevo
34 (2009): 9–59.
Galilei, Galileo. Le opere di Galileo Galilei. Edited by Antonio Favaro. Florence: Barbera,
1968.
Göckel. Rudolph. Isagoge in primam philosophiam. Frankfurt am Main, 1598; repr.
Hildesheim and New York: G. Olms Verlag, 1976.
Guerlac, Henry. “Amicus Plato and Other Friends.” Journal of the History of Ideas 39
(1978): 627–33.
Lamanna, Marco. “Theology in Psychology: The Impact of Theology in the Early Mod-
ern Debate on Rational Psychology.” Wolfenbütteler Renaissance Mitteilungen 32
(2008–2010): 163–83.
Lamanna, Marco. “Mathematics, Abstraction and Ontology: Benet Perera and the Im-
possibility of a Neutral Science of Reality.” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Meta-
physics 14 (2014): 69–89.
Leinsle, Ulrich G. “Der Widerstand gegen Perera und seine Physik in der ober-
deutschen Jesuitenprovinz.” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 14
(2014): 51–68.
Lombard, Peter. In quatuor libros sententiarum. Frankfurt: Unveranderter, 1967.
Lukács, László, ed. Monumenta paedagogica Societatis Iesu penitus retractata multisque
textibus aucta, vol. 2, 1557–1572. Rome: IHSI, 1974.
Martini, Jakob. Exercitationum metaphysicarum libri duo. Wittenberg: Shurer, 1608.
Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della. Conclusiones DCCCC publice disputandae. Rome: Sil-
ber, 1486.
Perera, Benet. De principiis omnium rerum naturalium principiis et affectionibus libri
quindecim. Rome: Zanetti, 1576.
Perera, Benet. De magia, de observatione somniorum et de divinatione astrologica libri
tres. Cologne: Gymnich, 1598.
Perera, Benet. Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim tomus prior (1591). Lyon:
Cardon, 1599.
Redondi, Pietro. “Natura e scrittura.” In Il caso Galileo: Una rilettura storica, filosofica,
teologica, edited by Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, and Franco Giudice,
153–62. Florence: Olschki, 2011.
294 Lamanna
Rompe, Elisabeth M. “Die Trennung von Ontologie und Metaphysik.” PhD diss., Uni-
versity of Bonn, 1968.
Sander, Christoph. “The War of the Roses: The Debate between Diego de Ledesma and
Benet Perera about the Philosophy Course at the Jesuit College in Rome.” Quaestio:
Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 14 (2014): 39–50.
Scheibler, Christoph. Opus metaphysicum. Giessen: Hampel, 1617.
Suárez, Francisco. Disputationes metaphysicae. Salamanca, 1597.
Ventimiglia, Giovanni. “‘Magna est disceptatio tam inter philosophos quam inter the-
ologos’: Pererius e la questione della distinzione reale fra essenza ed esistenza.”
Quaestio 14 (2014): 167–94.
Villoslada, Ricardo García. Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppres-
sione della Compagnia di Gesù. Rome: Apud Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954.
Section 3.2
Madrid
∵
Chapter 12
Luis de Molina: The Metaphysics of Freedom

Alexander Aichele
Luis de Molina (1535–1600) has not just given the Society of Jesus its doctrine
of grace and human freedom; unlike many other early Jesuit thinkers, he also
features heavily in contemporary philosophical debates.1 For the most part,
these debates center on his theory of middle knowledge (scientia media) by
which God knows future contingents without determining them.2 Lying be-
tween natural knowledge (naturalis) entailing all possibly true propositions,
that is, every possible world, and free knowledge (libera), entailing every prop-
osition that is actually true, that is, the actual world, middle knowledge en-
sures both God’s foreknowledge and human freedom. As Molina holds radical
indeterminism, middle knowledge is his main defense against deterministic
arguments deeming human freedom illusionary, since man’s ignorance of fu-
ture events does not preclude their necessity: consciousness of acting freely
does not lead to indeterminateness of decision or future action.
Based on the Concordia3 and the Commentary4 on the first part of Thomas
Aquinas’s (1224/25–74) Summa theologiae, this chapter outlines the meta-
physical and logical background to Molina’s concept of freedom, which cul-
minated in his theory of middle knowledge. The first section of the chapter
analyzes Molina’s interpretation of metaphysical modality. The second then
treats freedom and the corresponding theory of causation, while the final part
1 On Molina’s life, work, and impact, see Friedrich Stegmüller, ed., Geschichte des Molinismus,
i, Neue Molinaschriften (Münster: Aschendorff, 1935), esp. 1–80; Johannes Rabeneck, S.J., “De
Ludovici Molina studiorum philosophiae curriculo,” Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu 6
(1937): 291–302; Frank B. Costello, S.J., The Political Philosophy of Luis de Molina, S.J. (1535–
1600) (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1974); and, more recently, Alfred J. Fred-
doso, “Molina. Luis de,” in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig, vol. 6
(London: Routledge, 1998); https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/molina
-luis-de-1535-1600/v-1 (accessed April 28, 2018).
2 See Ken Perszyk, ed., Molinism: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013).
3 Luis de Molina, Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedesti-
natione et reprobatione concordia, ed. Johannes Rabeneck, S.J. [Concordia hereafter] (Oña:
Sapientia, 1953).
4 Luis de Molina, Commentaria in primam Divi Thomae partem [Commentaria hereafter] (Ven-
ice: Minima Societas, 1602).

298 Aichele
of the chapter explains the necessity of Molina’s famous tripartition of God’s

knowledge.
1 Modalities
Contingency in general means being able to be or not to be. Metaphysically

contingent things or states of affairs may exist or not or may obtain or not.
Contingent propositions may be true or not or false or not. Contingency im-
plies possibility and excludes necessity. Contingent existence depends on
causes and contingent truth-values depend on reasons that have to be con-
tingent in themselves. As Molina firmly holds to the Aristotelian concept of
truth, according to which the truth or falsehood of a proposition depends on
the being or not-being of its subject matter, such priority of being itself lays the
focus on metaphysical modality. Since anything actual must be possible, we
start with potentiality, simply taken as the metaphysical variant of possibility.
1.1 Potentiality
As possibility consists in the absence of contradictory predicates, potentiality
consists in the absence of contradictory qualities destroying the identity of any
logical or metaphysical subject. In short, Molina adopts the classical analysis
of possibility as consistency.5
Treating the issue of God’s omnipotence, however, Molina distinguishes two
different meanings of being able to be:
One way in relation to a potency, because there is a potency in particular

by which it is able to be. The other way according to itself, because, just
considered a particular nature in itself, nothing conflicts with its being
among natural things whether there is a potency by which it is able to be
or whether the main reason for its not being able to be is that there is no
potency by which it is able to be.6
The second sense of potentiality is fundamental, since it defines being in

general:
All this is called being able to be in the second way, which, considered
in itself, can be produced without generating contradiction and, what is
5 Molina, Commentaria, q. 9, a. 1, disp. 2, 68.ia.

6 Ibid., q. 25, a. 3, 330.ic/d.
Luis de Molina 299
more, it can be comprehended, according to itself, under the concept of

being, that is, the concept of a thing with which existence does not con-
flict on its own terms.7
Any other combination of predicates or qualities amounts to nothing: “Though

whatever entails contradiction cannot have, according to itself, the concept of
being but cannot be grasped by judgmental cognition either just as a thing that
cannot be brought to actuality by any reason.”8
Three points merit attention here. First, anything that may be thought con-
sistently falls under the concept of being or thingness. A sharp distinction be-
tween non-being and nothing follows: anything referred to with a consistent
concept is something even if it does not actually exist. Non-being therefore
indicates potential actuality, whereas nothing signifies both logical nonsense
and metaphysical impossibility. Speaking about non-being things makes per-
fect sense. Second, any subject of consistent categorical judgment or sound
affirmative proposition refers to some potential thing becoming actual given
the right conditions. And, even more, as Aristotelian truth, at least in principle,
seems to presuppose just being but not actual existence, positive knowledge of
metaphysical non-beings should be possible. Third, since “to be omnipotent is
nothing other than to be able to do or to produce anything that is able to be,”9
and as anything a consistent concept refers to is able to be, in God logical pos-
sibility and metaphysical potentiality are equivalent.
Equivalence notwithstanding, both are formally distinct, as logical possibil-
ity indicates God’s intellect and knowledge and metaphysical potentiality his
will and power. In addition, the distinction between being or thingness and
non-being applies only to potentiality. If sheer conceptual consistency consti-
tutes thingness, any complex of terms that does not entail contradiction must
count as being in the same manner. From the pure intellectual viewpoint of
logical possibility, then, there are just beings and nothing else—as nothing as
such cannot possibly be the object of an intellectual act with respect to posi-
tive judgment. If, however, logical possibility leaves no room for non-being,
there can be none for contingency either, because, even though it implies pos-
sibility, contingency entails being able to be or not to be such that both parts
of the contradiction may be true and actual.10 In other words: since conceptual
7 Ibid., id.
8 Ibid., id/iia.
9 Ibid., ic.
10 On the ontological structure of logical possibility, see Jeffrey Coombs, “The Ontological
Source of Logical Possibility in Catholic Second Scholasticism,” in The Medieval Heritage
300 Aichele
determinations of things cannot include either infinite judgments or negative

predicates, there cannot be any contradiction within the realm of possibility.
Therefore, this realm contains just formally true propositions about different
things that enjoy equal logical and metaphysical rights, as they define concepts
or ideas existing in God’s mind, which may be brought to real or external exis-
tence by creation.
Potentiality, on the other hand, implies a relation to external existence
beyond God’s thought. It is only then that talking about non-being things as
non-being beings makes sense. Unlike purely conceptual or rational being,
potential being necessarily contains non-being as it may be actual or not, so
one and the same thing may exist externally or not while it lasts unchanged
in God’s intellect. And only then can the truth or falsehood of contingent
propositions addressing actual or unactual things be grasped and expressed
according to Aristotle’s definition, which, perhaps for this very reason, entails
non-being explicitly and identifies falsehood separately. Since pure possibility
excludes contingency as such, although it includes concepts of any potential
being, understanding contingency even involves the first sense of being able to
be. Without the relation to a potency that may bring non-being to actual being,
metaphysical possibility and, consequently, contingency would be impossible.
This relation, therefore, serves as a necessary condition of contingency: infer-
ring potentiality from contingent actuality holds as well as inferring possibility
from potentiality.
In the case of God, the second inference works in both directions: not just
anything potentially actual must be logically possible but also anything logi-
cally possible may be metaphysically actual. However, as logical possibility
excludes non-being, God cannot recognize potentiality by his intellect alone.
Since it is by willing that he brings potential being to actuality, his knowledge
of potentiality must be related to his will, without, however, having actualized
this potential. On the contrary, potentiality can only be stated for future events.
For actuality clearly destroys corresponding potentiality. So, in order to recog-
nize potentiality as such, God cannot have willed a particular non-being in a
way that it already has become actual. Moreover, he cannot have determined
future events from all eternity by having willed or willing them efficiently ei-
ther. For this may save their potentiality but, at the same time, it eliminates
future contingency.
in Early Modern Metaphysics and Modal Theory, 1400–1700, ed. Russell L. Friedman and
Lauge O. Nielsen (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), 191–229.
Luis de Molina 301
1.2 Extra — and Intramundane Contingency

Anything except God himself exists contingently. Again, Molina distinguishes
two meanings “in which a state of affairs may be said to be contingent.”11
The first sense covers propositional contingency: “A state of affairs is contin-
gent in the first sense when, if you think just of the natures of the terms, the
subject no more lays claim to the predicate that is affirmed of it than to the
opposite of that predicate.”12
As pure possibility’s realm has been left behind and the truth-values of con-
tingent propositions adjust to actual existence, Molina’s shift to logical entities
comes as no surprise. He simply describes the logical requirements to express
potentiality. First, the subject must behave indifferently toward the predicate,
thus excluding analytic judgements. Second, neither affirmation nor negation
of the predicate must result in contradiction. Both contradicting propositions
may be either true or false. The mere possibility of forming contingent propo-
sitions, however, does not lead to contingent potentiality. For logical contin-
gency does not prevent metaphysical necessity:
Contingency taken in this sense does not rule out fatalistic necessity. For
if all agents acted by a necessity of nature, then, without a doubt, even if
nothing pertaining to the natures of the terms were incompatible with
things turning out otherwise, everything that occurs would still, in re-
lation to its causes as constituted and arranged in such a universe, oc-
cur with a fatalistic and infallible necessity in just the way that it in fact
occurs.13
Molina repeats his distinction concerning possibility in relation to contingent

actuality. And, again, his introduction of natural necessity shows that logical
functions are not enough to elucidate the contingency of actual things or con-
ditions entailing realizable contradicting potentialities. Such intramundane
contingency requires adequate reasons going beyond God’s original decision
to create any particular world under any natural or causal laws and not to
intervene further. Remembering this intramundane sense of “metaphysical”
11 Concordia, 4, disp. 47, 293, ll. 14, 15. Translations taken from Luis de Molina, On Divine
Foreknowledge (Part iv of the Concordia), trans. Alfred J. Freddoso (Ithaca: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1988), 85. On the history of the problem of divine foreknowledge, see William
L. Craig, The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to
Suárez (Leiden: Brill 1988); and Richard Gaskin, “Molina on Divine Foreknowledge and
the Principle of Bivalence,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 32 (1994): 551–71.
12 Concordia, 4, disp. 47, 293, ll. 17, 18 (Freddoso, 86).
13 Ibid., ll. 21–6 (Freddoso, 86).
302 Aichele
as existing independently from intellectual or, more precisely, epistemic op-

erations of created things, is of vital importance in order to grasp the whole
meaning of Molina’s closing remark: “Thus, given this hypothesis, anyone who
knew all the causes in such a universe would thereby know infallibly and with
certainty all the things that were going to be.”14
The world according to Molina harbors not only natural but even free
causes. Therefore, no one is able to know all future things by knowing all natu-
ral causes. And since free causes in themselves bear upon their possible effects
indifferently, even knowledge of free causes as such could beget no knowledge
of future things. Thus intramundane freedom is a metaphysical fact, existing
independently from epistemic operations, and not just a particular state of
mind of particular things. Or to put it the other way around: it is not by lack
of knowledge that some created beings experience themselves as free but be-
cause they are free.
Intramundane contingency corresponds to the second sense
“because it rules out not only the necessity that has its source in the na-
tures of the terms, but also the fatalistic and extrinsic necessity that re-
sults from the arrangement of causes.” So given this universe of things
which we see around us and given that all the causes are arranged in just
the way they are now in fact arranged, such a [i.e., contingent future]
state of affairs is still indifferent as to whether it is or it is not going to
obtain by virtue of the same causes through which it ordinarily obtains.15
So there is a sense of contingency incompatible with both logical and natural

necessity. Embracing it, though, presupposes a source of contingency that in-
heres in particular kinds of things. Molina’s conclusions reveal which things
these are. The first conclusion establishes the transmundane source of contin-
gent actuality, namely God’s free will:
Since [ … ] no created thing is necessary in relation to the first cause, but

rather all were produced by Him in such a way that they were able not to
exist it follows that God’s free will should be regarded as the sole source
of all the contingency discerned (i) in the fact that there were things that
were first produced by God alone (as, for instance, in the original estab-
lishment of this universe with respect to all his parts and embellishments),

15 Ibid., 294, ll. 1–6 (Freddoso, 86/87).
Luis de Molina 303
and also (ii) in the fact that those things whose conservation depends on
God alone are conserved and continue in existence.16
Two areas of transmundane contingency depend solely on God’s free will,

namely the universe’s first constitution and the things that cannot be de-
stroyed by natural causes, that is, angels, heavens, human soul, and prime mat-
ter.17 Thus all the other things are subject to intramundane contingency. Both
types, however, originate in some singular being having a potency to act or not.
It distinguishes both from bare chance, which is why Molina, for conceptual
clarity’s sake, differentiates between free and apparently contingent causes
and effects:
In relation to effects of this sort, however, God should be called a free

cause rather than a contingent cause. Even though the effects themselves
were produced freely by Him and hence are not contingent effects in the
sense of having been produced accidentally or fortuitously by the con-
currence of two diverse causes and unintentionally on the part of both,
but are instead free effects, still, because they were able to be produced
and also are able not to be produced by their cause, and because they are
able to be conserved in the future and also are able not to be conserved by
the same cause, it can be said with absolute propriety that these effects
did and will exist contingently.18
Contingent effects in the proper sense are produced by free causes. Leaving
aside the issue of seemingly random effects in nature, Molina separates free
from natural causes. His categorical distinction removes created free causes
from the chain of natural causes, providing them with an intrinsic potency
to interrupt or to start causal sequences or to do nothing that is independent
from external determination within the negative and, hence, not determining
bounds of the things’ respective natures. In short, talking about the external
determination of free causes by natural ones is nonsense. To the contrary, it is
the free causes that, according to their nature, cannot help determining their
own actions for themselves—determining these being not exactly the same
as efficiently causing them. Rather, free causes seem to act on, modify, use, or
influence natural causes and processes (e.g., physical human life), which need
to be contingently determined further in order to match their own natures.
16 Ibid., 294, ll. 22–9 (Freddoso, 88).

17 Ibid., ll. 14–7.
304 Aichele
The mode of efficient causality alone is obviously too simple to be able to ex-
plain free actions and effects of secondary causes.
Molina’s second conclusion explicitly states this equivalence of free and
contingent effects:
If you excluded the free choice of both human beings and angels, as
well as the sentient appetite of brute animals with respect to those acts
wherein there is found a trace of freedom, and if you posited the universe
with its present constitution and assumed that God did nothing over and
beyond the common course and order imposed on things, then contin-
gency would be taken away from all the effects of secondary causes, and
everything would have to happen by a kind of fatalistic necessity.19
So, intramundane contingency draws on two sources:
The third conclusion is this: Given the same constitution of the universe
and given that God does nothing over and beyond the common course
and order of things, the primary, though remote, source of contingency
for the effects of all the secondary causes belonging to the natural order
is God’s will, which created the free choice of human beings and angels
and the sentient appetite of those beasts that seem to be endowed with
some sort of trace of freedom with respect to certain acts; on the other
hand, the proximate and immediate source is the free choice of human
beings and angels, along with the sentient appetite of beasts with respect
to those acts in which beasts seem to have a trace of freedom.20
Hence intramundane contingency implies, first, transmundane contingency,

that is, God having freely created a universe with free secondary causes pos-
sessing the potency to act independently from natural necessity; second, the
stability of this order, that is, God conserving the natures and existence of cre-
ated things without interrupting their proper actions; third, the reality of in-
tramundane freedom, that is, the power of certain kinds of things to act or not
to act at their own choice and to bring about the corresponding effects. Thus
intramundane contingency depends immediately on intramundane freedom
of choice, while not every contingent effect must be produced by a free cause
immediately, although each one originates from a free act:21
19 Ibid., 297, ll. 13–8 (Freddoso, 93).

21 Ibid., 298, ll. 5–8.
Luis de Molina 305
The reason is that most contingent effects emanate immediately from

natural causes, and yet the immediate source of their contingency is not
the natural cause itself, from which the effects are produced by a neces-
sity of nature, but is instead one of the three causes in question. […]
Hence, it is not only those effects that result immediately from the three
causes in question which are contingent; rather, the innumerable effects
of natural causes resulting from a combination of those three causes and
the natural causes in this universe are also contingent. Nor is contingency
in the effects of natural causes brought about only by variations arising in
the effects of natural causes because of the immediate influence of one
of the three causes in question; rather, contingency in these effects is also
brought about by any other variation that later arises from the immediate
effects of these three causes in any of the other effects of natural causes
which are easily altered when some circumstance is changed.22
True contingency not only carries transitivity but is also highly contagious, as
any contingent part of the causal history of any natural event makes it contin-
gent itself. Thus, provided that free causes exist, the universe proceeds with
intramundane contingency at any time, as even uninterrupted natural causal
sequences become contingent when free causes capable of interrupting them
exist. And since creation contains three sorts of free causes, including angels
and beasts, any worldly event could have happened in another way or not right
from the start, and for any actual state of affairs of the universe there is an infi-
nite number of possible sequels.
1.3 Necessity
Molina mostly concentrates on three variants of metaphysical necessity:
Third, notice that that which is necessary is understood in many ways.

Sometimes something is called necessary in relation to an end, and this
is usually named necessity of indigence regarding an end. Sometimes
something is called necessary extrinsically because it is forced to some-
thing and to be forced in this manner is called to be necessitated; that
which is necessary, however, is named by necessity of coercion as op-
posed to spontaneous and free. Sometimes that which is necessary is
taken for that which, due to its own nature, is unable to behave otherwise
being in this manner opposed to contingent and free as that which is free
is this which lies in the potency of free choice and is able to be or not to

306 Aichele
be. In that way the love with which God loves Himself is necessary and
natural but not free and contingent. “Necessary” is even used in other
ways which need not being followed up here.23
The increase of necessity is easy to see. It starts with a soft variant of condi-
tional necessity that is clearly compatible with spontaneity, freedom, and con-
tingency, moves to a harder one opposed to the first two but compatible with
the third, and ends at absolute necessity, which is compatible with the first
but opposed to the last two. Necessity of indigence applies to the means used
in order to reach a certain end, such as breathing and eating, which are neces-
sary means of sustainment, or housing and health, which are necessary means
of well-being.24 However, not only one’s breathing rhythm may be altered or
dishes may be chosen but even life may be abandoned at will. Thus, necessity
of means requires having chosen the end that it is the means to, and choosing
a certain end is not necessary in itself even if it is a natural one.
Necessitating coercion, by contrast, stems from extrinsic causes overriding
and blocking the spontaneity and freedom of an agent, condemning him by
external force to utter passivity. However, even necessity of coercion leaves
space for contingency, since it may well be a free cause using overwhelming
violence against another one.
The concept of essential necessity seems similarly easy to understand.
Obviously, no being is able to do something outright that would contradict
its own nature (e.g., a man starting to be a wombat or, in general, giving up
some essential feature that makes a thing a member of a particular species).
However, Molina does not speak about omissions of impossibilities but about
positive determination by essence implying spontaneity, that is, about being
metaphysically compelled to do something on its own, which means that a
certain kind of action cannot be omitted even it is spontaneous. It would be
incorrect to call this absolute necessity, as the thing acts under the condition
of its essence. So, if it had another essence, it might be able to omit the action
that it would be forced to carry out. However, allowing a thing to keep its iden-
tity without keeping its essence is certainly nonsense, and absolute necessity
obtains.
Nevertheless, another objection might be raised. Being able to do some-
thing and, consequently, not being able to do something, also refers to possible
or future actions, that is, to potencies that have to be active as such a thing acts
23 Commentaria, q. 41, a. 2, disp. 1, 466.iia.

24 See, e.g., Marsilius von Inghen, Quaestiones super quattuor libros Sententiarum (Leiden:
Brill, 2000), 2:q.10, a. 2, 48.
Luis de Molina 307
spontaneously. So, concerning these actions, either the activity continues as

long as the corresponding potency exists or it is triggered by external or inter-
nal circumstances. In the first case, absolute necessity obtains, but in the sec-
ond one it is only conditional, fulfilling the concept of fatal or natural necessity
without coercion.25 Molina’s example, clearly, matches the first case, and so it
seems as if absolute necessity concerned only internal acts of God. So it seems,
but, according to Molina, even temporal necessity becomes absolute:
It should be noted that a proposition that is merely contingent if we con-

sider the nature of the terms and the causes or principle from which the
joining of the predicate with the subject emanated, at times becomes ab-
solutely necessary because of some condition—not, to be sure, a condi-
tion that is imagined to be in it or that, though it is able to be in it and
able not to be in it, is nonetheless hypothesized to be in it, but rather
a condition that is actually in it in such a way that its being removed
involves a contradiction. For although the first two types of conditions
only make for a necessity that is relative and hypothetical—in the way
in which it is necessary that a horse have wings if it is flying, or in the
way in which everything that exists is such that, on the hypothesis that
it exists, it is necessary to exist—nonetheless, the third type of condi-
tion makes for an absolute necessity distinct from any relative or purely
hypothetical necessity. Thus, in this sense, even though it was absolutely
contingent that Adam existed (for he was freely produced by God), still
by the very fact that he has really existed, his having existed is now at the
present time necessary in such a way that his not having existed involves
a contradiction: for the fact that he existed can no longer be negated or
prevented in any way.26
A thing’s real or external existence as opposed to its formal existence in the

mind of God qualifies the corresponding predication of existence as absolutely
necessary, since denying it involves contradiction. This is due to the brute fact
that the possibility of the truth condition of the negation has been erased by
the thing’s existence. And if a proposition cannot possibly be true, it must,
formally, involve contradiction.27 However, this kind of absolute necessity only
25 Concordia, 1, disp. 1, 6/7.5.

26 Ibid., 4, disp. 52, 352, ll. 15–8 (Freddoso, 187/88). See Alexander Aichele, “Moral und Seelen-
heil: Luis de Molinas Lehre von den zwei Freiheiten zwischen Augustin und Aristoteles,”
in Politische Metaphysik, ed. Matthias Kaufmann and Robert Schnepf (Frankfurt am Main:
Lang, 2007), 59–83, esp. 78f.
27 Commentaria, q. 25, a. 3, 332.ia–333.iic.
308 Aichele
holds for the past or present, as contingency of existence implies the possi-
bility of ceasing to be. Therefore, first, any future state of affairs is, provided
free causes exist, metaphysically contingent; second, past or present states of
things contribute to their essences, since every quality acquired in past or pres-
ent inheres in the corresponding subject when acquired; and, third, each mo-
ment of a particular thing’s existence constitutes a true singular proposition
implicating analytically each past state of it without positively determining its
future states.
As the example of Adam’s creation shows, external acts of God also fall un-
der absolute necessity, although only in this temporal variant. The same goes
for free external acts of created things as Molina’s second example reveals,
clarifying further where the contradiction he has in mind emerges:
In the same way, even though it was likewise contingent that God fore-
knows that the Antichrist is going to sin at such-and-such point in time
(since if, as will be possible, he were not going to sin, then God would not
have foreknown that he is going to), nevertheless, by the very fact that
from eternity He did foresee this sin as future, it now involves a contra-
diction for Him not to have foreknown it, both because there is no power
over the past and also because no change can befall God.28
Again, the reason why contradictions happen when the existence of existing
things is denied is the obliterated condition of the negation’s possible truth,
which even God in his omnipotence cannot restore. Since contradicting is a
feature of propositions, these contradictions would have to be located at God’s
intellect. As God foreknows anything future as such, his foreknowledge would
be no knowledge at all when the state of affairs he foreknows would not be
going to obtain.
And here lies contradiction. Since eternity leaves no time for changes, God’s
intellect cannot contain a contradictory pair of singular propositions swap-
ping their truth-values, for then he would (fore)know and not (fore)know one
and the same thing simultaneously. From the metaphysical point of view, how-
ever, it is always possible that things might come out differently as long they
have not happened or do not happen right now. So, propositions concerning
future events brought about by free causes remain contingent as long as such
events are contingent, that is, as long as they are future ones, because their
truth-values depend on what happens but not on what will possibly happen
even if it is really going to happen, though when the potential becomes actual,
28 Concordia, 4, disp. 52, 352, ll. 28–33 (Freddoso, 188).

Luis de Molina 309
the contingent becomes necessary as it can no longer be changed. For the po-
tency to bring about this singular action has been eliminated by its actuality.
Therefore, again, the truth condition of the corresponding proposition’s nega-
tion no longer exists, its negation has become impossible, and absolute neces-
sity of the true proposition follows.
Obviously, absolute necessity of former contingent events affects the con-
cept of intermundane contingency itself: if any contingent event becomes
necessary when it happens, contingency can only refer to events that have not
happened or are yet to happen, that is, future events. Contingency inherent to
things, therefore, is nothing but their potency to act or to act otherwise or not
to act at all, which refers per se to future events. Contingents are, by essence,
future contingents.
2 Freedom
Molina defines freedom, or better, free choice (liberum arbitrium), in opposi-

tion to necessity. It is excluded by coercive and essential necessity, as analyzing
the double use of “at will” (libet) demonstrates:
In the first way it can be taken as opposed to coercion. Accordingly,

that which happens by itself is said to happen freely—may it happen
by natural necessity or not. […] Freedom taken in this way, however, is
not enough to say that someone had free choice whatever the Luther-
ans may say who, for this reason alone, want that we should have free
choice because we perform human actions by ourselves. In truth, accord-
ing to this concept, using free choice would have to be granted not only
children and madmen but even animals because they, too, take action by
themselves.29
As spontaneity denotes just taking action by oneself, it must be distinguished

from freedom, since free choice implies spontaneity but not vice versa. So, it is
not only physical coercion that takes away freedom but even essential deter-
mination understood as lack of choice, since both predefine a thing’s further
movement. Molina calls such a thing set to react to external or internal circum-
stances without any alternative a “natural agent in whose power it is not to act
29 Ibid., disp. 2, 13, l. 30–14, l. 7.

310 Aichele
but which, given all requisites for acting, acts necessarily and does one thing in
such a way that it is not able to effect the opposite.”30
2.1 Indeterminism
Molina opposes free choice to necessity insofar as it conclusively determines
a thing’s future acts, reducing each of its potential next conditions to only one
a time. Since free choice eo ipso warrants at least two different options, it in-
volves indeterminism. Molina is quite explicit about this:
In the other way, it can be accepted as it is opposed to necessity. Hence,

that agent is called free which, given all requisites for acting, is able to act
and not to act or does one thing in such a way that it is able to do even
the opposite. And based on that freedom, the faculty due to which such
agent is able to take action in this way is called free. Because, however,
it does not take action in this way except when it has been preceded by
choice and judgement of reason, that is why choice […] is termed free.
It follows that free choice (if it is conceded somewhere) is nothing but
the will in which the explicated freedom preceded by rational judgment
formally inheres.31
Putting it in Aquinas’s terms, free beings enjoy both freedom of contradiction

(or execution)—that is, they are able to act or not to act at all—and freedom
of contrariety (or specification)—that is, they are able to choose between dif-
ferent, positively defined options and to act accordingly.32 From the theoreti-
cal point of view, specification presupposes rational judgment simply because
choosing between different options presupposes knowing which these are.
Epistemically limited as the human mind is, choice will refer to different uni-
versals representing species of actions. The pondering, in comparison, has to
be done by practical reason prescribing moral or technical rules and guiding
the relevant faculties in execution of the option chosen.33 Neither showing
definite options nor prescribing rules is the same as deciding which option
to exercise or which rule to follow. Even if judgments about kinds of actions
and rules precede free choice so that it is rightly termed free, it is not practical
30 Ibid., 14, ll. 16–8.

31 Ibid., ll. 8–13.
32 On the relation between Molina and Aquinas, see Romanus Cessario, “Medieval Sources
and the Following Debates in Modern Times,” in A Companion to Luis de Molina, ed. Mat-
thias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 291–324.
33 Commentaria, q. 1, art. 4, disp. 1, 16.iic.
Luis de Molina 311
judgment that determines the following action by choosing a certain option.

Molina, if anything, seeks to avoid this form of intellectual determinism as it
tends to reduce sin to mere error: for judgment must precede free choice, and
so it has to be counted among its requisites.
Rather, at the core of freedom lies will being able to act or not just on mini-
mal intellectual contributions.34 Judgment only offers an occasion to choose,
and that is why it is necessary. Except beatific vision and unnoticed actions,
which it cannot omit, free will knows no bounds.35 Thus, the fundamental cri-
terion of free action consists in the potency of omitting some future action.
Once this potency is destroyed by acting, freedom regarding the selfsame sin-
gular action is eliminated, too. Therefore, will enjoys absolute freedom of con-
tradiction regarding an action until its execution: “And that’s why will attains
the concept of free choice not in relation to any of his acts but only in relation
to those which he is able not to bring about; wherein freedom is observed re-
garding an act’s execution.”36
Freedom, though, does not reach full range in the sheer negativity of pos-
sible omission. Rather, it only peaks at indifference to diverse options, which,
as such, remain to be defined positively. As mere freedom of contradiction im-
plies rejection or affirmation of either of the contradictory parts, it excludes
indifference to both: affirming the one is rejecting the other and vice versa.
Moreover, omission is definite because it consists in not bringing about the
particular action suggested by a contradiction’s positive part. So, in this case,
the kind of action to be done or omitted is already fixed. Therefore, choice
between different kinds of actions warrants indifference as it is indicated by
freedom of contrariety: “Now, when it [i.e., will] is simultaneously able to bring
about indifferently this act or a contrary one, freedom is observed even regard-
ing the kind of action that meets the concept of full and perfect freedom as
they call it.”37
At this point, it is important to remember that real actions in general and
as they are brought about by willing are singular events, and so the acts of will
themselves for its potencies to do this or that under certain circumstances are
also singular. Since human intellect represents only universal species of ac-
tions, willing functions as the principle of individuation of acts. And it seems as
if such singular determination equates to causing contingent and free effects.
34 Concordia, 1, disp. 2, 15, ll. 28–34.

35 Ibid., 14, ll. 28–31.
36 Ibid., l. 31.
37 Ibid., ll. 33–6.
312 Aichele
2.2 Concurrence and Causation

Molina treats the issue of free causation while discussing the impact of God’s
general concurrence on secondary causes, that is, created beings owning some
natural power to act, especially those provided with free choice.38 Concerning
free acts, he claims causal interdependence of the primary cause, which is God
and the relevant secondary causes. His main theses are indifference of God’s
influence in relation to the possible effects of freely acting beings and the in-
dependence of these secondary causes in determining their acts indifferently.
Unlike God’s special concurrence, which is restricted to the supernatural ef-
fects of grace, his general concurrence pertains to the existence and action of
any secondary cause. Regarding the former, his immediate influence produces
and conserves the actual existence of things in accordance with their particu-
lar nature; regarding the latter, as production and existence result from or con-
sist in secondary causes’ actions and effects, general concurrence affects these
immediately.39 Further, as they change the world, general concurrence saves
these effects beyond the acting of secondary causes answering their natural
indigence.40 Since necessity of indigence does not eliminate spontaneity, con-
tingency, or freedom, the immediate influence of God’s general concurrence
focuses only on actions or effects brought about by secondary causes, but it
does not affect and even less determines their internal causal activity. In other
words: general concurrence is not sufficient to cause those actions and effects,
and it concurs indifferently.41
The same holds, of course, for secondary causes, since their efficiency de-
pends on general concurrence. Both have to act together in producing external
effects. Molina introduces both as necessary conditions:
No influence of both, namely the general one of God and the particular
one of the secondary cause, however, is superfluous for God affects by
general concurrence like a universal cause with an influence indifferent
in relation to different actions and effects, but they are determined to a
kind of action and effect by the influence of the secondary causes being
different after the difference of each one’s faculty to act or, if it is a free
cause, it is in their power to wield influence in such a way that rather this
than that action is brought about—I am meaning rather to will than to
38 On this topic, see Alfred J. Freddoso, “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Sec-
ondary Causation in Nature,” in Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of
Theism, ed. Thomas V. Morris (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 74–118.
40 Ibid., ll. 24–7.
41 Ibid., ll. 27–30.
Luis de Molina 313
not will or rather to walk than to sit—and rather this than that effect,
preferably this than that artefact, or even to suspend influence at all so
that there is no action at all. Then, God’s general concurrence is deter-
mined by particular concurrence of the secondary causes […].42
As neither concurrence is superfluous, both are necessary, and as a universal

cause as such has no specific effect, a particular one is needed to get some de-
finable effect, that is, to determine the effect brought about.43 Molina further
specifies the contribution of both in terms of mutual interdependence:
Because thus God’s general concurrence and the particular one of the
secondary causes depend on each other that they may exist in nature,
that is why by God’s stopping the influence of his universal concurrence
as he has done in the case of the Babylonian Fire in order not to burn the
three young men and with the eyes of those he has concealed himself
from as he left the temple, the secondary cause’s influence and action
cease instantly as well as by the secondary cause’s stopping the influence
of its particular concurrence even divine influence ceases and no action
follows.44
Within the scope of Aristotelian causal analysis, which Molina thoroughly

acknowledges,45 the distinct functions of general and particular concurrence
or universal and particular cause become manifest: since the universal cause
lends efficiency to the particular one whose internal activity would remain
sterile concerning external action, general concurrence acts as efficient cause
of the latter’s actions. However, causal power of general concurrence, for its
inherent indifference being able to bring about any effect possible that equates
to universality, has no specific aim. Therefore, particular concurrence has to
provide some specification without which, likewise, no action would result.
For there can be no indefinite events, things, or conditions, as without bijective
identification there would be no metaphysical identity at all. However, the par-
ticularity of secondary causes, as Molina introduces it, does not reach singular-
ity, whereas any possible effect must be singular. He even stresses this point to
emphasize that, without further specification, one and the same action might
42 Ibid., 167, ll. 15–28.

43 Ibid., 168, ll. 19–22.
44 Ibid., ll. 26–32.
45 See Alexander Aichele, “The Real Possibility of Freedom: Luis de Molina’s Theory of Ab-
solute Willpower in Concordia i,” in Kaufmann and Aichele, Companion to Luis de Molina,
3–54, esp. 6–7, 29–50.
314 Aichele
be, without any intrinsic difference but under different circumstances, sin-
ful or morally right.46 Particular concurrence, however, instead provides the
kind of action to be carried out, which is merely a universal determination.
And as conceptual universality stems from intellect, Molina is obviously talk-
ing about intellect’s contribution to free action, which makes such particular
concurrence its formal cause. So, although Molina declares that the combina-
tion of universal and particular cause leads to one singular effect, its integral
cause is not complete in the sense of being necessarily followed by external
action. For, even then, free will may abstain from acting, as the integral cause
only comprehends everything necessary for acting.47 Thus, free will can ac-
cept or refuse to take action or it may not act at all. This means that only free
will’s acting supplies the external action’s final cause being singular, since it
consists in a singular event even if its identity cannot be known completely
by a created mind. In order to act, the indifferent cognition of an action’s sin-
gularity, if it is willed, is enough.48 Free choice, that is, the act of will giving up
its indifference and thereby destroying its own potencies to act otherwise at
this moment of time, therefore, brings the still absent element of singularity
into free causation. And this is what determination of an act in its full sense
means.
In summary, general concurrence provides efficiency indifferently in re-
lation to any possible effect possibly brought about by secondary causes,
whereas their particular concurrence determines the actual effect. Free causes
behave indifferently regarding their future actions, which are restricted only
negatively by their natures. First, possible actions have to be determined by
universal specification, which is the task of the intellect. Such intellectual de-
terminations are the object of free choice being able to will and to nill and
to make other choices or to remain indifferent. So, intellectual determination
refers only to possible actions, which may be executed or not. Knowledge of
these alone can never bring about singular actions, as it does not refer to those
but only to universal kinds. Actual determination of a singular action consists
in its execution. This demands more than the mere presence of the require-
ments to act. For the integral cause comprehending God’s general concurrence
and human intellect’s particular concurrence is only effective in the case of
positive volition. Free will, however, is able to nill and to choose otherwise or
not to act at all and remain indifferent. Therefore, free will may abstain from
action even if such integral cause is given because will alone determines itself

47 Ibid., disp. 26, 170, ll. 16–24.
48 Commentaria, q. 15, a. 1, disp. 2, 228.iic.
Luis de Molina 315
by its own acting to some singular action of a particular but universal kind,
which will be induced indifferently by God’s general concurrence. Thus, neces-
sity of causal consequence starts only with the act of free choice, that is, only
when the action starts. Therefore, there is no such thing as necessity of future
action.
3 Knowledge
Man individuates his own free actions by choosing a particular species of ac-
tion. In doing so, he brings about a singular action by a singular act of will.
Therefore, in the strictest sense of being able to identify conceptually a sin-
gular thing among all possible other singulars of the same kind, man cannot
know what he is doing when he is willing it because he is unable to form indi-
vidual concepts corresponding to singular entities. For his intellectual facul-
ties are bound to propositions defining or inferring their objects by universals
of greater or lesser extension that never reach singularity. Man’s manner of
cognition is discursive, and each possible judgment that identifies contingent
singulars using universals is fallible. God, on the other hand, has no need for
universals or inferences because he knows everything that can be known by
simple intuition.49 He recognizes anything that is different from him, never
stopping “at some predicate common to these things.”50
God recognizes singulars through ideas, that is, models of possible external
things. As he is able to create anything possible, he commands the ideas of
any possible singular, knowing it by insight into his own essence.51 And since
he has no need for universals, each idea in God is singular and, hence, not
completely analyzable or translatable by universals.52 If God knows everything
possible and, therefore, a fortiori, anything that is actual by his own unchange-
able essence, then, how can things exist that are able to determine their own
future actions by free choice? Molina solves the problem with his famous doc-
trine of middle knowledge, situated, by definition, betwixt natural and free
knowledge.53 All of these relate to beings different from God or created and
creatable things.
49 Ibid., q. 14, a. 7, 146.iic–147.ia.

50 Ibid., a. 5/6, 142.ia.
51 Ibid., q. 15, a. 1, disp. 2, 227.ib.
52 Ibid., q. 15, a. 3, 230.iia.
53 On this issue, see Sven K. Knebel, “Scientia media: Ein diskursarchäologischer Leitfaden
durch das 17. Jahrhundert,” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 34 (1991): 262–94.
316 Aichele
3.1 Natural Knowledge

First, God recognizes beings
insofar as God recognizes thereby that he is able to make those and that
they can be made in this or that way that they may exist as well as that
they may be apt to this or that end. Considered in this vein, divine knowl-
edge in God is natural and not free and antecedes the act and free deter-
mination of will with which God decides to make those at such-and-such
a time.54
Evidently, natural knowledge deals with the possible. Molina takes it as non-
being having no actual existence beyond God’s mind.55 As the emphasis on
possible creation shows, natural knowledge is basically knowledge through
ideas, and it is natural because it follows necessarily from the nature of God. It
comprehends, in fact, not only “everything that may exist by some reason, al-
though it is never going to, but even that which may be made up or thought
although it cannot exist in no way.”56 As Molina’s examples show, it is by natu-
ral knowledge that God recognizes universals, even though he has no epistemic
use for them.57 Since his natural knowledge consists of singular concepts, it
entails every change a possible singular being may undergo or produce. Other-
wise, he would not know how to distinguish every possible singular from each
other. Therefore, he knows by knowing every singular logical or fictional object
of human thought from chimeras to relations and any rational entity—and,
of course, every act of created will possible. In short: God’s natural knowledge
comprehends any possible condition of any possible singular thing, which in-
cludes any possible relation of each possible thing to another possible thing,
that is, any possible world.
As there is nothing more to know, the modal difference of possibility and
actuality makes no epistemic difference to God, who knows both the things
existing and not existing by one and the same simple cognition.58 Thus, the
classical distinction between abstract (scientia simplicis intelligentiae) and in-
tuitive (visionis) knowledge does not refer to the mind of God but to the things
known, and it is modeled on the human point of view: the former indicates
pure possibility, that is, “such being is not present and does not exist actually,”
54 Commentaria, q. 14, a. 8, 147.id.

55 Ibid., a. 9, 147.iic.
56 Ibid., iid.
57 Ibid., 148.ia.
58 Ibid., id.
Luis de Molina 317
whereas the latter indicates reality—and, ultimately, necessity—that is, “that

those which are seen, for us, possess external being different from the one who
sees.” On the part of God’s intellect, therefore, there is no difference between
possible and actual beings different from him.
3.2 Free Knowledge

But the difference of possible and real being has to be reflected in God’s mind
somehow. And since reality depends on the will of God or on being created,
there has to be a kind of knowledge that comprehends his will
but in the other way insofar God recognizes through it that creatures are
future at such and such time. And considered in this vein, it is not natural
in God but free and does not antecede free determination of will with
which God decides that they exist at such and such time but rather it fol-
lows this decision. For because God has willed freely to create the world
and that these or those things exist he has known that the world along
with these or those things is the future one at such-and-such a time. But
not conversely: because he has known the future world is the reason why
he has willed that it would exist lest He would not have known that this
world would be the future one if he would have nilled that it would exist.
Knowledge, thus, of future contingents, that is, that they are the future
ones, depends on free determination of God’s will, with which he decides
that they exist and, hence, it does not antecede but follows.59
Free knowledge draws on natural knowledge, presupposing it systematically

like the actual is presupposing the possible. The reality of things different from
God consists in their external existence beyond God’s mind. Such existence,
however, requires another form of being than the one in which things are
known through ideas in God’s intellect. For in order to pass all those differ-
ent states of affairs representing their singularity, they have to exist in time,
successively actualizing their respective idea’s content. Otherwise, they would
have to be in contradicting states of affairs and could not exist externally at
all. So when God creates by free choice a world being the inclusive concept of
all things existing externally, he is bound to create them in time. And he does
that just once, thereby deciding which ones among the infinitely many pos-
sible things shall become actual. This decision’s content is, basically, the object
of free knowledge.
59 Ibid., a. 8, 147.id–iia.
318 Aichele
It seems as if, by deciding to create, God would have not only determined
the succession of the states of affairs each thing is going to pass through but
also caused it efficiently, just like he gains full free knowledge at one stroke.
Obviously, then, intramundane contingency would have been obliterated in
the moment of creation. But that is not the case. For God does not and cannot
create the world taken as the whole of all actual states of affairs from creation
to judgment day at one stroke. The object of creation, rather, is the world’s first
state of affairs, which exhausts transmundane contingency except immediate
miraculous acts of God and potentially contains any further state of affairs.
And since God acts through his will, and free knowledge refers to that, each
of its objects has to be actual. Otherwise, free knowledge could not be distin-
guished from natural knowledge because every future state of affairs is just a
possible one. Free knowledge, therefore, is the form of knowledge
by which God knows absolutely, without any hypothesis, what is in fact

going to happen because created free choice is always free knowledge in
God, and such knowledge depends on the free determination of his will,
a determination by which he decides to create such-and-such a faculty of
free choice in such-and-such an order of things.60
Even if God decides freely which singular world is to be created, he cannot

will to bring its temporal whole into existence with that very same act. Rath-
er, he has to do so successively, which he does by general concurrence. It fol-
lows that, at every moment of time the world is existing, there also exists an
ocean of potential future states that cannot be eliminated since they are not
yet efficiently willed by God and, therefore, are not actual yet. And because
free causes inhabit the created world infinitely, many future states remain pos-
sible until they become actual, even if God foreknows with absolute certain-
ty of free knowledge which ones that might be. So, regarding created things,
free knowledge is knowledge of the states of the world that have been or are
now actual. Therefore, it relates to something necessary insofar it cannot be
changed anymore since the actuality of a particular state of affairs obtaining
at a particular moment eliminates any potency of being otherwise at the same
moment, which potency remains if a future state of affairs has not become
actual yet. In other words—even if using inflected verbs is inadequate in his
case, God may know by insight into his own essence what he is possibly going
to will at any time before he has so willed it, so that it becomes actual but he

Luis de Molina 319
cannot know before he has willed it that he has willed it efficiently and it has
become actual.61
3.3 Middle Knowledge

This time-honored distinction, however, opens a gap within God’s epistemic
household. It does not affect the logical part of his knowledge, as he is not
only able to distinguish all possible singulars from each other but he also com-
mands a complete individual concept of each singular, enabling him to identi-
fy each one absolutely. And there is nothing more to know about beings in the
categorical department than God already knows through his natural knowl-
edge. But from the metaphysical point of view, simply dividing natural and free
knowledge is not enough to comprehend modality—and, as usual, “three shall
be the number thou shalt count.” Natural knowledge covers all that is possible,
that is, any being at all, while free knowledge covers anything necessary, that
is, any external being as it exists. So, either there would be no intramundane
contingents at all or God could not know them when they were, or, temporally
spoken, God would know past and presence but could not know the future as
such. For future states of affairs are part of the possible, but not any possible
denotes a potential future state of affairs as these are restricted both by trans-
mundane contingency and the succession of the world’s states of affairs until
each present moment in which each time an infinity of potencies for future
sequels is eliminated. Futurity as such depends on creation. One starts to see
why the tripartition of God’s knowledge relates only to external things.
So, it is for the metaphysical sake of external things’ modality or temporality
that a third kind of divine knowledge has to be introduced in order to grasp
future beings, which are, in contrast to mere possibles, potentials. Molina does
precisely that. He baptizes the result middle knowledge, as it lies between nat-
ural and free knowledge. Obviously, such knowledge must contain not only
those contingents that are, indeed, going to be, but even those that, though they
will never obtain, are potential sequels of each present state. Without the for-
mer, there would be no absolute foreknowledge of the future; without the lat-
ter, there would be no contingency. Middle knowledge, therefore, includes all
true future contingents and the corresponding counterfactuals as well.62
How does middle knowledge identify those future contingents that are going
to obtain among all the counterfactuals that will never obtain? The easy way
out is blocked, since God has no middle knowledge of his own determinations
61 Ibid., ll. 26–34.

62 See also Petr Dvorak, “Divine Knowledge of Future Contingents and Necessity,” in
Kaufmann and Aichele, Companion to Luis de Molina, 55–88.
320 Aichele
of will, which are the exclusive object of free knowledge.63 To be sure, God will
never be surprised when things are going as he has willed, for he has decided
to create this world and none other. However, again, in much the same way as
his foreknowledge does not command his own will, nor does he command the
free choices of secondary causes but refers to that which such “being would do
on the hypothesis that it should be placed in a particular order of things—this
knowledge depends on the fact that the being would in its freedom do this or
that, and not the other way around.”64
Hypothetical creation or futurity, in contrast to free knowledge’s absolute-
ness, emerges as key to middle knowledge. Although, in substance, it adds
nothing to natural knowledge, it opens God’s mind to causal or temporal se-
quences of events involving free causes, thereby integrating intramundane
contingency in those sequences. In brief: middle knowledge entails all poten-
tial states of such a mundane sequence, and, therefore, saves the correspond-
ing potencies even in the realm of free knowledge with the result that God’s
own free determination to create a certain order of things bears no determin-
istic consequences in relation to free secondary causes:
For that free act regarding the things that are able to be done by God—an
act in itself infinite, unlimited, and lacking any shadow of alteration—
freely determined itself to one part of a contradiction with respect to all
possible objects at once, not only (i) by freely establishing those things
that he decided to bring about or to permit and by freely deciding not to
bring about or to permit the rest, but also (ii) by freely deciding which
things He would have willed on any hypothesis that could have obtained
and did not obtain.65
Middle knowledge is instrumental in saving contingency by preserving mun-

dane potencies because free knowledge draws on it as, in fact, it presents to
his will the mundane objects of his possible choice without anticipating his
actual determination. For middle knowledge shows “on the hypothesis that His
will should choose to determine itself to one or another order of things and
circumstances, what each created faculty of choice would in its freedom will
or do within that order.”66 Therefore, by determining freely to create a certain
63 Concordia, 343, ll. 5, 6.

64 Ibid., 341, ll. 4–6 (Freddoso, 170).
65 Ibid., 343, ll. 8–14 (Freddoso, 173).
66 Ibid., 3, ll. 30–2 (Freddoso, 174).
Luis de Molina 321
order of things, God also determines which potencies are going to exist in it
even if they shall never become actual.
Since willing an indeterminate act is impossible, middle knowledge sys-
tematically precedes God’s act of choice, like natural knowledge indifferently
comprehending anything knowable precedes middle knowledge. As God, due
to his essence, is unable to know anything other as he knows naturally, free
knowledge implies that his free choice relies on opposites to choose from.67
These are provided by middle knowledge representing any possible course of
events involving free causes on the hypothesis of its creation, that is, represent-
ing creatable orders of things that mutually exclude each other, and, finally,
possible objects of choice. So, middle knowledge belongs neither to the realm
of natural nor free knowledge, as it entails elements of both:
Therefore, it should be said (i) that middle knowledge partly has the
character of natural knowledge, since it was prior to the free act of the
divine will and since God did not have the power to know anything else,
and (ii) that it partly has the character of free knowledge, since the fact
that it is knowledge of the one part rather than the other derives from the
fact that free choice, on the hypothesis that it should be created in one
or another order of things, would do the one thing rather than the other,
even though it would indifferently be able to do either of them.68
Molina justifies the indeterminateness of the real world’s future states of af-
fairs despite God’s inevitable full knowledge of each singular because it does
not touch the contingency of external things. His explanation further exploits
the difference between unchangeable knowledge and contingent existence or,
putting it bluntly, between logic and metaphysics:
Finally, the third type is middle knowledge, by which, in virtue of the

most profound and inscrutable comprehension of each faculty of free
choice, He saw in His own essence what each such faculty would do with
its innate freedom were it to be placed in this or in that or, indeed, in in-
finitely many orders of things—even though it would really be able, if it
so willed, to do the opposite.69
67 Ibid., 340, ll. 8–16.

68 Ibid., ll. 17–22 (Freddoso, 169).
322 Aichele
Molina usually refers to this doctrine of supercomprehension,70 as the more

recent literature calls it, with the expression of God comprehending or bear-
ing in mind something “eminenter,” that is, in a sharply outstanding way. This
undoubtedly points to God’s cognition of individuals by singular ideas that
he beholds in his unchangeable essence. So Molina is perfectly right when he
declares that such cognition transcends the thing’s own metaphysical modal-
ity in which it is existing externally. In other words, by supercomprehension,71
God recognizes more of a singular thing than even its complete analysis at
each moment of its external existence would reveal:
Thus, while the full force of created free choice is preserved and while
the contingency of things remain altogether intact in the same way as if
there were no foreknowledge in God, God knows future contingents with
absolute certainty—not, to be sure, with a certainty that stems from the
object, which is in itself contingent and really able to turn out otherwise,
but rather with a certainty that flows from the depth and from the infi-
nite and unlimited perfection of the knower, who in Himself knows with
certainty an object that in its own right is uncertain and deceptive.72
Molina’s analysis, ultimately concerning the relation of God’s intensional logic

and worldly metaphysics, is inescapable: external existence is constitutively
contingent. Contingency implies potentiality. Therefore, the singular nature of
anything existing externally is not fixed, except negatively, as long as it exists.
In each moment of its existence, its future states may turn out differently ac-
cording to its potencies, especially free choice, and the circumstances under
which it exists. Therefore, externally existing singulars are metaphysically in-
different in themselves insofar as the mutually exclusive actualization of their
potencies at each moment of their existence exactly depends on which singu-
lar they are or, perhaps better, which possible world among the infinitely many
worlds that are possible under the fixed condition of their present actuality
they belong to. Deciding truthfully on this membership is impossible from the
viewpoint of metaphysical contingency and that is why a limited intellect be-
ing itself part of a contingent world is not able to assign definite truth-values
to singular propositions, much less to future contingents.
70 See Alfred J. Freddoso, “Introduction,” in Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, 1–81, here 51.
71 Among the first efforts at understanding the concept of supercomprehension in Molina,
see José Hellín, “Ciencia media y supercomprehensión en Molina,” Miscelánea Comillas
(1967): 299–318.
Luis de Molina 323
An infinite mind, on the contrary, is able to do exactly that. Therefore, God’s

knowledge of singulars transcends their contingency, as he knows precisely
which possible world they are and will be part of. And since such knowledge
refers to potential or, regarding their future states, partially non-being external
things, it does not and cannot take away the corresponding potencies, nor their
freedom, as this would falsify such knowledge, which has to include all poten-
cies never actualized and, finally, eliminated. Middle knowledge, therefore, is
the logical refuge for metaphysical contingency as such.
Bibliography
Aichele, Alexander. “Moral und Seelenheil: Luis de Molinas Lehre von den zwei Frei-
heiten zwischen Augustin und Aristoteles.” In Politische Metaphysik, edited by Mat-
thias Kaufmann and Robert Schnepf, 59–83. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2007.
Aichele, Alexander. “The Real Possibility of Freedom: Luis de Molina’s Theory of Ab-
solute Willpower in Concordia i.” In A Companion to Luis de Molina, edited by Mat-
thias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Cessario, Romanus. “Medieval Sources and the Following Debates in Modern Times.”
In A Companion to Luis de Molina, edited by Matthias Kaufmann and Alexander
Aichele, 291–324. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Coombs, Jeffrey. “The Ontological Source of Logical Possibility in Catholic Second
Scholasticism.” In The Medieval Heritage in Early Modern Metaphysics and Modal
Theory, 1400–1700, edited by Russell L. Friedman and Lauge O. Nielsen, 191–229.
Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
Costello, Frank B., S.J. The Political Philosophy of Luis de Molina, S.J. (1535–1600). Rome
and Spokane: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu and Gonzaga University Press,
1974.
Craig, William L. The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from
Aristotle to Suárez. Leiden, New York, and Cologne: Brill 1988.
Dvorak, Petr. “Divine Knowledge of Future Contingents and Necessity.” In A Compan-
ion to Luis de Molina, edited by Matthias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele, 55–88.
Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Freddoso, Alfred J. “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Secondary Causa-
tion in Nature.” In Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism,
edited by Thomas V. Morris, 74–118. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
1988.
Freddoso, Alfred J. “Molina. Luis de.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited
by Edward Craig. Vol. 6. London: Routledge, 1998; https://www.rep.routledge.com/
articles/biographical/molina-luis-de-1535-1600/v-1 (accessed April 28, 2018).
324 Aichele
Gaskin, Richard. “Molina on Divine Foreknowledge and the Principle of Bivalence.”

Journal of the History of Philosophy 32 (1994): 551–71.
Hellín, José. “Ciencia media y supercomprehensión en Molina.” Miscelánea Comillas
(1967): 299–318.
Knebel, Sven. “Scientia media: Ein diskursarchäologischer Leitfaden durch das 17. Jah-
rhundert.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 34 (1991): 262–94.
Molina, Luis de. Commentaria in primam Divi Thomae partem. Venice: Minima Soci-
etas, 1602.
Molina, Luis de. Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia,
praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia. Edited by Johannes Rabeneck, S.J. Oña
and Madrid: Sapientia, 1953.
Molina, Luis de. On Divine Foreknowledge (Part iv of the Concordia). Translated by
Alfred J. Freddoso. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Perszyk, Ken, ed. Molinism: The Contemporary Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013.
Rabeneck, Johannes, S.J. “De Ludovici Molina studiorum philosophiae curriculo.” Ar-
chivum historicum Societatis Iesu 6 (1937): 291–302.
Stegmüller, Friedrich, ed. Geschichte des Molinismus, i, Neue Molinaschriften. Münster:
Aschendorff, 1935.
Von Inghen, Marsilius. Quaestiones super quattuor libros Sententiarum. Leiden: Brill,
2000.
Section 3.3
Coimbra
∵
Chapter 13
Pedro da Fonseca’s Unfinished Metaphysics: the

First Systematic Jesuit Metaphysics before Suárez
António Manuel Martins
1 Context
The philosophical tradition linked to the Jesuits’ teaching has a long history
spanning from the second half of the sixteenth century to the papal sup-
pression of the order in 1773. Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99) belongs to the first
generation of Jesuit authors of philosophical texts, a group that also includes
Francisco de Toledo (1532–96), Benet Perera (1535–1610), and Luis Molina
(1535–1600). The second generation includes Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), An-
tonio Rubio (1548–1615), Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604), and the authors of the
Coimbra course. Toledo and Fonseca wrote two of the most popular introduc-
tions to logic in the teaching of the Jesuits until the middle of the seventeenth
century.1 The Jesuits’ philosophy teaching dealt, at least in this first phase, with
logic and physics in the commentary tradition on the works of Aristotle on
these issues.2 However, metaphysics was not set aside by the first Jesuits, as it
1 Francisco de Toledo, Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis (Rome, 1561); Pedro da Fonseca,

Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo (Lisbon, 1564).
2 In the sixteenth century, logic and physics (in the old meaning/sense) constituted the basics
of philosophical training. Toledo’s philosophical works reflect this fact. They all deal with
logical themes/dialectics and physics (from commentaries on Aristotle’s texts: Physica, De
anima, De generatione et corruptione). Even the Coimbra course, which was the first publica-
tion aimed at providing all the necessary material for the teaching of philosophy in Jesuit
colleges or colleges under their supervision, follows the same pattern. Metaphysics is con-
sequently absent, and ethics is reduced to a brief note on the Nicomachean Ethics. Antonio
Rubio (1548–1615), author of the celebrated Mexican Logic (1605), also published works solely
on the physics texts, excluding metaphysics and ethics. That two of the greatest Jesuit think-
ers of that time had written two monumental works on metaphysics may have played a role
in this state of affairs: Pedro da Fonseca, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle (Rome,
1577, 1589; Évora, 1604) and Francisco Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae (Salamanca, 1597).
The decisive factor was the pedagogical practice at the time, which gave priority to logic
and physics. The philosophy courses published by the Jesuits from 1620 onward are based on
a clear tripartite structure of philosophy (logic, physics, and metaphysics). This is also the
case in the texts published by the Portuguese Jesuits (Baltasar Teles [1596–1625]; course text:
1642), Francisco Soares, known as Soares Lusitano (1605–59; course text: 1651), Agostinho

328 Martins
received two systematic treatments by Fonseca and Suárez. This chapter fo-
cuses on Fonseca’s contribution, which is less well known than Suárez’s Dispu-
tationes metaphysicae (Metaphysical disputations).
2 Excursus: Fonseca’s Biography
Fonseca was born in 1528 in Proença-a-Nova, sixty-two miles from Coimbra, at

a time when his birthplace was physically isolated from the rest of Portugal.3
In 1547, he enrolled at the newly established College of the Arts at the Univer-
sity of Coimbra, and in March 1548 he entered the Society of Jesus in Coimbra.
Little is known about Fonseca’s life before this juncture. His short stay in Spain,
for example, is not well documented. However, though it is easier to recreate
his life after 1548, there are still important gaps due to the nature of the Jesuits’
lifestyle, which involves periodic retreats from ordinary life spent in guided
prayer, and the order’s loose internal organization during this period.4 In 1542,
six years before Fonseca entered the Society of Jesus, which was founded by
the Spanish knight Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556), the College of Jesus in
Coimbra officially opened as the first Jesuit college in the world.5 Fonseca thus
entered an institution that was still in the throes of growth, and its infancy
explains the rather irregular path he took during his academic training. Most
notably, in 1551, shortly after starting his philosophy studies, Fonseca was sent
to Évora to collaborate in founding the university there.
In the following year, Fonseca returned to Coimbra to begin his theology
studies. The College of Coimbra offered complementary studies, especially in
the field of moral theology and cases of conscience. In 1552 and 1553, parallel to
Lourenço (1634–95; course text: 1688), and António Cordeiro (1640–1722; course text: 1714).
This tripartite structure would continue to be used for a long time in many countries where
the Jesuits published philosophy courses. It also applies to courses such as the one that the
German Jesuit Paul Aler (1656–1727) published in the eighteenth century (Philosophia tripar-
tita [Cologne, 1710]).
3 See José Vaz de Carvalho, “Fonseca, Pedro da,” in Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús:
Biográfico-temático, ed. Charles E. O’Neill, S.J., and Joaquín M. Domínguez, S.J. (Madrid: Uni-
versidad Pontificia Comillas, 2001), 2:1478; and Kazimierz Gryżenia, Arystotelizm i renesans:
Filozofia bytu Piotra Fonseki (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego,
1995).
4 John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 340–41.
5 On the history of the Jesuit college of Coimbra, see Francisco Rodrigues S.J., História da Com-
panhia de Jesus na Assistência de Portugal, 7 vols. (Porto: Livraria Apostolado da Imprensa,
1931–50); and Cristiano Casalini, Aristotle in Coimbra: Cursus Conimbricensis and Education
at the College of Arts (New York: Routledge, 2017).
Pedro da Fonseca’s Unfinished Metaphysics 329
his study of theology, Fonseca collaborated at the college in the philosophical

development of his confrères.
In October 1555, King João iii (r.1521–57), who had worked for years to at-
tract scholars able to implement his academic reforms, appointed the Jesuits
as directors of the College of Arts.6 The king’s controversial decision brought
new responsibilities and more work to the Jesuits. Fonseca belongs to the first
group responsible for the teaching of philosophy in the College of Arts. In the
same academic year, his Jesuit colleagues included Pedro Gómez (1535–1600),
Sebastião de Morais (1534–88), and Inácio Martins (1520–98).
In 1561, Jerónimo Nadal (1507–80) visited Portugal as part of his role as an
emissary of Loyola. His visit to the Portuguese Jesuits was an event of great
importance, not only for Fonseca but also for the teaching of philosophy in
Portugal and in the increasing number of schools worldwide that were under
the Jesuits’ direct or indirect control. Nadal gave instructions for the prepara-
tion and printing in Coimbra of one philosophy course that would provide the
basis for philosophy teaching not only at the Jesuit College of Coimbra and
the College of Arts but in all the colleges where philosophy was taught under
the Society’s supervision. Nadal assigned Fonseca the task of coordinating the
teachers and maintaining overall responsibility for the text of this course. The
other teachers were Marcos Jorge (1524–71), Cipriano Soares (1524–93), and
Gomes. Thus was launched the Coimbra course.7
In 1564, the same year he published the Dialectical Institutions, Fonseca was
sent to the University of Évora as regent of the chair of speculative theology,
a position he held until the end of the first quarter of 1567, when he was ap-
pointed dean of the College of Arts at the College of Coimbra.
In September 1570, Fonseca began composing the first volume of his com-
mentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. He intended to devote himself almost ex-
clusively to this task in order to fulfill his promise of publishing the completed
work within three years. However, after making slow progress, Fonseca was
subjected to severe criticism. He responded to this criticism by insisting that
the work required a great deal of concentration and that it was not compat-
ible with his other responsibilities, which he was unable to evade due to his
6 Casalini, Aristotle in Coimbra, 45.

7 See António Manuel Martins, “The Conimbricenses: Introductory Note to the Commenta-
rii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu,” in Intellect et imagination dans la philosophie
médiévale = Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy = Intelecto e imaginaçao na
filosofia medieval: Actes du Xie Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale de la Société
Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, s.i.e.p.m., Porto, du 26 au 31 Août 2002,
ed. Maria Cândida da Costa Reis Monteiro Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2004), 101–17.
330 Martins
religious, academic, and, now, administrative status. After two years, the text
corresponding to the first books of Metaphysics was still not ready. Fonseca
insisted on the need for more time without responsibilities that would disturb
his research.
In December 1572, Fonseca attended the provincial congregation of the So-
ciety of Jesus in Évora that would nominate delegates to the general congre-
gation, which would meet in Rome to choose Francisco de Borja’s (in office
1565–72) replacement. Initially, Fonseca was chosen only as a substitute in the
election of delegates to be sent to Rome. However, King Sebastião of Portugal
(r.1557–78) did not grant permission for Câmara to attend the general congre-
gation, and Fonseca was therefore sent to Rome.
What was planned as a short stay in Rome extended to almost ten years.
The new superior general, Everard Mercurian (in office 1573–80), appointed
Fonseca general assistant to the Portuguese province. Although very impor-
tant in the governing of Jesuit activities in Portugal and the Portuguese mis-
sions in Brazil, India, and Japan, this position gave Fonseca more freedom to
organize his time.8 He studied the Greek codices of the Aristotelian text and
numerous sources. After revising the text and translating the first four books
of Metaphysics, Fonseca was faced with the challenge of organizing the mate-
rial over several volumes. He took the opportunity to participate in the pro-
grammatic discussions at the Roman College as required by his institutional
position. In late 1577, five years after arriving in Rome and two years after his
self-imposed deadline, the first volume of his commentary on Aristotle’s Meta-
physics was published in Rome. In 1580, when Suárez went to Rome to teach
theology at the Roman College, Fonseca’s bulky text represented a philosophi-
cal breakthrough that he was unable to ignore, the more so because he shared
the conviction that metaphysics should play a pivotal role in philosophical and
theological studies. Thus many of the basic concepts in Fonseca’s tome were
also used in Suárez’s Disputationes metaphysicae, published twenty years after
Fonseca’s commentary.9
After publishing his book, Fonseca continued to balance his philosophi-
cal research with his official responsibilities. In 1581, for example, Acquaviva
8 On Fonseca’s activities during the generalate of Mercurian, see Nuno da Silva Gonçalves,
“Jesuits in Portugal,” in The Mercurian Project: Forming Jesuit Culture; 1573–1580, ed. Thomas
McCoog, S.J. (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 2004), 705–44.
9 Benjamin Hill, “Introduction,” in The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, ed. Henrik Lagerlund
and Benjamin Hill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1–24, here 16.
a ppointed him to the twelve-member commission tasked with submitting a

new version of the Ratio studiorum, or plan of studies.10
In 1582, Fonseca returned to Portugal, moving to Lisbon as superior of St.
Roque Professed House. During this period, he continued working on the
second volume of his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which was even-
tually published in Rome in 1589. In the same year, Fonseca, who was now
sixty-three, was appointed visitor of the Portuguese province, a position that
would absorb three years of his time.
In 1591, the booklet Isagoge, which is close in style to the Institutiones dia-
lecticae (Dialectical institutions [1564]) and has similar didactic purposes, was
published in Lisbon. This work was only published as a separate booklet in this
first Lisbon edition; later editions of the Institutiones dialecticae would always
include the text of the Isagoge.
In 1593, Fonseca returned to Rome to participate in the Fifth General Con-
gregation (1593–94), after which he traveled back to Lisbon. Fonseca died in No-
vember 1599 without having completed all of the volumes of his commentary.
The third volume of the commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics was pub-
lished posthumously in Évora in 1604. However, the text of this volume was
ready in 1594, as testified by extant correspondence from 1595 and 1596 con-
cerning the censorship of some allegedly unorthodox theses. A compendium
of the Metaphysics on which Fonseca started working in 1594 with the coopera-
tion of Pedro Luís (1538–1602) did not see the light of day. The fourth volume
of Fonseca’s commentary on the Metaphysics was published in Lyon in 1612. It
is a short book because it contains only the text and translation of books 10–14
of Metaphysics and the explanatio (textual commentary) of books 10, 11, and 12.
Thus the main work of Fonseca remains unfinished.
3 The Structure of the Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle

(cma)
Commentariorum in libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis integrates genres that

are not usually present in the same work.11 The work contains four levels or
10 Lázsló Lukács, S.J., “Introductio generalis,” in Ratio atque institutio studiorum Societatis
Iesu, 1586 1591 1599, mhsi, nova editio, 129, ed. László Lukács, S.J. (Rome: Institutum His-
toricum Societatis Iesu, 1986), 1*–34*, here 11*.
11 On the origins of Fonseca’s commentaries, see Cassiano Abranches, “Origem dos comen-
tários à metafísica de Aristóteles de Pedro da Fonseca,” Revista portuguesa da filosofia 2
332 Martins
major components: (1) the Greek text of Aristotle’s Metaphysics; (2) the Latin
version of the text; (3) the explanation of the Aristotelian text; and finally (4)
the “quaestiones,” which are not commentaries on the text but instead discuss
the theme of metaphysics as a philosophical discipline in accordance with the
self-understanding that Fonseca had of philosophy in general, and First Phi-
losophy in particular.
Each of these four levels or components is complex enough to merit a careful
and detailed analysis, and it is not unreasonable to ask why Fonseca p resented
this mix of genres under the title of a commentary. The question is especially
relevant as Fonseca is revealed in other works as an author endowed with an
extraordinary capacity for synthesis and systematization.12 He had also been
deeply involved in the design of a treatise or course of metaphysics. To him, the
two tasks were not mutually exclusive. As he says in the “lectoris admonitio”
(reader’s reminder) in the first volume of the cma, the objective he aimed to
achieve was different:
In fact, even if it would be easier for us, and perhaps more acceptable
to many, to treat things themselves separately, I have not chosen this
method of composition because I do not know what could turn away a
philosophy student from reading Aristotle; whoever is not familiar with
Aristotle’s text will never make any real progress in philosophy.13
The target audience was also different. The planned metaphysics course would
address the arts student who did not, and in many cases would never, study
theology. The text of the cma was designed and written for a reader who had
studied philosophy and theology.
Underlying the cma is the conviction that the serious study of metaphys-
ics must encompass mediation of the Aristotelian text, which could not be
replaced by any other text, regardless of the kind and quality, because meta-
physics has a foundational character. However, Fonseca’s presupposition also
implies that Aristotle’s metaphysical writings can, and perhaps should, be
(1946): 42–57; and Abranches, “Pedro da Fonseca: Valor e projeção da sua obra,” Revista
portuguesa da filosofia 16 (1960): 117–23.
12 See Charles B. Schmitt, “The Rise of the Philosophical Textbook,” in The Cambridge His-
tory of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles B. Schmitt et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1988), 792–804, here 798.
13 Fonseca, cma 1, “Admonitio lectoris.” This readers’ reminder, written in Rome, August
1577, for the first edition published there, is very instructive and is reproduced in later
French editions, although not in the German ones.
supplemented by other reading in order to correct a particular point of view

or to gain a deeper understanding of the topics it covers.14 Fonseca’s decision
to integrate the four above-mentioned elements in the same work should be
understood from this perspective. Hence, he took care not only to explain Ar-
istotle’s text but also to present the original Greek text and Latin translation.
However, Fonseca does not take a purely passive or uncritical stance toward
the Aristotelian text. Metaphysics is still an integral part of Fonseca’s philo-
sophical construction in that it is the reference text for this discipline under
construction. However, it is clearly a text that was written in a particular his-
torical context, and thus the theology that served as the structural background
to Fonseca’s reflection on this First Philosophy was no longer the theology of
the Corpus Aristotelicum—not only was it chronologically later but it was also
a theology based on an entirely new understanding of history itself.15 In this
sense, the fourth element of the textual construction of Fonseca’s work stands
out clearly from the first three: text, translation, and commentary. Although it
makes sense to read this mosaic quadripartite as an indivisible whole, it is nev-
ertheless impossible to ignore the fact that its elements have varying degrees
of autonomy.
This applies in particular to the fourth element, the quaestiones, which is
the level at which the systematic and critical reflection takes place. The pres-
ence of the Aristotelian text continues to manifest itself at every step, but it is
no longer the main source. It works like a text that has, in fact, been surpassed.
Recognizing that some familiarity with the works of Aristotle is essential,
Fonseca points out that the only acceptable criterion in philosophy is the
search for truth:
For the rest, we think that, in the case of philosophical questions, one
should not swear by the word of any doctor, nor reject the opinion of a
less known philosopher when it seems more in line with the truth; rec-
ognizing fully that the truth, spoken by anyone, emanates from the first
Truth. We do not state our opinions so that we are not willing to follow
those who have a better opinion.
fonseca, cma 1, “Admonitio lectoris”
14 See Cristiano Casalini, “The Jesuits,” in The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth Century
Philosophy, ed. Henrik Lagerlund and Benjamin Hill (New York: Routledge, 2017), 159–88,
here 174.
15 On Fonseca’s relationship to the renewal of the Scholastic method, see Amândio A. Coxi-
to, “Método e ensino em Pedro da Fonseca e nos Conimbricenses,” Revista portuguesa de
filosofia 38 (1980): 88–107.
334 Martins
It is important to emphasize that the reference to Aristotle as a philosophy

master is not peculiar to Fonseca. Metaphysics is a text that was accepted as
foundational by all authors. This First Philosophy considers itself “queen of all
human disciplines” and, therefore, “has every right to claim for itself the causes
of subordinate disciplines and adding its own principles, investigate them
carefully” (Fonseca cma 1, “Admonitio lectoris”). Twenty years after Fonseca
wrote these words, Suárez would reaffirm the subordination of metaphysics
to Christian theology (Suárez’s Disputationes metaphysicae, “Ad lectorem”).16
Suárez shared Fonseca’s belief that it was vital to exercise greater rigor on a
number of philosophical issues, namely in the domain of metaphysics, so that
theology would have a strong intellectual and philosophical foundation. The
two great metaphysicians arrived at a very similar diagnosis of the problem but
took different paths in their efforts to resolve it. When Fonseca recognized that
Christian theology is “far superior to any human doctrine,” he was speaking
only of the superiority of the Christian faith’s revealed content. On the other
hand, theology as a discipline built by people “contains many things that can
be exposed by the force of natural reason” and, therefore, he does not hesitate
to view theology as a subordinate discipline to metaphysics: “There is no rea-
son for someone to judge that we exceeded our goals when we insist on treat-
ing these kinds of things: we are doing something that is up to us and not to
others” (Fonseca, cma 1, “Admonitio lectoris”).
The text of the questions largely confirms this feature of Fonseca’s meta-
physics, as becomes clear from looking at the index to Fonseca’s work. In ad-
dition to the relevance of much discussion to a better understanding of many
epistemic issues, it is important to emphasize Fonseca’s defense of the episte-
mological autonomy of metaphysics.17
One popular opinion polarizes the entire renovation of metaphysics in
the sixteenth century around the figure of Suárez.18 Even well-informed au-
thors repeat the same kinds of clichés that have been repeated for decades.
It is perfectly legitimate to argue that Suárez’s Disputationes metaphysicae is
the most complete and representative work of this type of metaphysics. How-
ever, this does not mean that Fonseca’s contribution should simply be ignored.
Let us cite, as a paradigmatic example, Charles B. Schmitt’s Aristotle and the
16 On Fonseca as a precursor of Suárez, see Joaquim Carvalho, “Pedro da Fonseca, precursor

de Suárez na renovação Escolástica,” in Actas do Primeiro Congreso Nacional de Filosofía
(Mendoza, Marzo-Abril 1949), iii (Mendoza, Argentina: El Congreso, 1950), 1927–30.
17 António M. Martins, “Fonseca e o objecto da metafísica de Aristóteles,” Revista portuguesa
de filosofia 38, no. 2 (1982): 460–65.
18 On this topic, see Jean-François Courtine, Suarez et le système de la métaphysique (Paris:
puf, 1990).
Renaissance.19 Schmitt is justifiably considered “the expert” in Aristotelian-

ism in the Renaissance. As such, it is reasonable to ask why his book does not
contain any references to Fonseca. That the text does not claim to be exhaus-
tive does not explain such a glaring omission. Schmitt designed the book as a
survey of his research on the Aristotelianism in the Renaissance with particu-
lar attention being paid to higher education. Considering that Suárez is said
to have made a break with the Aristotelian text and is quoted several times,
the absence of any mention of Fonseca is even more noticeable. One might
think that Schmitt thought Fonseca was just one of the authors of the Coimbra
course, the Conimbricenses.
4 Fonseca’s Metaphysical Quaestiones
The quaestiones are the level at which Fonseca articulates the metaphysical
problems. That they are scattered and interspersed with the text of Metaphys-
ics and his explanation, as happened, in fact, in the late medieval tradition of
Aristotle commentaries, does not mean, contrary to what is generally assumed,
that Fonseca simply intended to produce a commentary like those of Thomas
Aquinas (1224/25–74) and others, notwithstanding his decision to name this
work a commentary. The quaestio and the disputatio underwent a significant
evolution in this period that prevents these texts being accurately interpret-
ed as if they had a uniform scheme. When some contemporary authors read
them as if they were written by medieval philosophers, although chronologi-
cally belonging to modernity, it does more than ignore the differences with
respect to authors of previous centuries; those who read them in this way re-
duce these authors to the category of mere repeaters.
Fonseca belongs to that tradition but without following a rigid, uniform
scheme. Thus, each quaestio includes several sections that vary in number. In
quantitative terms, most of the 190 quaestiones in the different volumes of the
cma contain between two and five sections, and there are only a few questions
with more than ten sections. In general, when approaching a particular issue,
Fonseca seeks to discuss the most widely held opinions on the subject under
discussion. He then begins the explanation of the terms followed by a number
of arguments in favor of a thesis before introducing the thesis that will be de-
fended and the way in which it will be defended. Fonseca’s thesis is introduced,
often by a brief mention of the locutions “uera sententia [true sentence] […],”
19 Charles B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1983).
336 Martins
“longe probabilior nos [much more likely for us] […],” followed by a whole se-
ries of arguments in support of the thesis. This multiplicity of arguments and
counterarguments demands a careful and thorough reading of the questions.
In fact, Fonseca’s text belongs to a category of texts that implies some sort of
direct and immediate access to a whole series of principles or axioms and,
moreover, the existence of a broad consensus among philosophers on a vast
number of topics.
Another, more complex issue is the systematic nature of the quaestiones in
Fonseca’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.20 The lack of connection or
coherence that is sometimes apparent in the commentary and its quaestiones
cannot be reduced, as some seem to suggest, to a simple matter of the literary
genre or mere disposition and ordering of materials.21 If attention is paid to the
characterization and typology of texts, the differences between quaestio in the
cma and the disputatio in Suárez’s Disputationes metaphysicae is not as great
as some think. Also, it is not a simple matter of order, although this is a cen-
tral issue to these two philosophers. This does not mean that these very same
quaestiones could not have been presented in a different way. The point is what
one would or could expect from a mere reorganization of the quaestiones’ or-
dering. If we take them as pieces of a puzzle and we remake the whole picture,
over and over, according to different criteria and in each search for a solution
to the puzzle, we will never reach an identical framework to the one in Suárez’s
Disputationes metaphysicae. But this does not mean that the work of Suárez
is genuinely systematic and Fonseca’s is not. Instead, it is simply important
to emphasize that, despite similarities in terms of the literary genre and their
doctrinal content, the two works are fundamentally different.
On the other hand, these quaestiones are still very much linked to the Aris-
totelian text.22 Suárez’s Disputationes metaphysicae are also, in their own way,
linked to the Aristotelian text. That Suárez inserted a detailed index of Aris-
totle’s Metaphysics at the start of Disputationes metaphysicae is seen by most
20 See Custódio A. F. Silva, “Sobre algumas teses fundamentais da metafísica e da psicolo-

gia de Pedro da Fonseca no seu aspecto sistemático,” in Portugiesische Forschungen der
Görres-Gesellschaft: 1. Reihe, ed. Hans Flasche (Münster: Aschendorff, 1960), 6–14.
21 See, for instance, the following sentences from Jorge Gracia: “The last [the Disputuationes
metaphysicae] is undoubtedly one of the great works of Western philosophy. It is the first
systematic and comprehensive treatise on metaphysics composed in the West that is not
a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.” Jorge J. E. Gracia, “Francisco Suárez: The Man
in History,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1991): 259–66, here 260. See also
Joaquim Ferreira Gomes, “Pedro da Fonseca: Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Philosopher,”
International Philosophical Quarterly 6, no. 4 (1966): 638–40.
22 On this topic, see Carlo Giacon, “O neo-Aristotelismo de Pedro da Fonseca,” Revista portu-
guesa de filosofia 9 (1953): 406–17.
observers as merely a strategic concession to the inertia of the Scholastic tra-

dition, which may explain why it has received less attention than it actually
deserves. Indeed, the work then developed by Suárez may not have been made
only to facilitate for the reader a comparison of the themes of Disputationes
metaphysicae with the Aristotelian text. It could also have played a key role in
the architectural construction of the Suárezian metaphysics. In fact, it does
not seem that there is mere analytical agreement between the content of the
Disputationes metaphysicae and the amount of questions, more or less (un)
related, that were discussed, traditionally, in connection with each unit of the
Aristotelian text. This index puts before our eyes the results from the first mo-
ment of Suárez’s work following the topical dimension of the method. Before
being able to “put before the reader’s eyes” everything that can be analyzed and
investigated in the domain of metaphysics (in a different order), he needed to
produce a previous work exploring the possible “places” where different meta-
physical issues, doctrines, and concepts could be discussed. A simple and ef-
fective way to do so was to pick up the text of Metaphysics and, following the
order and current division, seek to synthesize and prioritize the text’s contents
together with a comprehensive list of questions that might be found in the vast
commentary literature, which had become increasingly accessible thanks to
Johann Gutenberg’s (d.1468) invention of the printing press.
This reconstruction of Aristotle’s First Philosophy is an important moment
to understand the organizational structure of Suárezian metaphysics.23 Focus-
ing solely on the indications pointing to the main text of the Disputationes
would result in a highly restricted reading. As such, any effort to understand
the specificity of Suarezian metaphysics must begin with a careful reading of
these indices.
This “most ample index” has multiple uses. It is, indeed, an excellent start-
ing point for a first comparative analysis of the works that make up this tradi-
tion of commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. The case that is important
here is that of Fonseca. This is not the place to enter into a detailed analysis of
Suárez’s text to try to make a first generic comparison with Fonseca’s proposal.
The systematic deficiency in Fonseca’s work has a deeper root and is linked
to insufficient problematization of the fundamental concepts of classical meta-
physics.24 However, it should be emphasized that this deficiency is not unique
to Fonseca. Far from it. We would be able to gain a better understanding of how
23 See Eleuterio Elorduy Maurica, “Influjo de Fonseca en Suárez,” Revista portuguesa de fi-
losofia 11 (1955): 507–19.
24 See Carlo Giacon, La Seconda Scolastica: Precedenze teoretiche ai problem giuridici; Toledo,
Pereira, Fonseca, Molina, Suárez (Milan: Fratelli Bocca, 1946).
338 Martins
Fonseca conceived the possibility of a different ordering of the topics covered

in the quaestiones of cma as well as the connections, with the philosophical
and theological curriculum then in force, if we had access to the indices men-
tioned by Fonseca in the preface “Philosophiae studioso” to the second volume
of the commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.25 In this preface, Fonseca an-
nounces two types of indices: an alphabetical index of the matters addressed
in this second volume and a second common index to volumes 1 and 2, which
“seruato ordine eorum quae Philosophiae auditoribus explicari solent, indican-
tur and quae in rebus eisdem in hoc operate disputamus” (preserve the order
of subjects usually explained to philosophy students and indicate in the index
the same things that are discussed in this work [Fonseca’s commentary]).
Moreover, as this metaphysics, explained in the cma, was intended to ad-
dress issues relevant to theology, there would be a third index, specially de-
signed for students of theology: “We also added for the use of theology students
a third index following the special order of Saint Thomas’s Summa theologica,
so that theology students may find more expediently the theological matters
we have discussed in those books [i.e., the volumes of Fonseca’s commentary]”
(Fonseca, cma 2, “Philosophiae studioso”).
Indices are available for the three volumes containing quaestiones. The
two other indices referred to in the preface were not ready in 1589, the date of
publication of the second volume, although they should have been published
with the rest of the work, then at an advanced stage of composition. But the
above-mentioned indices were never published. However, it would be even
more interesting to know the so-called summary of metaphysics that Fonseca
mentions in the same preface. Indeed, this would have been the metaphysics
course in which Fonseca would explain matters “breviter et succincte” (briefly
and succinctly), so that it could be used by students.
As already mentioned, the quaestiones were intended to be read within a
unitarian interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The connection to Aristo-
tle’s text is typically more direct in the first of each group of quaestiones. At
the end of the general introduction, Fonseca presents a very schematic outline
of a global ordering. The proper explanation of the articulation of the central
themes of the cma and the status of the issues discussed will be possible only
25 This preface was not published in the Cologne edition, which was reprinted in 1964 in
Germany and is currently the most quoted. This is a short text that gives us some indica-
tions of the connection of the cma with the plans for the Coimbra course. For example, it
is explicitly stated that Fonseca had written much of the work in Rome: “Reliquum huius
operis cuius bonam partem aliquot ante annos Romae scripsi […]”; cma 2, “Philosophiae
studioso.”
after a careful analysis of the fundamental concepts of philosophy developed

by Fonseca.
Although it is not possible to provide a complete answer to these questions
in the current chapter, the following presents a very brief outline.26
5 Fonseca’s Unwritten Metaphysics
The use of the expression “unwritten metaphysics”27 is intended to highlight

the fact that the text of Fonseca’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics re-
mained incomplete. Yet while the text is undeniably incomplete, that does not
mean that the missing theses have not been taken into account in the con-
struction and development of Fonseca’s metaphysics at least from the date of
publication of the first volume in 1577. The term “unwritten doctrines” could
still designate, as is the case in other authors, all kinds of doctrines that are
not found in written texts (oral teachings, doctrines exposed to a smaller circle
of followers or collaborators). In Fonseca’s case, these doctrines relate to the
“middle knowledge” or “science of future contingents” that caused such a con-
troversy in the latter half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the
seventeenth. The most important thing is not to know exactly who first de-
fended this or that thesis but to clarify the arguments and the context in which
they were made, together with the corresponding assumptions that go with
it. In fact, only a more rigorous analysis may lead us to the conclusion that we
are dealing with one single doctrine and not with doctrines in which there is
manifest kinship structure but also indelible difference.
The first step in such an analysis involves a careful reading of the published
texts. We, eventually, may come to a point where the extant work does not
respond to all relevant questions. The controversy surrounding the question of
which of the Jesuits first taught the doctrine of “middle science” clearly shows
the dangers of such a conjecture based on a unique textual reference. Start-
ing from a unique textual support, there is Fonseca’s claim in volume 3 of the
cma to have taught this doctrine, which is usually associated with the name
of Molina, in Évora, thirty years earlier. It has not been possible to develop any
fruitful hypothesis. Rather, the bibliography on this subject has developed a
26 António Manuel Martins, Lógica e ontologia em Pedro da Fonseca (Lisbon: fcg, 1994).
27 António Manuel Martins, “A metafísica inacabada de Pedro da Fonseca,” Revista portu-
340 Martins
line of antagonism and purely artificial separation between the positions and
biographies of Fonseca and Molina.28
That the last two volumes of Fonseca’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphys-
ics were published posthumously potentially raises issues of authenticity. We
do not have Fonseca’s manuscripts of this work and any external reference
that can lead us to reject the work of the editor. Therefore, there is no sensible
reason to question the authorship of the final two volumes. Thus, the only rel-
evant unwritten doctrines in Fonseca’s work are the ones that he actually had
in mind during the systematic construction of his metaphysics and that he
intended to publish in the fourth volume of the commentary but, for lack of
time or some other reason, he did not write down. The safest clue to the re-
construction of these unwritten doctrines is the set of quaestiones planned for
the fourth volume. Unfortunately, we do not have the full architectural design
of Fonseca of metaphysics or a preliminary index like the one contained in
Suárez’s Disputationes metaphysicae that could provide a complete overview
of the original plan of the work. However, there are some clear references in
the first two volumes that refer explicitly to issues to be addressed in the fourth
volume and particularly in the context of book 12 of Metaphysics.
From an examination of this set of references, it is possible to conclude that
there is a whole series of issues that would have been discussed in that fourth
volume. Above all, it would be necessary to explain everything related to God
as such, conceived as one of the structuring poles of the ens commune (being
in general).29 Taking the Aristotelian context as a starting point, a treatise on
the divine essence would follow along the lines already developed in the first
volume on the determination of the object of metaphysics. The clarification of
preliminary issues relating to the definition and status of the theological dis-
course is mentioned by Fonseca among other subjects to be addressed in this
context: the demonstration of propositions such as “God is pure act, thought
thinking itself”; “God is existence”; the explanation of the divine attributes
(simplicity, unity, [omni]potency, freedom); eternity of the world; radical con-
tingency of created being; impossibility of infinite regress in the causal series;
real possibility; and divine causality. This is just a brief list of the topics found
in Fonseca’s extant text of commentary. This constellation of topics would re-
quire developments that were not all at the same stage. Some aspects related
to the topic of divine causality, initially intended for the fourth volume, are
28 Kenneth J. Perszyk, Molinism: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012), 1.
29 Another survey on this topic was provided by Cassiano Abranches, “A teoria do Ser Se-
gundo Pedro da Fonseca,” Revista portuguesa de filosofia 2 (1946): 115–27.
already developed in the third volume in quaestio 4, inserted in the context of

Metaphysics Z 8 (7, 8). The issue has to do with the difficulties of coordination
between the assumed divine immutability and the sense of a beginning of its
causal action. It is, therefore, an intermediate clarification stage between the
one presented in the treaty on causation published in the second volume of
the commentary and the treaty of the divine essence to be published in the
final and fourth volume.
Suárez’s ample index can be used as a source of information for a hypo-
thetical reconstruction of a possible plan of the missing parts of Fonseca’s
metaphysics.30 Suárez enumerates a set of questions that were prompted by
the Aristotelian text while taking into account the point of view of Christian
theology. Thus, in addition to a whole series of points around the issues re-
garding the Aristotelian doctrine of substance in general, and, in particular,
the separate substances, Suárez raises the question of whether it is possible to
accept, in the framework of the Aristotelian doctrine, the doctrine of creation.
This was a central issue in the confrontation between Christian thought and
ancient Greek philosophy, one that generated a lengthy debate that had not
lost its potency in the time of Fonseca and Suárez. The confrontation was un-
avoidable for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, regardless of details concerning
the historical origin of the most common formulas employed to define this
theological essential. Suárez refers his readers to disputatio 21. Fonseca would
also have to deal with this problem when discussing the eternity of the world.
Suárez makes very interesting observations and criticisms of the arguments
in Aristotle’s text. Following Fonseca, Suárez sought to discriminate between
what belongs to the domain of metaphysics and what belongs to physics.
One of the main lines of this short chapter in Suárez’s index is the critical
analysis of the validity and limits of the Aristotelian reasoning. There is some
insistence on the question of whether a rational demonstration of some tradi-
tionally accepted theological statements is possible. Let us look in more detail
at the issues raised by Suárez’s index about Metaphysica, book 12, chapter 9,
which is where Fonseca planned to insert his treatise on divine essence.
Suárez enumerates six quaestiones in order to clarify “some doubts about
the divine intellect.” The first is prompted by the Aristotelian text itself and
revolves around how the intellectual activity of divinity should be understood.
The second concerns the object of God’s mind: Should we say, in this context,
that God’s mind understands itself or something else? Suárez here follows the
Aristotelian text by asking, in the third question, whether we can conclude that
30 See also Cassiano Abranches, “Pedro da Fonseca e a sua obra metafísica,” Studium generale
8 (1961): 39–48.
342 Martins
the God of Aristotle’s theology, understood as thought thinking itself, cannot

know anything outside itself. He admits that this conclusion seems unavoid-
able if we stick to the Aristotelian text. Such an understanding of divinity is
obviously unacceptable for a Christian theologian. Suárez therefore appeals to
the conciliatory interpretation of Aquinas, referring to disputatio 30 for further
clarification on this matter. The next question resumes the problems concern-
ing God’s intellectual activity. Suárez qualifies as outstanding Aristotle’s argu-
mentation to prove the necessity of God’s self-knowledge. He also agrees with
him, finally, about the characterization of God’s knowledge as simple intelli-
gence. An elementary comparison with the text of Fonseca’s explanation illus-
trates the difference between the two Jesuits’ attitude toward Aristotle’s text.
Fonseca’s explanation remains, of course, closer to the Aristotelian text, but,
interestingly, it also raises questions that deviate from the text to a greater ex-
tent than the ones enumerated by Suárez. For instance, when Fonseca speaks
of “God’s intellect immediate object,” he does not limit himself to the terminol-
ogy used in Aristotle’s text but generalizes the question to include all divine
attributes in a radical understanding of its unity and simplicity. Fonseca is well
aware that Aristotle did not and could not put the question in these terms.
So he cautiously says that Aristotle responds “tacitly” to these questions.31 In
summary, therefore, the questions indicated by Suárez for Metaphysics, book
12, chapter 9 do not bring anything new in terms of how Fonseca planned to
organize the fourth volume of his work.
Fonseca’s explanation in the next chapter, Metaphysics, book 12, chapter
10, begins by summarizing the central objective of this Aristotelian text, em-
phasizing that the first substance or prime mover should be seen here as the
highest good and not as supreme intelligibility. The most curious thing is that
Fonseca does not simply justify this question by saying that it belongs to the
cosmic order in terms of pure Aristotelian conceptuality. Indeed, he continues,
“there were many who thought that the order and connection of the universe
does not exist due to any external cause or something external but it has, by
itself, this structure or that it happened so by chance and casual intersection
of atoms.”32
Here, the central notion happens to be that of an “objective highest good,” as
the “formal supreme good” is nothing other than the structure and order of the
things themselves that exist in the universe.33 Interestingly, next to this clear
31 Fonseca, cma 4, l. 12 c. 9, (explanatio), 124.

32 Ibid., 4, l. 12 c. 10 (explanatio), 127.
33 Ibid.
statement of an objective supreme good that confers a metaphysical sense to

the supposed teleology in the natural order of things is the thesis of another
teleological subordination structure that would justify the use of all that is
considered to be inferior to human beings, according to a purpose this would
impose upon them. It is precisely in this context that the totality of these non-
human things is designated as “world machine.”34
Fonseca does not go so far as to defend anything like a complete autonomy
of human beings. Human freedom has clear limits imposed by nature. This
happens through natural law, which is inscribed in the human mind. Suárez’s
index for Metaphysics, book 12, chapter 10 indicates three issues to be ad-
dressed in this final chapter of the Aristotelian text. Given that there is a single
“sovereign and ruler of the universe,” Suárez considers it necessary to clarify
the following:
1. The ability to demonstrate “sufficienter” with the arguments used in the
text or similar ones that there is one God;
2. issues relating to providence and Aristotle’s views on this matter; and
3. whether the designation of the first cause as the supreme good implies
being referred to only as final causality or also as efficient causality.
Hence there is one point that clearly distinguishes Suárez’s position from
Fonseca’s, and that is the total absence in Fonseca of questions connected
to the topic, proofs of God’s existence. However, it should be added that this
singularity of Fonseca’s metaphysics is an innovative position with regard to
the prevailing views. This is true not only for the various trends of Scholastic
philosophy but also for much of modern philosophy. The role this issue plays
in the work of authors like René Descartes (1596–1650), Nicolas Malebranche
(1638–1715), Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716), and Immanuel Kant
(1724–1804) is well known.
Assuming that metaphysics is the study of being understood as “being as
common to God and creatures,” and that this entity and the God of the “or-
thodoxae fidei” are the same, then natural theology as a justification of God’s
existence makes no sense. If we want to put the question another way, we could
say that Fonseca has no valid reason to include this topic in his metaphysics.
34 “Omnes tamen ita inter se affecta sunt, ut aliae propter alias sint conditae, ut elementa
propter mista, non uiuentia propter uiuentia; et in uiuentibus plantae propter animalia,
et ex his ea quae rationis sunt experta propter homines, quorum gratia tota haec mundi
machina existit” (All, however, are affected by each other, so that some are built because
of others such as elements for mixed, non-living beings for living beings,and among living
beings plants for animals and among these those who are deprived of reason for human
beings for which this whole world machine exists); Fonseca, cma 4, l. 12, c.10, expl., 128.
344 Martins
From the perspective of Christian theology, there is no need to prove what

constitutes the very foundation of Christian faith. As a matter of fact, it is also
true that Reformation theology had major reservations about this traditional
topic of natural theology.
Moreover, Fonseca’s disengagement from Aristotle’s physics allows him
not to feel bound by the internal logic of Aristotle’s text that leads to the as-
sumption of a prime mover. The materials upon which the philosophical
work of the commentary is based are largely Aristotelian, but the architec-
tural design and the resulting construction—albeit unfinished—are actually
different.
Bibliography
Abranches, Cassiano. “Origem dos comentários à Metafísica de Aristóteles de Pedro da

Fonseca.” Revista portuguesa da filosofia 2 (1946): 42–57.
Abranches, Cassiano. “A teoria do Ser Segundo Pedro da Fonseca.” Revista portuguesa
de filosofia 2 (1946): 115–27.
Abranches, Cassiano. “Pedro da Fonseca: Valor e projeção da sua obra.” Revista portu-
guesa da filosofia 16 (1960): 117–23.
Abranches, Cassiano. “Pedro da Fonseca e a sua obra metafísica.” Studium generale 8
(1961): 39–48.
Aler, Paul. Philosophia tripartita. Cologne, 1710.
Carvalho, Joaquim. “Pedro da Fonseca, precursor de Suárez na Renovação Escolástica.”
In Actas do Primeiro Congreso Nacional de Filosofia (Mendoza, Marzo–Abril 1949),
3:1927–30. Mendoza, Argentina: El Congreso, 1950.
Carvalho, José Vaz de. “Fonseca, Pedro da.” In Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de
Jesús: Biográfico-temático, edited by Charles E. O’Neill, S.J., and Joaquín M. Domín-
guez, S.J., 2:1478. Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2001.
Casalini, Cristiano. Aristotle in Coimbra: Cursus Conimbricensis and Education at the
College of Arts. New York: Routledge, 2017.
Casalini, Cristiano. “The Jesuits.” In The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth Century Phi-
losophy, edited by Henrik Lagerlund and Benjamin Hill, 159–88. New York: Rout-
ledge, 2017.
Courtine, Jean-François. Suarez et le système de la métaphysique. Paris: PUF, 1990.
Coxito, Amândio A. “Método e Ensino em Pedro da Fonseca e nos Conimbricenses.”
Revista portuguesa de filosofia 38 (1980): 88–107.
Elorduy Maurica, Eleuterio. “Influjo de Fonseca en Suárez.” Revista portuguesa de fi-
losofia 11 (1955): 507–19.
Fonseca, Pedro da. Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo. Lisbon, 1564.
Fonseca, Pedro da. Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Rome, 1577, 1589;
Évora, 1604.
Giacon, Carlo. La Seconda Scolastica: Precedenze teoretiche ai problemi giuridici; Toledo,
Pereira, Fonseca, Molina, Suárez. Milan: Fratelli Bocca, 1946.
Giacon, Carlo. “O neo-Aristotelismo de Pedro da Fonseca.” Revista portuguesa de filoso-
fia 9 (1953): 406–17.
Gomes, Joaquim Ferreira. “Pedro da Fonseca: Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Philoso-
pher.” International Philosophical Quarterly 6, no. 4 (1966): 638–40.
Gonçalves, Nuno da Silva. “Jesuits in Portugal.” In The Mercurian Project: Forming Jesuit
Culture; 1573–1580, edited by Thomas McCoog, S.J., 705–44. Rome: Institutum His-
toricum Societatis Iesu, 2004.
Gracia, Jorge J.E. “Francisco Suárez: The Man in History.” American Catholic Philosophi-
cal Quarterly 65 (1991): 259–66.
Gryżenia, Kazimierz. Arystotelizm i Renesans: Filozofia bytu Piotra Fonseki. Lublin:
Wydawnictwo Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 1995.
Hill, Benjamin. “Introduction.” In The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, edited by Henrik
Lagerlund and Benjamin Hill, 1–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Lukács, László, S.J. “Introductio generalis.” In Ratio atque institutio studiorum Societatis
Iesu, 1586 1591 1599. MHSI, nova editio, 129, edited by Lázsló Lukács, S.J., *1–34*.
Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1986.
Martins, António Manuel. “Fonseca e o objecto da metafísica de Aristóteles.” Revista
portuguesa de filosofia 38, no. 2 (1982): 460–65.
Martins, António Manuel. “A metafísica inacabada de Pedro da Fonseca.” Revista portu-
Martins, António Manuel. Lógica e ontologia em Pedro da Fonseca. Lisbon: FCG, 1994.
Martins, António Manuel. “The Conimbricenses: Introductory Note to the Commen-
tarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu.” In Intellect et imagination dans la phi-
losophie médiévale = Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy = Intelecto
e imaginacao na filosofia medieval: Actes du Xie Congrès International de Philoso-
phie Médiévale de la Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale,
S.I.E.P.M., Porto, du 26 au 31 Août 2002, edited by Maria Cândida da Costa Reis Mon-
teiro Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos, 101–17. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004.
O’Malley, John. The First Jesuits. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Perszyk, Kenneth J. Molinism: The Contemporary Debate. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012.
Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1983.
Schmitt, Charles B. “The Rise of the Philosophical Textbook.” In The Cambridge History
of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard
Kessler, and Jill Kraye, 792–804. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
346 Martins
Silva, Custódio A.F. “Sobre algumas teses fundamentais da metafísica e da psicologia

de Pedro da Fonseca no seu aspecto sistemático.” In Portugiesische Forschungen der
Görres gesellschafte’ Erste Reihe, edited by Hans Flasche, 6–14. Münster: Aschen-
dorff, 1960.
Suárez, Francisco. Disputationes metaphysicae. Salamanca, 1597.
Toledo, Francisco de. Introductio in dialectic Aristotle. Rome, 1561.
Chapter 14
Manuel de Góis: The Coimbra Course and the

Definition of an Early Jesuit Philosophy
Mário S. de Carvalho
1 Introduction
Manuel de Góis (1543–97) was the leading figure behind the well-known edito-
rial enterprise entitled Coimbra Jesuit College Commentaries (cjcc), or Com-
mentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu.1 Published in Coimbra and
Lisbon between 1592 and 1606, the eight volumes of the cjcc contain com-
mentaries on Aristotle’s philosophy (commenting on Aristotle was a custom
common to all sixteenth-century European universities and a duty within the
Jesuits’ philosophical schools). Although usually known by the Latin formula
“Conimbricensis,” which is derived from the majority of the titles that make up
the cjcc, the name is slightly misleading given that other philosophical works
were also printed in Coimbra (namely by members of the St. Benedict College)
and because other Jesuit authors, such as António Cordeiro (c.1640–1722), for
example, published their own Cursus philosophicus Conimbricensis.2
Góis joined the Society of Jesus on August 31, 1560 at the age of seventeen.
After completing his philosophical and theological studies at the Jesuit Univer-
sity of Évora, he taught Latin and Greek in the towns of Bragança, Lisbon, and
Coimbra (1564–72). In 1574–78 and 1578–82, Góis taught two courses of philoso-
phy at Coimbra.3 This experience may have acted as a catalyst to him assuming
a prominent role in the cjcc, which also benefited from the contributions of
three other Portuguese Jesuits. When Góis died, Cosme de Magalhães (d.1624)
wrote an appendix to the volume on De anima, entitled Problems Related to the
Five Senses, and Baltasar Álvarez (d.1630) wrote another appendix to the same
volume, the Treaty on the Separated Soul. Finally, Sebastião do Couto (d.1639)
1 António Manuel Martins, “The Conimbricenses,” in Intellect et imagination dans la philoso-

phie médiévale/Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy/Intelecto e imaginação na
filosofia medieval, Actes du xie Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale de la s.i.e.p.m.
(Porto, du 26 au 31 août 2002), ed. Maria Cândida Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 101–17.
2 António Cordeiro, Cursus philosophicus Conimbricensis (Lisbon: Regia Deslandesiana, 1714).
3 Rodrigues 1938b, 115–22.

348 Carvalho
published a commentary on Dialectics.4 With the exception of the volumes

dedicated to ethics (1593) and logic (1606), the other works in the cjcc were al-
most entirely centered on natural philosophy: a commentary on Physics (1592),
a commentary on Meteorology (1593), a commentary on the Short Treatises on
Natural History (1593), commentary on Heavens (1593), commentary on Gen-
eration and Corruption (1597), and a commentary On the Soul (1598).
Before proceeding further, it is important to note the external circumstances
that led to the cjcc. By the end of the sixteenth century, Coimbra had replaced
Salamanca in terms of the new Iberian geopolitical complex.5 In 1555, King
João iii (r.1521–57) placed the Jesuits in charge of the Royal Humanist College,
a move motivated by the ideological disagreements among the college’s pro-
fessors, and the idea of editing the philosophy lessons taught at Coimbra, “so
that the students would not waste time writing them,” quickly gained in cur-
rency among the Jesuits. However, the real motive was to establish a doctrine
(filum doctrinae) that could be used in all of the Jesuits’ colleges, not only in
Europe but also in the missions abroad. The cjcc were disseminated through-
out the world,6 yet they were not always well received in European colleges, as
René Descartes (1596–1650) testifies.7 Outside Europe, especially in China8 and
South America,9 the cjcc had a different impact. This triple reception has yet
to be studied but clearly deserves further attention. Aside from an incomplete
list of the cjcc’s European editions, which testify to its remarkable diffusion in
the European rationalist milieu,10 its actual reception in Europe has received
very little attention.
4 Couto wrote the commentary as a response to a counterfeit (apparently created by Gaspar

Coelho [fl. 1584] after Francisco Cardoso’s [1547–1604] teaching [1571]), which had been
published two years earlier in Central Europe. Friedrich Stegmüller, Filosofia e teologia
nas universidades de Coimbra e Évora no século xvi (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra,
1959), 98.
5 Benjamin Hill, “Introduction,” in The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, ed. Benjamin Hill
and Henrik Lagerlund (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1–21, here 15.
6 Serhii Wakúlenko, “Projecção da filosofia escolástica portuguesa na Polónia seiscentista,”
Revista filosófica de Coimbra 15 (2006): 343–81.
7 René Descartes, “Descartes à Mersenne, 3 décembre, 1640,” in Oeuvres de Descartes, ed.
Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (Paris: L. Cerf, 1899), 3:248–52, here 251. See also Alfredo
Gatto’s contribution in this volume.
8 Thierry Meynard, “The First Treatise on the Soul in China and Its Sources,” Revista filosó-
fica de Coimbra 24 (2015): 203–42.
9 Francisco da Gama Caeiro, “O pensamento filosófico do século xvi ao século xviii em
Portugal e no Brasil,” Revista portuguesa de filosofia 38 (1982): 51–90.
10 António Alberto de Andrade, “Introdução,” in Curso Conimbricense i. Pe. Manuel de Góis:
Moral a Nicómaco, de Aristóteles, trans. António Alberto de Andrade (Lisbon: Instituto de
The Coimbra Course & Definition of Early Jesuit Philosophy 349
It is worth pointing out that the cjcc are not devoted to the complete works
of Aristotle. Metaphysics is the most glaring omission, despite Góis’s and Cou-
to’s intention of writing a commentary on it. Several hypotheses have been put
forward to explain this omission (most recently in historian Cristiano Casa-
lini’s study11), but the most likely reasons were the lack of time that would be
needed to finish such a monumental project and the disagreements between
Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99) and Góis over the exposition of philosophy. In
Góis’s view, physics provided the basis to access philosophy, whereas, in 1574,
Fonseca had already stated that:
All the philosophy students must be familiar with works on First Philoso-
phy (so-called Metaphysics), because besides offering a careful discussion
of the common difficulties involved in other philosophical works, they
are often cited by the professors. Therefore I thought this was the easiest
method for me to write and the easiest for the students to understand,
especially if I decide to expose beforehand themes containing all the
principles and fundamentals of philosophy. In fact […], when such fun-
damentals are established and strengthened, the other themes are more
accessible to students […] and for me it is more convenient and [the fun-
damentals] can soon be developed.12
Fonseca planned to write a commentary on Metaphysics that would have been

integrated into the cjcc.
A study of how the cjcc was born has yet to be carried out. When Fonseca
wrote the preface to the first volume, he alluded to a number of manuscripts
that were circulating among the Jesuit teachers of the University of Évora
and the College of Coimbra. It is certainly possible that the four writers al-
ready mentioned used the same materials (the cjcc also cite the names of
Fonseca and Luis de Molina [1535–1600]). However, based on a comparative
analysis of the manuscripts,13 it is possible to conclude that the work of each
of these four Portuguese Jesuits is entirely original. Metaphysica was briefly
commented on in a few books, given that it was taught between the third and
Alta Cultura, 1957), xiv–xvii. Karl Marx (1818–83) also quoted the cjcc, see: Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1973), 40:32–33.
11 Cristiano Casalini, Aristotele a Coimbra: Il cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel “Col-
legium Artium” (Rome: Anicia, 2012), 186–208.
12 Pedro da Fonseca, Instituições dialécticas: Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo, trans. Joa-
quim Ferreira Gomes (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1964), 13–15.
13 Stegmüller, Filosofia, passim; Charles H. Lohr, Latin Aristotle Commentaries ii: Renais-
sance Authors (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1988), passim.
350 Carvalho
fourth years at C
oimbra (e.g., between March and May 1578, according to Lou-
renço Fernandes’s [dates unknown] manuscript bnl 4841, or from September
to December 1562, according to Pedro Gómez’s [1535–1600] course). The com-
mentary on Ethics was shortened in the penultimate semester. In 1563–64, Luís
Álvares (1539–90) read Ethics in the second course but with the insertion of
Physica into the plan of studies. The course on physics, the details of which
can be found in Inácio Tolosa’s (1532–1611) manuscript bguc 2318 (1563), began
on March 6 with book 1; book 2 began on April 26; book 3 in June; books 4 and
5 on September 9 (one in the morning, the other in the afternoon); book 6 on
November 2; book 7 on November 20; and, finally, book 8 on December 10. This
indicates the contrast between what was actually taught at the College of Co-
imbra and the more than three-thousand pages of the cjcc.
With the exception of Ethics, all these works circulated under the designa-
tion “commentaries” (commentarii). However, only the editions that totally or
partially transmit Aristotle’s text in Latin deserve such a title because they fo-
cus on the explanation (explanatio) of the Aristotelian text that precedes the
questions (quaestiones), for the most part subdivided into articles (articulus)
or sections (sectio). The Greek version does not appear in the Portuguese edi-
tion and is only present in some of the editions published abroad. The vol-
umes on Meteorology and on the Short Treatises on Natural History (known as
“Parva naturalia”), and the two appendices to On the Soul and the appendix to
On the Heavens are more akin to philosophical treatises than commentaries.
The volume on Ethics differs from the others because it follows the method of
disputes, yet the authors were free to choose which subjects to dispute rather
than following St. Thomas Aquinas’s (1224/25–74) Summa theologiae article by
article.14 There is no consensus among scholars on how the methodological
approach adopted in the cjcc was determined.15
2 Coimbra Jesuit Philosophy
Rather than following the conventional analytical or comparative approaches,

especially related to certain volumes of the cjcc,16 which is the p revailing
14 Mário S. de Carvalho, Psicologia e ética no curso jesuíta Conimbricense (Lisbon: Edições

Colibri, 2010), 107–39.
15 Alison Simmons, “Jesuit Aristotelian Education: The De anima Commentaries,” in The
Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al. (Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 522–37.
16 Mário S. de Carvalho, “Between Rome and Coimbra: A Preliminary Survey of Two Early
Jesuit Psychologies (Benet Perera and the Coimbra Course),” Quaestio: Annuario di storia
della metafisica 14 (2014): 91–110.
method in the existing literature, this chapter aims to provide a systematic

and deductive doctrinal exposition. It should be added that the state of the art
does not yet allow for any definitive explanation of the cjcc’s philosophical
content.
2.1 Logic, Knowledge, and the Exposition of the Science

Logic was taught extensively in Coimbra.17 After Couto’s general introduction to
the cjcc (1–54) (which should be read in counterpoint to the introduction
to Physics, written by Góis and published fourteen years earlier), the volume
on Dialectics discusses Porphyry’s Isagoge (55–225), the Categories (226–416),
On Interpretation (1–169), the Prior (170–284) and the Posterior Analytics (285–
524), the Topics (525–36), and the Sophistical Refutations (537–48). The praise
given to Dialectics—“scale of truth,” “rule and measure of sciences,” “con-
stituent of wisdom”—and its definition as “an art or doctrine of discovery,”
demonstrates the heuristic and epistemological importance of this discipline.
Dialectics or logic provide the ability to investigate the unknown on the ba-
sis of what is previously known through argumentation, making it possible to
gain knowledge of affections and accidents through division, which enables
knowledge of the parts, and through definition, which provides knowledge of
the essence. In addition, dialectics explains how the human mind expresses
thoughts correctly and without mistakes. In its dual perspective—theoretical
(docens) and practical (utens)—dialectics is also at the service of science: its
main goal is to prescribe the method and the rules of discovery and to place
the result of the discovery in the service of the faculties. Thus can be under-
stood the great importance of the Analytics in the cjcc and the correlation of
its topoi: even if inventio is prior to dispositio, the transmission of the latter may
precede inventio whenever one is unable to understand the former without the
notion of dispositio.
In many of the cjcc’s chapters, such as the chapter devoted to the prob-
lems of universals, dialectics is used to combat Platonism and nominalism.
The same goal applies in science, namely with the theory of propositional re-
lations (connexiones propositionum), the necessity of which is emphasized in
the Posterior Analytics. The unity of the universals, called “unity of precision,”
can be considered an intermediate between a numeric and a formal unity, dis-
playing its status as a non-real division, simultaneously sharing the intellective
condition and the condition of extramental reality. From an epistemological
perspective, thus revealing the close connection between logic (Isagoge) and
17 The most comprehensive interpretation of dialectics in the cjcc can be found in Amân-
dio Coxito’s papers, available in his book Estudos sobre filosofia em Portugal no século xvi
(Lisbon: incm, 2005).
352 Carvalho
knowledge (On the Soul), Couto argues that the intelligible species represent
the singular nature, not the common nature, and this, ontologically speaking,
is equivalent to seeing in such a relation the ultimate perfection of universals
(i.e., the very foundation of universality).18
For Góis, knowledge and science originate in the senses, and the idea of
the soul as tabula rasa was never called into question. Knowledge and sci-
ence are enlarged and strengthened through experience, by empirical or
scholarly accumulation, and culminate in universal and intelligible concepts.
Thus, in descending order of dignity, the senses of vision, hearing, taste, smell,
and touch capture the images of singular things and allow the two internal
senses—common sense and imagination—to take the first step toward uni-
versality. This process is explained in Isagoge (prooem. 5): when an external
sensible is presented to one of the five senses, it projects the respective im-
age (species/imago) to that organ, creating, for example, vision of a color. The
image that represents the color then reaches the common sense through the
optic nerve, despite experiencing some modification, thus allowing the com-
mon sense to acquire knowledge (notitia). As a sensible image, the species ad-
vances to imagination and expresses knowledge (cognitio) or a definite image.
Henceforth, the image proceeds to the patient’s intellect so that this intellect,
properly informed, can acknowledge the object. However, since the species
created by the intellect must be of a spiritual nature, and the image is corpo-
real, the intervention of the agent intellect is required to raise the image to
the former condition. Intellection is defined not in terms of a quality but in
terms of an action. Intellection accordingly makes the object appear to the
spirit not in its real being but in its intentional being. In other words: intellec-
tion is a process of assimilation between the intellective faculty and the thing
understood consisting of the expression and representation of what is known.
This assimilation leads to the formation and the intelligible expression of the
thing in itself (i.e., the effective production of knowledge [notitia genita]), the
mental verb, or thought. In this respect, the commentaries On Interpretation
and On the Soul are essential. To compose, discuss, and judge are at the core
of all forms of intellective apprehension (apprehendendo per intellectum) and,
even if the syllogistic reasoning is among its privileged medium, any reader of
the cjcc is capable of understanding that the hermeneutics of explicatio and
the dilemmas posed in quaestiones are two essential discursive vehicles for the
18 Mário S. de Carvalho, “The Coimbra Jesuits’ Doctrine on Universals (1577–1606),” Docu-

menti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale: An International Journal on the Philo-
sophical Tradition from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages of the Società Internazionale
per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino 18 (2007): 531–43.
construction and didactic exposition of science. Furthermore, science requires

the triple function of the agent intellect—to illuminate phantasmata, to turn
the intelligible object into an act, and to produce the intelligible species in the
patient intellect—and the superiority of the patient intellect, since it is solely
responsible for judging, thinking, and contemplating. Both intellects are dis-
tinct and, against Averroes, individuals.19
In relation to the conversion to the sensibles and the doctrine that reduces
the number of the internal senses, the cjcc follow, for the most part, Fon-
seca’s views. This not only means strengthening the role of imagination but
also Coimbra’s insistence on the autonomy of the sensible and the need for a
new theory, a so-called “effective” illumination, responding to Thomas de Vio
Cajetan’s (1469–1534) and Sylvester of Ferrara’s (1474–1528) theses.20
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) noted the contribution made by the
cjcc to a doctrine of signs, but this is again a matter that interferes with epis-
temology, psychology, metaphysics, and even theology.21 Since scholars such
as Jennifer Ashworth have already highlighted Góis’s contribution to the study
of the doctrine of the analogy,22 also responsible for the explanation and theo-
retical ground of the notion of transcendence, it is important not to ignore
the influence of the Categories and of its reading as a temporary substitute for
Metaphysics (especially books 4 and 5).
Historian of philosophy Amândio Coxito has recognized a certain insen-
sitivity toward what would be the new trend in the study of the position of
arguments, already welcomed by Fonseca, in the importance Couto attaches
to science. Although Couto views dialectical syllogisms as inferior to demon-
strative syllogisms, he also underlines the importance of the penultimate book
for Scholastic debates, workshops (colloquia), an honest exchange of ideas
(honestus congressus), and for the whole of philosophy and all its branches. It
is worth noting that the last volume on Dialectics concerning the Sophistical
19 Mário S. de Carvalho, “Pierre Bayle et la critique d’Averroès à Coimbra: Deux épisodes de

l’histoire de la réception d’Averroès,” Revista filosófica de Coimbra 22 (2013): 417–32.
20 Mário S. de Carvalho, “A doutrina do intelecto agente no Comentário ao De anima do
Colégio jesuíta de Coimbra,” in El intelecto agente en la Escolástica renascentista, ed. Juan
Fernando Sellés (Pamplona: eunsa, 2006), 155–83.
21 John P. Doyle, The Conimbricenses: Some Questions, trans. John P. Doyle (Milwaukee: Mar-
quette University Press, 2001), 28; see mostly, Coxito, Estudos, 291–316.
22 Jennifer Ashworth, “Traditional Logic,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philoso-
phy, ed. Charles B. Schmitt et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 143–73;
Ashworth, “La doctrine de l’analogie selon quelques logiciens jésuites,” in Les jésuites à la
Renaissance: Système éducatif et production du savoir, ed. Luce Giard (Paris: puf, 1995),
107–26.
354 Carvalho
Refutations also had to be read under this broader perspective in order to avoid
misinterpretations.
In the cjcc, the division of sciences can be considered from four different
perspectives. The first is from the perspective of real sciences (i.e., sciences
of things) versus sciences of speech (i.e., sciences of language, both external
and internal; e.g., grammar, rhetoric [history and poetry], and dialectics). The
second is that of the practical sciences versus theoretical or contemplative
sciences, which include physics and mathematics (i.e., geometry, arithmetic,
and mixed mathematics) and metaphysics (i.e., ontology, pneumatology, and
theology). Similarly, practical sciences are divided into sciences related to
practical activities (activa), such as logic and morality (ethics, economics, and
politics) and sciences related to productive activities (factiva), such as gram-
mar, rhetoric, painting, dancing, and so on. Third, there is a division based on
their importance—superior sciences versus inferior sciences; mathematics,
physics, ethics and metaphysics/theology are called superior sciences; the sev-
en liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and
astronomy) and the seven servile arts (agriculture, hunting, military arts, nau-
tical, surgery, weaving, and mechanical arts) are among the inferior sciences.
Finally, there is a fourth division based on the criterion of learning (ordo in
disciplinis): in what concerns discovery (inventio) and teaching (doctrina), its
ascending order is coincident—logic, mathematics, physics, ethics, and meta-
physics; but in terms of dignity, the ascending order diverges a little: ethics,
mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. Note, however, that in the ideal plan
of evidence and certainty, the ascending order would be metaphysics, physics,
and mathematics.23
In its exposition of science, the cjcc seek to follow the criterion of learn-
ing, emphasizing the principles of near coincidence between dignity and
discovery/teaching to the detriment of the principle of evidence, despite the
“intrinsic reason of science” (An. Post. 1, c. 26). In fact, according to the histori-
cal order, it would be more accurate to speak of an ontology of evidence rather
than an epistemology of evidence. On the one hand, the ascending order of
evidence refers to an ideal conception of science (metaphysics per se, for ex-
ample). On the other hand, the admission of evidence of a growing order refers
to an ideal consideration of science (metaphysics in itself, for example) and
on the natural and pragmatic order of human life and dignity of science. The
criterion of dignity allows us to highlight the authority that theology will end
23 Coxito, Estudos, 155–93.

up having over the philosophical work.24 But what must be emphasized is the
identification between the concepts of system and science that explains the
importance of order and method.25 Dignitas is also a translation for “axiom,”
an indemonstrable proposition held by all who want to learn something, the
evidence (perspicuitas) for which has the nature of a primordial common prin-
ciple shared by all sciences. When the intellect corrects the mistake or the un-
certainty, this occurs as part of
a congenital light [inditum/nativum], by which the most general princi-

ples are approved […] and by which it is possible to make deductions of
many things by the use of reasoning […], be it with clarity and certainty,
be it with probability. Sometimes it is also possible to learn something
not by the discourse, but through sheer observation.
Physica, prooem. 2
In conclusion, the epistemological order of doctrine (nota nobis) and the onto-
logical order of nature (nota natura) coincide, but the educational exposition
of science (through a system called filum doctrinae) can be materialized only
in an incarnate, historical, or pedagogical form, developing between the orders
of knowledge and nature (i.e., between the principles of knowledge and the
principles or internal cause of being).26
2.2 Nature and World

More than seventy-three percent of the cjcc’s pages deal with physics and the
five accepted meanings of the word “nature” (Physica 2, c. 1). The main defini-
tion of nature matches physis, understood as “generation,” “appearance of life,”
or “living.” Gois’s keen interest in physics has already been mentioned above.
Knowledge of the world (scientia de mundo) is gained through a deductive ex-
position from the most perfect and general principles to the less perfect ones.
Or, expressed in the literary terms of the cjcc, the fight against contemporary
authors who have deformed nature is carried out by an e xhaustive treatment of
24 Paul Richard Blum, “L’enseignement de la métaphysique dans les collèges jésuites

d’Allemagne au xviie siècle,” in Giard, Les jésuites à la Renaissance, 93–105, here 98.
25 Coxito, Estudos, 156.
26 Casalini, Aristotele, 156–78; Cristiano Casalini, “Adamo ‘magister’: Il canone educativo del
Cursus Conimbricensis,” Educazione: Giornale di pedagogia critica 1–2 (2012): 21–42; Mário
S. de Carvalho, “A questão do começo do saber numa introdução à filosofia do século xvi
português,” in Razão e liberdade: Homenagem a Manuel José do Carmo Ferreira (Lisbon:
Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, 2010), 993–1009.
356 Carvalho
broad principles, between motion and rest, from the most common principles
such as matter, form and privation, nature and its causes, unity, species and
parts of the motion, infinity, place, void and time, first Mover and its properties
(Physica); by the study of the mobile being, structure, and composition of the
universe, of the five simple bodies, the four elements, their respective natural
spaces, and type of local motion (De caelo); and by the study of the corrupt-
ible dimension of the universe, generation, change, growth, mixed bodies (De
generatione et corruptione), and of imperfect mixed bodies (Meteororum). This
systematic reading of physics not only follows a deductive method of exposi-
tion but also implies that physics is able to envision the transcendent dimen-
sion as necessary to develop its discourse. This is especially true for psychology,
since the De anima was read as a text belonging to physics and astronomy,
since the De caelo provides an exemplary aesthetic (especially in De Caelo, 1
c. 1, q. 1, a. 3), which is valid for all the branches of the philosophy of nature.27
2.3 The Principles of Physics

All of the basic principles of physics mentioned above28 are at the service of
an ontological perspective of plenitude mainly founded on the authority of
what we could call the “rule of Pseudo-Dionysius,” to which we will return later,
and are totally dependent on the motif of Creation. Consequently, and given
that void is incompatible with unity, it must be rejected. Deriving like numbers
from unity, forms embellish “the theater of the world” (an expression from De
caelo), and consequently natural forms are superior to artificial ones. Follow-
ing Bonaventure’s (1221–74) position, the cjcc claim that matter can be known
either through negation (inficiatio), when any perfection in act is denied to it,
or by affirmation, when any defect or potency is attributed to it. Since matter
has been created with a substantial form, philosophers named it using several
designations: “Non-being,” “big and small,” “dissimilarity,” “asylum,” “communi-
ty,” “receptacle,” “multitude and duality,” “empty shadow of the first essences,”
“mirror-like,” “element,” “substance,” or even “mother.”
27 Mário S. de Carvalho, “A absolução da natureza e a natureza do humano: Dois motivos

nucleares do Curso jesuíta Conimbricense,” in De natura: Actas del vi Congreso interna-
cional Iberoamericano de la Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval (sofime), Salamanca 2–5 de
diciembre 2012, ed. José Luis Fuertes Herreros and Ángel Poncela (Famalicão: Ed. Húmus,
2015), 39–61.
28 Dennis Des Chene, Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian
Thought (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); Des Chene, “An Aristotle for the Univer-
sities: Natural Philosophy in the Coimbra Commentaries,” in Descartes’ Natural Philoso-
phy, ed. Stephen Gaukroger, John Andrew Schuster, and John Sutton (London: Routledge,
2000), 29–45.
Inhabited by motion, created nature seeks to rest, and its intelligibility,

teleology, or economy (i.e., all its effort [conatus]) is aimed at the common
good. Good and perfection are more easily identified by considering the spe-
cies rather than the singulars. And order, stability, finitude, and eternity are
among the other characteristics of nature. Although positively linked to ex-
istence, the concept of time is also viewed as a restraint, since it causes more
death than birth (Physica 4, c. 12–13). Because time does not exist without the
created world,29 its end will coincide with the recreation of the world (De caelo
1, c. 12). Infinity is also rejected in the cjcc because it is incompatible with the
forces of nature (viribus naturae). However, if there is no place for actual infin-
ity, in an explicit sense, Góis admits actual infinity in the improper way of the
infinity of division and addition. It should be noted that, when questioning if
actual infinity is within God’s power, the proposal that denies such an option is
considered preferable (additionally, it should be emphasized that on this par-
ticular point, as well as on other ones, the probabilistic accent is a sign that a
long-standing tradition is in crisis). All the four causes are under physical scru-
tiny. Even if the autonomy of the physical order is underscored,30 the mutual
relation among exemplar, final, and efficient causes is to be duly considered.
On this point, the most relevant thesis confirms that even if it belongs to the
formal cause genre, exemplary cause is a true cause, because it is a “measure by
which both the greater and lesser perfection of things is evaluated” (Physica 2,
c. 7). Such a position is justified based on Fonseca’s ideas.
2.4 Motion and the Enchantment of the World

Incompletely framed by the categories, the truest sense of motion must be
rooted in the first immobile Mover, provided that Aristotle conceived it as en-
dowed with an infinite and perfect force. Although considered difficult, the
study of motion is a very important part of physics due to its contribution to
theology and because it is a touchstone of freedom. Hence, for example, there
is an original identity between being and the reason to act in whatever is ca-
pable of moving itself, as noted by Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308). Although cir-
cular motion is considered the most perfect form of motion—“principle of all
motions, divine light of all material qualities, endowed with such efficiency
that by its own virtue or ability diverts all plagues of the world” (De caelo 2,
29 António Manuel Martins, “O conimbricense Manuel de Góis e a eternidade do mundo,”

Revista portuguesa de filosofia 52 (1996): 487–99.
30 Helen Hattab, “One Cause or Many? Jesuit Influences on Descartes’s Division of Causes,”
in Meeting of the Minds: The Relations between Medieval and Classical Modern European
Philosophy, ed. Stephen F. Brown (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), 105–20; Casalini, Aristotele,
241ff.
358 Carvalho
c. 1)—Góis recognizes that circular motion is not the cause of the movement
of the stars. Given that a variety of impulses is required to move the celestial
machine, Góis acknowledges other types of motion, such as that of the heav-
ens and light or even other occult faculties in the sub-lunar world. Among the
six species of motion—generation, destruction, increase, decrease, alteration,
and local motion—the last one is predominant. This is indicated by the vari-
ety of perspectives on place, identified with the mobility itself; the category of
place can only be thought of from the point of view of immobility, which ex-
plains the introduction of the notion of imaginary surface. The cjcc welcome
the ideas of Fonseca31 on imaginary space and its parallel, imaginary time.32
Contrary to what Antonio Bernardi (1502–65) intended (his theses are recur-
rent targets of criticism in the cjcc), the cjcc state that De caelo should not be
used as an introductory book to the study of physics. As Jesuits were fascinated
by the world and the beauty of its parts, it should not come as a surprise that
the commentary on De caelo opens with a quasi-theological–anthropological
poem, showing the marvelous contemplation of heaven and announcing, in
the spirit of Seneca, the utility and the benefits of studying heaven, promot-
ing moral education, and contempt for transient things. The perfection of the
world, all existing things, is the result of Creation, the product of the supreme
architect and divine art.
Góis adopted the traditional cosmological interpretation that distinguished
between the matter of heaven and the matter of the sublunary world in spe-
cie.33 But by admitting as probable that the matter of the heaven of the sub-
lunary world might be the same, “and perhaps without realizing the huge
consequences of doing it,”34 the authors of the cjcc opened the door to other
admissions (e.g., the impulse theory, also called the impulsus or gravitas acci-
dentaria) that would prove to be destructive to the Aristotelian tradition.
Whereas De caelo studies the elements in their own place and own mo-
tions with an appendix dedicated to the relevant problems of each of the four
elements, De generatione deals with the sublunary world. As an integral part of
31 Vitorino Mendes de Sousa Alves, Ensaio de filosofia das ciências (Braga: Publicações da
Faculdade de Filosofia da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 1998), 143–56.
32 Mário S. de Carvalho, “The Concept of Time according to the Coimbra Commentaries,” in
The Medieval Concept of Time: Studies on the Scholastic Debate and Its Reception in Early
Modern Philosophy, ed. Pasquale Porro (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 353–82.
33 W. [William] G.L. Randles, “Le ciel chez les jésuites espagnols et portugais (1590–1651),”
in Giard, Les jésuites à la Renaissance, 129–44; see also Luís Miguel Carolino, Ciência, as-
trologia e sociedade: A teoria da influência celeste em Portugal (1593–1755) (Lisbon: Fund.
Calouste Gulbenkian, 2003), 50–57 and passim.
34 Alfredo Dinis, “Tradição e transição no Curso conimbricense,” Revista portuguesa de filoso-
fia 47 (1991): 555–56.
the doctrine of the elements, generation and corruption bear witness to God’s
providence. In this chapter, Pseudo-Dionysius’s rule, mentioned above, can be
translated as follows: the cream (flor) of the elements of the lower world is
contained in the upper celestial body just as the dregs of the upper world are
found in the lower world (De caelo 2, c. 1). Yet the cjcc also contain a statement
according to which the conflict between the elements of a contrary physical
nature not only disturb the order of the universe but are required for the main-
tenance of that order. The correlation between the elements and the variety of
their links is expressed by a hermeneutic in which the first qualities are insert-
ed in each element in a coherent concordia discors (discordant concordance),
thus ensuring that the sublunary balance, or in other words, the harmony of
the world, is guaranteed.
2.5 Mixed Bodies and the Notion of Experience

The third level of the study of physics, which falls under the scrutiny of De
generatione and Meteororum, recognizes generation and alteration as essential
dynamics; as such, it addresses the study of both mixed and imperfect bod-
ies, which originate in the sub-lunar atmospheric region. Meteororum deals
with non-living compounds such as snow, ice (glacies), hail (grando), comets,
and phenomena caused by the refraction of light, such as rainbows, the bright
meteors (caprae saltantes), the Saint Elmo’s fire (Castor et Pollux), the Milky
Way (circulus lacteus), parhelia (parelia), floods, typhoons (Ecnephias), tsuna-
mis (Euripus) and earthquakes, lightning bolts (fulgor), rays (fulmen), thunder
(tonitrus), sea storms (marinus aestus), fog, frost, clouds, winds, rain, and other
types of phenomena. In 1563, the teaching of Meteororum in the third course
of the University of Évora was preceded by De sphaera, the reading of which
was a Portuguese custom, as noted by Fonseca when he started preparing the
cjcc. Several of the cjcc’s titles share a notion of “experience” that is wider in
scope than that shared by modernity. This notion can be better understood in
the light of what the Posterior Analytics meant for “experience.” According to
the Posterior Analytics, experience did not belong to the epistemological field
of induction; rather, experience had to be understood as a critical vestibule
of induction, unable to achieve the universal but attentive to the individuals
that belong to the sensible realm. Again, this is something that explains why
non-Aristotelian topics were included in a commentary on the Aristotelian
science, namely the option of Christianizing Aristotle whenever convenient
to the “respublica Christiana.”35 Being a first step to induction, experience is
considered necessary to understand the principles and the formation of the
35 Pedro da Fonseca, Commentariorum in Metaphysicam Aristotelis Stagiritae libros (Cologne:

S. Lazari Zetzneri, 1615), i prooem. c. 5
360 Carvalho
sciences and arts. Even if this notion is excessively broad and imprecise, ex-
perience is time and again considered the mother of philosophy and physics
its preferred field.36 As the criticism of mathematics falls under the exclusive
framework of the Aristotelian epistemology, that is to say, quality over quan-
tity, so experience is here understood as of a qualitative rather than quanti-
tative nature.37 Moreover, in the framework of the categories, the preference
given by Scotus to the third dimension of quantity—line, surface, and body,
or continuous e xtension—is interpreted as more attentive to equality and in-
equality, to the material consideration of the relation of quantity, to excess, to
defect, to measure and proportion. Bearing in mind the irregular teaching of
mathematics within the College of Coimbra and the discussion at that time on
the epistemic value of the discipline, there was a debate over the specific divi-
sion of mathematics: arithmetic consists of the study of the discrete q uantity
while geometry is centered on continuous quantity. Although arithmetic
surpasses geometry in terms of demonstrative certitude and nobility, the rel-
evance of geometry is unquestionable due to its important role and the service
it can provide to the philosophical horizon of cjcc.
2.6 Man and World

We mentioned earlier how we are supposed to explain the passage from Me-
teororum to De anima, in other words, the passage from the knowledge of the
world to knowledge about man living in the world; or, in the cjcc’s sequential
way, spiritual life, its causes, and reasons (De anima) and all of man’s achieve-
ments and diversity (Parva naturalia). Consequently, physics can explain the
origin of the science of man or the science of the soul, meaning the knowledge
of the self in the world. Finally, it is essential to study metaphysics, or even
impose it, in order to surpass corruption and time (not, however, to surpass
motion).
36 A. Alberto Banha de Andrade, Contributos para a história da mentalidade pedagógica

portuguesa (Lisbon: incm, 1982), passim; Cristóvão da Silva Marinheiro, “The Conimbri-
censes: The Last Scholastics, the First Moderns or Something in between?: The Impact
of Geographical Discoveries on Late 16th-Century Jesuit Aristotelianism,” in Portuguese
Humanism and the Republic of Letters, ed. Maria Berbara and Karl A.E. Enenkel (Leiden:
Brill, 2012), 395–424.
37 Luís Filipe Barreto, “Experiência e experiencialismo no Renascimento português,” in
Logos: Enciclopédia Luso-Brasileira de filosofia (Lisbon: Editorial Verbo, 1990), 407–16;
Onésimo T. Almeida, “‘Experiência a madre das cousas’: On the Revolution of Experience
in Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Maritime Discoveries and Its Foundational Role in the
Emergence of the Scientific Worldview,” in Berbara and Enenkel, Portuguese Humanism,
377–94.
2.7 Life, the Great World

Written according to the literary method of Meteororum but seeking “an expla-
nation of certain conditions shared by all living beings, such as life and death,
or in regard only to animals, such conditions as wakefulness, sleeping and
breathing,” the Parva naturalia are an appendix to the volume on De anima.
This relationship between the two works was discussed because of Paul of Ven-
ice’s (1369–1429) intention of reducing the De anima to the study of the living
body. It is worth pointing out that, if the De anima follows the Meteororum, it
is the definition of life, intrinsic to each form of life, that really matters.38 In
that sense, the starting point is the vegetative state inherent to all living beings
in general and the definition of life taken from the Aristotelian De respiratione.
But the end point can only be the origin itself, which appears in every philo-
sophical study concerning man and explains the greater relevance of the sensi-
tive over the vegetative. Both vegetative and sensitive souls must be considered
in a dual perspective—in common or separately—depending on their level in
participating in life, which justifies that the vegetative soul (taken as separated
from the rest) is not formally in the sensitive soul (taken as separated from the
rest), the former differing from the latter in specie.
The importance of life is indisputable: defined by humidity and mainly by
heat, the heart (which is compared to the sun) is considered its source, despite
recent anatomical investigations, a few of them acknowledged by Góis. More-
over, all the living beings, even the herbs, are more noble by nature than the
heavenly bodies. In the universe, life is superior to mere constituent anima-
tion of nature, and therefore it is nobler to move oneself than to be moved by
someone else. (Only the living beings move themselves and have both a self-
protection and self-preservation instinct: partially through food and partially
through semen.)
There are four types of living beings, the result of four modes of life, cap-
tured by Aristotle’s definition of the soul—to vegetate, to feel, to move, and to
think; however, only the last of these is characteristic of the human being. An
expression of life, the soul does not operate without the body, and it cannot
exist without it. Therefore, the soul is more perfect when within the body than
without; it is worth underlining that the cjcc discuss the place of the soul in
the human body more or less beyond the hylomorphic legacy of Aquinas. Two
requisites must be fulfilled in order to attribute the condition of substantial
form: (1) the form confers the substantial being, and (2) its union with mat-
ter constitutes an absolute unity (unum quid). According to the cjcc, some
38 Dennis Des Chene, Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2000), 12.
362 Carvalho
t hinkers were wrong about the induction of the soul in the body as the result of
childbirth. Actually, this process starts in the vegetative soul, goes to the sensi-
tive one, and concludes with the intellective soul. Such a process always takes
time (there is a discrepancy in time in what concerns the intellective soul in
terms of gender39) and presupposes the abolition of the previous states.
In a process of ascending complexity, there is a moment when the life of the
spirit is attained: infused into the body, without any habit or species, the soul
progressively acquires the habit of the science. This is the exact way Aristo-
tle describes this process: namely first understanding the principles that have
greater affinity with the light of the intellect; then the conclusions must be de-
duced, be it per se, for experience-sake, or by the work or the talent of a master.
The operations of the soul can be immanent, as in the case of knowledge, or
transitive or quasi-transitive, as in the case of motion, whether in the motion
external to the soul, or whether in the motion of the soul (intellect and will).
Reason plays a particular role in the motion of human beings, and imagination
does the same with regard to all other animals. The animal spirits govern the
movement of the members of the body, but not the freedom of reason.
As with the world, harmony is reflected in man’s effective existence, some-
thing that can be described as “anthropological difference.” The fabrica humani
corporis was created by God, the true author of nature, by attributing a func-
tion to each part of the body. The result is a splendid harmony between the
movements of the heart, of the arteries, and of breathing. However, Galen is
not the only authority that the cjcc refers to in order to perfect Aristotle’s
thought. Citing Ambrose of Milan (337–97) and Marsilio Ficino (1433–99),
Góis claims that the beauty of man’s body is an image (simulacrum) of the
mind, such as the harmony between the body and soul (De generatione 2, c. 8).
Starting from the motions of the will to the movements of the exterior mem-
bers, harmony presides in all dimensions: the will servilely moves the exter-
nal members without the intervention of sensitive desire; but, as regards the
faculties of the soul, the will acts as a supreme agent. Perfection and beauty
are mutually reciprocal; but if perfection refers to a complete order, beauty
refers to the order itself, which, in the case of man (we must emphasize that
Christ is the supreme beauty), appears first in his physical strength, second in
the submission of the sensitive faculties to the will, and subsequently in the
submission of the will to reason, and finally from the reason to natural law.
39 Maria da Conceição Camps, “A problemática do surgimento da vida humana no comen-

tário jesuíta conimbricense ao De anima de Aristóteles,” Revista filosófica de Coimbra 19
(2010): 187–98.
Therefore, the scientia de anima, rooted in physics and in necessity, points to

the metaphysical dimension of separation where the perfection of the will,
although required by nature, proclaims the culmination of the experience of
freedom against necessity. I use the term “proclaim” because the human being
is radically physical and only the resurrection of the body can fulfill nature.
2.8 Man, the Microcosm

The cjcc’s physical exposition of the science of the soul culminates with the
explanation of knowledge and motion, and the latter introduces us to ethics.40
In teaching the De anima, emphasis was given to the sensitive components of
the soul and sensitive knowledge,41 which was largely studied in a dialogue
with medicine,42 the role of the vision,43 or the problem of the activity of the
senses.44 Attention has already been paid to the chapter on the rational soul,45
even within the framework of a dialogue with Lutheran Scholasticism.46 How-
ever, it should be emphasized that the human soul (i.e., man) embodies all
forms of living beings in an eminent way.
The planet earth, home to the human being (dubbed parvus mundus), is
where anthropology first appears in accord with the most traditional reasons
from the Aristotelian geocentric model.47 The four elements correspond to
40 Ibid.
41 Mário S. de Carvalho, “Introdução geral à tradução, apêndices e bibliografia,” in Comen-
tários do Colégio conimbricense da Companhia de Jesus sobre os três livros da alma de Aris-
tóteles estagirita, trans. Maria da Conceição Camps (Lisbon: Edições Sílabo, 2010), 7–157.
42 Christoph Sander, “Medical Topics in the De anima Commentary of Coimbra (1598) and
the Jesuits’ Attitude towards Medicine in Education and Natural Philosophy,” Early Sci-
ence and Medicine 19 (2014): 76–101.
43 Maria da Conceição Camps, “Do visível ao invisível: A teoria da visão no comentário aos
três livros Da alma do curso jesuíta conimbricense (1598)” (PhD diss., Faculdade de Letras
do Porto, 2012).
44 Alison Simmons, “The Sensory Act: Descartes and the Jesuits on the Efficient Cause of
Sensation,” in Brown, Meeting of the Minds, 63–76.
45 Mário S. de Carvalho, “Intellect et imagination: La ‘scientia de anima’ selon les ‘Commen-
taires du collège des jésuites de Coimbra,’” in Intellect et imagination dans la philosophie
médiévale/Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy/Intelecto e imaginação na fi-
losofia medieval, ed. Maria Cândida Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2006), 119–58.
46 Sascha Salatowsky, De anima: Die Rezeption der aristotelischen Psychologie im 16. und 17.
Jahrhundert (Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 2006), chapters 3 and 4 (133–277 and 283–368).
47 Mário S. de Carvalho, “O lugar do homem no cosmos ou o lugar do cosmos no homem?: O
tema da perfeição do universo antes do paradigma do mundo aberto, segundo o comen-
tário dos jesuítas conimbricenses,” Veritas 54, no. 3 (2009): 142–55.
364 Carvalho
the same number of human humors: atrabilious, sanguinolent, pituitary, and

bilious—and the respective temperaments: melancholic, sanguine, phlegmat-
ic, and choleric.
Nature does nothing in vain; it does its best, hates the superfluous, and does
not reject what is necessary. Nature is also fair, because it gives what belongs
to each and every thing, not according to arithmetical equality (aequaliter),
but according to geometric uniformity (aequabiliter). Its intelligent operation
allows us to recognize the importance of Aristotelian final causality. It is also
important to emphasize how the praise of order is supported in the cjcc by
Saint Augustine (354–430) and Gregory Nazianzen (329–90); recommending
beauty and stability, and connecting heaven and earth, the praise accentu-
ates the teleological motive that fulfills and runs through nature, culminating
in the supernatural state. It is man’s role to connect both dimensions, assuring
the transcendence of nature. Therefore, the key to nature is below and beyond
nature. Positioned on the horizon of time and eternity, and being the highest
form or the last of the forms, the study of the rational soul can be carried out in
three dimensions—in its essence, linked to the body, or out of the body—but
only in the context of two sciences: natural philosophy for the first two dimen-
sions and metaphysics for the third. After judgment day, the perfection and
beauty of the elements will be brighter, and despite the fact that the qualities
of the natural order have insurmountable limits, the qualities of supernatural
order—such as grace and charity—can increase in this life.
The conception of man presented in De anima is based on the discussion of
the Aristotelian definition of soul and on the notion of participation to which
it adds the notion of separation. Aquinas’s notion of “subsistent substantial
form” is read within an eclectic neo-Platonic frame, according to which man
participates in reason through immateriality and spirituality, and at the same
time emerges from the materiality of the earth (De anima 2, c. 2, exp. B). For
this reason, man can be thought of as a “horizon between two worlds.” The
soul’s doctrine of the necessary bodily inflexion48 explains one of the most
central topics on human knowledge: man is given an opportunity to know
himself in an indirect way by returning to the sensitive world; in such a pro-
cess, imagination has an imperative role owing to its creative power; a power
that crosses the boundaries between the sensitive and intellective domains,
and reveals a spiritualistic conception of thinking.49 The process by which the
48 Amândio A. Coxito, “O problema dos universais no Curso filosófico conimbricense” (Lic.

diss., Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra, 1962).
49 Mário S. de Carvalho, “Imaginação, pensamento e conhecimento de si no comentário je-
suíta conimbricense à psicologia de Aristóteles,” Revista filosófica de Coimbra 19 (2010):
25–52.
soul attains self-awareness can be described as follows: the soul apprehends

the things, whose species is initially understood by the senses (e.g., man’s na-
ture); then, through a reflective act, the soul understands it by attaining the
faculty and the image that enabled the soul to achieve such an act. Finally, by
discovering that the common image cannot be corporeal or even material, the
soul reaches the conclusion that it is a spiritual potency and an incorporeal
substance, and thus becomes aware of its participation in reason and intel-
ligence (De anima 3, c. 8, 7).
3 Man and God
3.1 Ethics, Will, and Intellect

In a qualified sense, the absolute end exclusively concerns those beings that
have an intellectual nature. Meanwhile, the importance of ethics is revealed
by its dual utility: nobody can become a good philosopher without knowing
moral philosophy; nobody can live well and be happy without knowing the
difference between what is morally correct and what is not. This explains
the expositive order of Ethics: it starts with the study of three metaphysical
principles—good, end, and happiness—and proceeds with the study of hu-
man action; first, analyzing the fundamental principles of human action (will,
intellect, and appetite); second, the goodness and badness of human actions;
lastly comes the study of passions and virtues. Virtues are the object of a com-
mon approach in the cjcc, which also give space to prudence, the most impor-
tant virtue, followed by a brief reference to justice, fortitude, and temperance.
Besides Fonseca’s criticism of neo-Stoicism—which was based on the fact
that Fonseca considered it as tightly connected to Lutheranism50—the book
on Ethics gives less importance to economics and politics. In a certain way,
politics is recognized in the civil dimension of happiness that comprehends
the possibility attributed to those who really use their minds to preserve and
defend the public cause, instigated by the exercise of beneficence. A eudai-
monist ethics with a theological basis is capable of explaining the Aristotelian
contemplative definition of happiness, conceiving it as a style of life in har-
mony with the prescriptions and rules of a virtuous or right reason. According
to the distinction between “man’s acts” and “human acts,” the will is considered
the most universal cause of motion in what concerns the faculties, while the
intellect is the superior and nobler faculty. On De anima, the cjcc state that
50 Fonseca, Commentariorum, prooem. i 4.

366 Carvalho
the will moves the intellect and the intellect leads the will. Thus, it is possible
to conclude that the origin of freedom is in the intellect, even if the will is
free to choose the good as its own object, producing it (by love) or giving it a
certain order (by intellection). The cjcc’s discussion of the knowledge of hu-
man beings (as well as the circumstances that interfere in moral valorization
of actions) acknowledges the tenacity of concepts, the demon’s incitement,
or the role of organic dispositions, but also what is called a political domain
of the will on the sensitive appetite. Since the last expression of human hap-
piness can only be reached in the supernatural life, consisting of the intuitive
contemplation of the divine nature, the cjcc again emphasize the importance
of the intellect because it presents the object in a single perfect act. Despite
that, the will is not totally indifferent with regard to human happiness. First,
because the supernatural happiness cannot be only conceived as an intellec-
tive act (nor even as a single act of the will); second, because it is possible to
reach a supernatural happiness in this mortal life, in both the speculative and
practical dimensions. Molinism also had an influence on the cjcc, since the
supernatural charity related to the blessed in the Gospel of Matthew appears
as the highest expression of happiness, temporarily accessible to the human
being.51 Before such a higher experience, man can access two other experi-
ences: a naturally practical happiness, related to the virtue of prudence; and a
naturally contemplative happiness, specific to the divine being and to immate-
rial beings, which belongs to a particular branch of metaphysics. It is thus pos-
sible to understand the reason why in 1561 Father Jerónimo Nadal (1507–80),
writing to his brothers at Coimbra, had recommended an active life together
with the contemplative one, in order to “seek charity and the union with God.”
Nadal placed more emphasis on the importance of the capacity of embracing
the acts of will and affection than understanding acts.52
3.2 Metaphysics and Theology

As noted above, the cjcc only has one title clearly dedicated to metaphys-
ics, the Treaty on the Separated Soul. This appendix, written by Baltasar Álva-
rez to De anima, was nevertheless explicitly requested by Góis, and we know
that both Góis and Couto intended to comment on Metaphysica. Besides
Álvarez’s Treaty, it is possible to find metaphysical doctrines that are consis-
tently held throughout the volumes of the cjcc: (1) the “being qua being” is
the adequate subject of metaphysics; (2) God is its supreme subject; (3) crea-
tures, s ubordinated to the being, are its partial subject. Couto also mentions
51 Henri de Lubac, Augustinisme et théologie moderne (Paris: Aubier–Montaigne, 1965), 272.

52 José Sebastião da Silva Dias, Correntes de sentimento religioso em Portugal (séculos xvi a
xviii) (Coimbra: Faculdade de Letras, 1960), 643, 647 respectively.
a supernatural metaphysics, a knowledge that considers the dependency of

the essence of things by reference to the first creative, final, and exemplar
cause. Góis uses the expression “divine philosophy” to designate the contem-
plation of things that transcend nature, where human intelligence can reach
the contemplative apex. The cjcc occasionally use the term theology rather
than metaphysics, without confusing revealed theology and natural theology,
the latter belonging to metaphysics. According to Góis, a formal distinction
differentiates natural theology from revealed or biblical theology. Couto’s dis-
tinction is instead based on the respective light of the two kinds of knowledge.
After discussing the immortality of the soul,53 Álvarez’s studies the soul’s way
of being out of the body and the soul’s operations of knowledge and motion.
Despite only being referred to once in the cjcc, the well-known study of Pi-
etro Pomponazzi (1462–1525) clearly had an influence on the Treatise. Álvarez
strives to demonstrate that Aristotle was convinced of the immortality of the
individual soul. Actually, his insistence on the rationality of such proof is also
dependent on the Council of Trent’s (1545–63) exigencies. The immateriality
of the soul imposes the separation, a theological topic with epistemological
relevance, based on the idea that the separation of the soul makes the intel-
lect more expeditious and perceptive, and the will much more ardent and
evident. The rational soul has three prerogatives: instilled by God, without
matter, and therefore extrinsic; originated in God’s innermost; a high spiritual
condition, immune to any relation with matter, thus non-dependent on the
support of the imagination, and being the only form able to receive spiritual
activities. Álvarez’s work underlines the soul’s ability to reach right and evident
self-awareness, clearly knowing the infused species and knowing the acquired
species even more distinctively than had been the case during the soul’s his-
torical life. The evidence that characterizes the state of the separated soul is
perceived through: (1) the ability of knowing all the sensibles; (2) a distinct
knowledge of itself and of other souls; and (3) the ability to know in a natural
form all the possible things that exist in God. Besides the idea of progress in
separated knowledge, the divide between Thomism and Scotism is surpassed
thanks to a third modern thesis, influenced by St. Augustine, that seems to ex-
tend the “middle science” to the realm of the separated knowledge.
Since our theology is not apparent, because it depends on the dispositions
of the Catholic faith, which intrinsically are not predisposed to evidence, faith
in the biblical God requires an interdisciplinary approach involving physics,
53 Maria da Conceição Camps, “A questão da imortalidade da alma intelectiva segundo

Baltasar Álvarez (1598) e Francisco Soares lusitano (1651),” Revista filosófica de Coimbra 24
(2015): 123–48.
368 Carvalho
metaphysics, and obviously theology. First, the cjcc sustain the possibility of
reaching the knowledge of God through causality (Physica 8), which achieves
the first cause or first Mover, as allegedly proved by Aristotle. Second, the cjcc
claim that the knowledge and contemplation of God must be satisfied by a
metaphysical argumentation (Metaphysica 12, 7), where Aristotle reached the
wider meaning of motion, comprising spiritual motions; allegedly, Aristotle
foresaw the first Mover that acts according to a known and loved purpose. Fi-
nally, following Pseudo-Dionysius’s doctrine on the three ways of knowing, the
separated soul can get to know God. Also according to this “prince of theol-
ogy,” it is possible to know the infinite perfection of the divine nature, either
by removing from God the non-absolute perfections, or affirming his absolute
perfection, in a superlative way. The love for God is simultaneously an honest,
useful, and pleasant action that can be permeated by pleasure and the mind’s
delight, allowing us access to the perfect happiness, to God himself. The great-
est misfortune (summa miseria) is being distant by the eternal death from the
supreme good and the true source of life—God: he who has created not only
the heaven that man can see but also a new heaven and a new earth, a heavenly
and happy city enlightened by divine clarity.
4 Conclusion
This chapter has sought to provide a systematic presentation of Góis’s philo-

sophical thought. Although he was the main author behind the cjcc, the chap-
ter also discussed Couto’s and Álvarez’s contributions, given the important role
they played in establishing the Jesuit philosophy course. Góis’s contributions
marked the beginning of an organic exposition of the philosophical science.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the Coimbra course is the clear emer-
gence of a Jesuit Aristotelianism, and the ways in which the fundamentals of
the Ignatian outlook inevitably modified Aristotle. Scotist philosophy and neo-
Platonism also played a role in Góis’s transformation of Aristotle. This chapter
has highlighted some of the elements that would benefit from further study
in order to gain a better understanding of Góis’s philosophical contribution
in Coimbra, and hence to the definition of an early modern Jesuit philosophy.
Bibliography
Almeida, Onésimo T. “‘Experiência a madre das cousas’: On the Revolution of Experi-

ence in Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Maritime Discoveries and Its Foundational
Role in the Emergence of the Scientific Worldview.” In Portuguese Humanism and
the Republic of Letters, edited by Maria Berbara and Karl A.E. Enenkel, 377–94.
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012.
Andrade, António Alberto de. “Introdução.” In Curso conimbricense i. Pe. Manuel de
Góis: Moral a Nicómaco, de Aristóteles, translated by António Alberto de Andrade,
i–cxiv. Lisbon: Instituto de Alta Cultura, 1957.
Andrade, A. Alberto Banha de. Contributos para a história da mentalidade pedagógica
portuguesa. Lisbon: INCM, 1982.
Ashworth, Jennifer. “La doctrine de l’analogie selon quelques logiciens jésuites.” In Les
jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif et production du savoir, edited by Luce
Giard, 107–26. Paris: PUF, 1995.
Ashworth, Jennifer. “Traditional Logic.” In The Cambridge History of Renaissance Phi-
losophy, edited by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler, and Jill
Kraye, 143–73. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Barreto, Luís Filipe. Logos: Enciclopédia Luso-Brasileira de filosofia. Lisbon: Editorial
Verbo, 1990.
Beuchot, Mauricio. “Peirce y la escolástica hispánica.” Anthropos 212 (2006): 160–67.
Blum, Paul Richard. “L’enseignement de la métaphysique dans les Collèges jésuites
d’Allemagne au xviie siècle.” In Les jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif et
production du savoir, edited by Luce Giard, 93–105. Paris: PUF, 1995.
Carolino, Luís Miguel. Ciência, astrologia e sociedade: A teoria da influência celeste em
Portugal (1593–1755). Lisbon: Fund. Calouste Gulbenkian, 2003.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “The Concept of Time according to the Coimbra Commentar-
ies.” In The Medieval Concept of Time: Studies on the Scholastic Debate and Its Recep-
tion in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Pasquale Porro, 353–82. Leiden, Boston,
and Cologne: Brill, 2001.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “A doutrina do intelecto agente no Comentário ao De anima do
Colégio jesuíta de Coimbra.” In El intelecto agente en la Escolástica Renascentista,
edited by Juan Fernando Sellés, 155–83. Pamplona: EUNSA, 2006.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “Intellect et imagination: La ‘scientia de anima’ selon les ‘Com-
mentaires du Collège des jésuites de Coimbra.’” In Intellect et imagination dans la
philosophie médiévale/Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy/Intelecto e
imaginação na filosofia medieval: Actes du xie Congrès International de Philosophie
Médiévale de la S.I.E.P.M. (Porto, du 26 au 31 août 2002), edited by Maria Cândida
Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos, 119–58. Turnhout : Brepols, 2006.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “The Coimbra Jesuits’ Doctrine on Universals (1577–1606).”
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale: An International Journal on
the Philosophical Tradition from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages of the Società
Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino 18 (2007): 531–43.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “O lugar do homem no cosmos ou o lugar do cosmos no homem?
O tema da perfeição do universo antes do paradigma do mundo aberto, segundo o
comentário dos jesuítas conimbricenses.” Veritas 54, no. 3 (2009): 142–55.
370 Carvalho
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “Imaginação, pensamento e conhecimento de si no Comentário

Jesuíta conimbricense à psicologia de Aristóteles.” Revista filosófica de Coimbra 19
(2010): 25–52.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “Introdução geral à tradução, apêndices e bibliografia.” In Co-
mentários do Colégio Conimbricense da Companhia de Jesus Sobre os Três Livros Da
Alma de Aristóteles Estagirita, translated by Maria da Conceição Camps, 7–157. Lis-
bon: Edições Sílabo, 2010.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. Psicologia e ética no curso jesuíta Conimbricense. Lisbon: Edições
Colibri, 2010.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “A questão do começo do saber numa introdução à filosofia
do século xvi português.” In Razão e liberdade: Homenagem a Manuel José do
Carmo Ferreira, 993–1009. Lisbon: Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa,
2010.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “Pierre Bayle et la critique d’Averroès à Coimbra: Deux épisodes
de l’histoire de la réception d’Averroès.” Revista filosófica de Coimbra 22 (2013):
417–32.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “Between Rome and Coimbra: A Preliminary Survey of Two Ear-
ly Jesuit Psychologies (Benet Perera and the Coimbra Course).” Quaestio: Annuario
di storia della metafisica 14 (2014): 91–110.
Carvalho, Mário S. de. “A absolução da natureza e a natureza do humano: Dois motivos
nucleares do curso jesuíta conimbricense.” In De natura: Actas del vi Congreso inter-
nacional Iberoamericano de la Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval (SOFIME), Salaman-
ca 2–5 de diciembre 2012, edited by José Luis Fuertes Herreros and Ángel Poncela,
39–61. Famalicão: Ed. Húmus, 2015.
Casalini, Cristiano. “Adamo ‘magister’: Il canone educativo del Cursus Conimbricensis.”
Educazione: Giornale di pedagogia critica 1–2 (2012): 21–42.
Casalini, Cristiano. Aristotele a Coimbra: Il cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel “Col-
legium Artium”. Rome: Anicia, 2012.
Conceição Camps, Maria da. “A problemática do surgimento da vida humana no Co-
mentário Jesuíta Conimbricense ao De anima de Aristóteles.” Revista filosófica de
Coimbra 19 (2010): 187–98.
Conceição Camps, Maria da. “Do visível ao invisível: A teoria da visão no Comentário
aos três livros Da Alma do Curso Jesuíta Conimbricense (1598).” PhD diss., Facul-
dade de Letras do Porto, 2012.
Conceição Camps, Maria da. “A questão da imortalidade da alma intelectiva segundo
Baltasar Álvarez (1598) e Francisco Soares Lusitano (1651).” Revista filosófica de Co-
imbra 24 (2015): 123–48.
Cordeiro, António. Cursus philosophicus Conimbricensis. Lisbon: Deslandesiana, 1714.
Coxito, Amândio. “O problema dos universais no curso filosófico Conimbricense.” Lic.
diss., Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra, 1962.
Coxito, Amândio. Estudos sobre filosofia em Portugal no século xvi. Lisbon: INCM, 2005.
De Lubac, Henri de. Augustinisme et théologie moderne. Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1965.
Thought. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Des Chene, Dennis. “An Aristotle for the Universities: Natural Philosophy in the Coim-
bra Commentaries.” In Descartes’ Natural Philosophy, edited by Stephen Gaukroger,
John Andrew Schuster, and John Sutton, 29–45. London and New York: Routledge,
2000.
Des Chene, Dennis. Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul. Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, 2000.
Descartes, René. “Descartes à Mersenne, 3 décembre, 1640.” In Oeuvres de Descartes,
edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, 3:248–52. Paris: L. Cerf, 1899.
Dinis, Alfredo. “Tradição e transição no Curso Conimbricense.” Revista portuguesa de
filosofia 47 (1991): 555–56.
Doyle, John P. The Conimbricenses: Some Questions. Translated by John P. Doyle. Mil-
waukee: Marquette University Press, 2001.
Fonseca, Pedro da. Commentariorum in Metaphysicam Aristotelis Stagiritae libros.
Cologne: S. Lazari Zetzneri, 1615.
Fonseca, Pedro da. Instituições dialécticas: Institutionum Dialecticarum Libri Octo.
Translated by Joaquim Ferreira Gomes. Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1964.
Gama Caeiro, Francisco da. “O pensamento filosófico do século xvi ao século xviii em
Portugal e no Brasil.” Revista portuguesa de filosofia 38 (1982): 51–90.
Hattab, Helen. “One Cause or Many? Jesuit Influences on Descartes’s Division of
Causes.” In Meeting of the Minds: The Relations between Medieval and Classical Mod-
ern European Philosophy, edited by Stephen F. Brown, 105–20. Turnhout: Brepols,
1998.
Hill, Benjamin. “Introduction.” In The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, edited by Benja-
min Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 1–21. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Lohr, Charles H. Latin Aristotle Commentaries ii: Renaissance Authors. Florence:
L.S. Olschki, 1988.
Martins, António Manuel. “O conimbricense Manuel de Góis e a eternidade do mun-
do.” Revista portuguesa de filosofia 52 (1996): 487–99.
Martins, António Manuel. “The Conimbricenses.” In Intellect et imagination dans la
philosophie médiévale/Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy/Intelecto e
imaginação na filosofia medieval: Actes du xie Congrès International de Philosophie
Médiévale de la S.I.E.P.M. (Porto, du 26 au 31 août 2002), edited by Maria Cândida
Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos, 101–17. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Werke. Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1973.
Meynard, Thierry. “The First Treatise on the Soul in China and Its Sources.” Revista
filosófica de Coimbra 24 (2015): 203–42.
372 Carvalho
Randles, W. [William] G.L. “Le ciel chez les jésuites espagnols et portugais (1590–1651).”
In Les jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif et production du savoir, edited by
Luce Giard, 129–44. Paris: PUF, 1995.
Salatowsky, Sascha. De anima: Die Rezeption der aristotelischen Psychologie im 16. und
17. Jahrhundert. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: B.R. Grüner, 2006.
Silva Dias, José Sebastião da. Correntes de sentimento religioso em Portugal (séculos xvi
a xviii). Coimbra: Faculdade de Letras, 1960.
Silva Marinheiro, Cristóvão da. “The Conimbricenses: The Last Scholastics, the First
Moderns or Something in between?: The Impact of Geographical Discoveries on
Late 16th-Century Jesuit Aristotelianism.” In Portuguese Humanism and the Republic
of Letters, edited by Maria Berbara and Karl A.E. Enenkel, 395–424. Leiden: Brill,
2012.
Simmons, Alison. “The Sensory Act: Descartes and the Jesuits on the Efficient Cause
of Sensation.” In Meeting of the Minds: The Relations between Medieval and Clas-
sical Modern European Philosophy, edited by Stephen F. Brown, 63–76. Turnhout:
Brepols, 1998
Simmons, Alison. “Jesuit Aristotelian Education: The De anima Commentaries.” In The
Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts 1540–1773, edited by John W. O’Malley, Gauvin
Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, 522–37. Toronto, Buffalo,
and London: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Sousa Alves, Vitorino Mendes de. Ensaio de filosofia das ciências. Braga: Publicações da
Faculdade de Filosofia da Universidade católica Portuguesa, 1998.
Stegmüller, Friedrich. Filosofia e teologia nas universidades de Coimbra e Évora no sé-
culo xvi. Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1959.
Wakúlenko, Serhii. “Projecção da filosofia Escolástica Portuguesa na Polónia seiscenti-
sta.” Revista filosófica de Coimbra 15 (2006): 343–81.
Chapter 15
Francisco Suárez: A “New” Thomistic Realism

Benjamin Hill
Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) was among the second generation of Jesuit phi-
losophers and theologians and may well have been the most influential and
important of the bunch. His theological works inspired many brothers and
theologians to identify as “Suárezians” against more conservative Thomists
within the order. And his philosophical works spread far and wide, influenc-
ing thinkers from a variety of denominational and national backgrounds. He
is a central figure in any account of the early Jesuits and should be included
in every account of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophy. The over-
all tendency of his thinking was irenical and moderate, except with regard to
Protestantism. Concerning the philosophical debates and denominational
battles within the Catholic tradition, he sought to avoid partisanship and dis-
cover common ground. Although generally Thomistic and intellectualist in his
orientation, Suárez adopted many voluntaristic and Scotistic arguments and
positions. A plausible characterization of his philosophy is as a revised version
of Thomism, one revised such that it grants to the voluntarist as much as is
necessary to meet their challenges while retaining as much as possible of the
core of Thomas Aquinas’s (c.1224–74) insights.
From an early age, Suárez knew that he wanted to be a Jesuit intellectual.
He was studying canon law at Salamanca (arguably, the premier institution in
Europe in 1564) when, at the age of sixteen, he applied to the Jesuit order. He
was turned down. Maybe it was because of poor health; maybe it was because
of poor grades1—it is not altogether clear why. Nevertheless, he persisted and
petitioned the order to reconsider. He was finally admitted as an indiferente,
which is a sort of probationary status pending a future decision on full admis-
sion. While an indiferente at Salamanca, something happened to him. We do
not know exactly what or why, but his intellect and studies began to blossom
and then flourish. It is tempting to speculate that his intellectual breakthrough
is related to his insight to conceive of metaphysics as a free-standing system,
much as it is presented in the Disputationes metaphysicae (Metaphysical dis-
putations [DM; 1597]), rather than a series of linked yet disparate topics, as it
1 Sociologist Joseph Fichter (1908–94) suggests this as the reason. Joseph Fichter, Man of
Spain: Francis Suárez (New York: Macmillan, 1940), 46.

374 Hill
is presented by the commentary tradition. In any case, he developed so much

that he completed his studies early and in 1570 was given the honor to teach
philosophy rather than grammar or rhetoric in his first academic position.
Suárez spent his entire academic career in Iberia and Rome. He began at
Salamanca and Segovia before moving on to Valladolid, where he began teach-
ing theology. In 1580, he took on one of the most important positions in his
career, teaching theology at the Roman College, the Jesuits’ most important
university, located in Rome. He spent five years there before moving back to
the university at Alcalá. It was at Alcalá that his difficult and acrimonious re-
lationship with Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604) would begin. But it was also at
Alcalá that his tremendous publication career began. Suárez then spent four
years back at Salamanca (1593–97) before accepting the most prestigious pro-
fessorship in Iberia, the chair of theology at the University of Coimbra, where
he finished his academic career in 1615.
As is well known, there is something special about being a Jesuit academic.
The Jesuit order was originally conceived to be a mission-based order. That
is to say, their original focus was to be sent into the world, apostolic-like, to
spread the good word and alleviate suffering, especially spiritual suffering.
Although the Jesuit focus on education developed early in the order’s history,
it was a focus that arose within the context of this larger apostolic approach.
This context has important consequences for understanding Jesuit academ-
ics more generally and Suárez’s philosophical approach in particular. For this
apostolic focus required a certain kind of engagement with the world as well
as the world of ideas.2
As a Jesuit academic, teaching was Suárez’s apostolic mission. He was a theo-
logian teaching at universities, rather than at colleges. Consequently, he largely
taught other missionaries who would go out among the people. He was not, in
other words, training people to be other academics, as philosophers are now;
he was training people to be apostolic. For an early Jesuit, like Suárez, in other
words, theology—and so philosophy too—was primarily a social act, a part of
the construction, maintenance, and development of the Christian community.
And to be apostolic among the spiritually sick and suffering within the commu-
nity of the world, the missionaries needed to be intellectually armed in a certain
way. They needed a systematic understanding of theology and its philosophical
2 For more on the early Jesuits and the development of the order, see: John W. O’Malley, The
First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); O’Malley, The Jesuits: A History
from Ignatius to the Present (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014); and Cristiano Casalini,
“The Jesuits,” in The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Benjamin Hill
and Henrik Lagerlund (New York: Routledge, 2017), 159–88.
Francisco Suárez: a “New” Thomistic Realism 375
underpinning as well as knowledge of how to respond to objections, counter-

claims, and practical problems. They did not need to know how to navigate
among all the internal theological disputes, how to reconcile all the theologi-
cal and philosophical authorities, or how to dispute interpretations within the
extensive commentary tradition. This apostolic demand, more than anything
else, pressured the order to reshape the nature of education, as e xemplified
by the development of the famous Ratio studiorum and the development of a
textbook tradition within the order’s schools. But it also contributed to Suárez’s
own equally famous systemizations of philosophy, as exemplified in the Dispu-
tationes metaphysicae (1597), De legibus (On laws [1612]), and in the unfinished
rewriting of his old Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima (1621).3
Although his systematizations of philosophical areas involved a reorganiza-
tion of the exposition of material, Suárez’s achievement was not simply that. It
also required him to reconceive the underlying relations and conceptual struc-
tures binding the material together. In some cases, he was able to follow the
outlines laid down by his predecessors. But to a large extent, it is better to think
of his works as independent expositions occasioned by Thomas’s or Aristotle’s
treatment of the material rather than commentaries on their treatments. The
most famous is the Disputationes metaphysicae, where Suárez organizes and
systematizes material from (among others) Aristotle’s Categories, Metaphysics,
and Physics and Thomas’s On Being and Essence, Summa theologica, Summa
contra Gentiles, and his commentaries on Aristotle.
1 Disputationes metaphysicae (1597)
The Disputations were, indisputably, Suárez’s philosophical masterpiece.

Suárez reconceived and systematized metaphysics in its totality. That achieve-
ment itself is not to be underestimated. But in doing that, he also gave perhaps
the greatest and most vigorous defense of Scholastic metaphysics, Thomas
Aquinas's included. The power and vitality of Suárez’s defense of Scholas-
tic metaphysics was intended to be broadly faithful to Thomas’s conception,
but in a way that allowed for a consistent and forceful doctrine to re-emerge
from the intellectualist–voluntarist debates of the fourteenth and fifteenth
3 De incarnatione (1590) and De mysteriis (1592) might be cited as early theological examples
of the same move toward a systematic exposition centered on disputations rather than the
commentary-style approach.
376 Hill
centuries.4 A not-uncommon criticism of Suárez is that he conceded too much

to the Scotists and Ockhamists. That very well may be true, but it is difficult to
see how or where he could have conceded less without opening up his posi-
tions to attack from a voluntaristic standpoint.
Suárez begins the Disputations with some preliminaries about the science
of metaphysics. He defines metaphysics as the science of being insofar as it is
real: “Dicendum est ergo, ens in quantum ens reale esse objectum adaequatum
hujus scientiae.” If the highest genus is divided into Being and Non-being,
metaphysics is placed on the “Being” branch of the tree. But it does not encom-
pass that whole branch, which is how Suárez subtly alters the traditional char-
acterization of metaphysics as the study of being insofar as it is being. Beings
of reasons do not fall under the purview of the metaphysicians even though
they have some degree of being. This is used at the end of the work to explain
why beings of reason are not, properly speaking, part of the purview of the
metaphysician. Although they are beings in a proper sense, they are not real
beings, at least not with regard to their objective concepts. Metaphysics, then,
encompasses the genus of Real Being.5 The second preliminary addresses the
distinction between the formal and objective concept of a thing and explains
why the metaphysician needs to focus on the objective concept rather than
the formal one in doing metaphysics. The formal concept is the subjective way
that we conceive of a thing, the intellectual act in itself one has when one
conceives of something. The metaphysician, however, needs to be focusing on
thing itself, the principle (ratio) represented properly and immediately, or per-
haps better, known through the act of intellection.
After these preliminaries, Suárez engages with pre-categorical character-
istics of Being—unity and distinctness, truth and falsity, goodness and evil,
and causation. The first three pairs are traditionally understood as transcen-
dental properties. This means that they are properties of all beings insofar as
those beings have being. Moving causation to the pre-categorical and placing
it alongside the transcendental properties on the basis that all beings have
causes was revolutionary. For it implies that to properly comprehend even in-
finite substance, a prior understanding of causation is required. Chapter 28
4 This debate concerned the priority of God’s intellect or will in grounding certain features
of creation, especially metaphysically necessary features and goodness or lawfulness. Intel-
lectualists believed that God’s intellect was explanatorily prior and that God willed these
features because they were so fixed in the divine ideas. Voluntarists believed that God’s will
was explanatorily prior and that God’s willing these features into the creation fixed the divine
ideas in accordance with it.
5 Cf. Rolf Darge, “Suárez on the Subject of Metaphysics,” in A Companion to Francisco Suárez,
ed. Victor Salas and Robert Fastiggi (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 91–123.
marks a transition to the categorical in that it lays out the hierarchy of be-
ings ranged from infinite to finite and, most importantly, explains how a strong
distinction between the being of God and the being of creature is maintained
in the face of Duns Scotus’s (1265/66–1308) arguments for the univocality of
being. After a proof for God’s existence and discussion of the metaphysics of
the Infinite Substance, Suárez moves on to the categorical. Substance occupies
chapters 33–36 and the various accidents much of the remainder of the work.
As mentioned above, the work ends with a non-metaphysical disputation, an
account of the “shadowy” being that is possessed by beings of reason.
2 Being
The philosophical significance of metaphysics for Suárez lies in its scope and
generality. It literally encompasses everything, God included. Suárez under-
stands this notion of encompassing in terms of conceptual containment. The
objective concept of any being contains the objective concept of Being as such,
Being insofar as it is real.
According to Suárez, Being ought to be understood as the aptitude toward
existence. A thing has being if and only if it is apt to exist.6 This is a useful and
powerful middle way between possibilism, which accords Being to the pos-
sibility of existing, and actualism, which accords Being to only what actually
exists. Other things being equal, the actual is a reflection of what is apt to ex-
ist, but is not co-extensive with it. And much of the possible will also be apt
to exist, even while the domain of the possible is greater than the domain of
the real. This middle way of characterizing Being also allows for the distinc-
tion between essence and existence, allows for freedom in the divine activity
of creation, and avoids limiting God’s creativity in ways weaker than a formal
contradiction. Furthermore, the combination of a containment notion and an
aptitude notion within the concept of Being provides a basis for explaining
the impossibilities of things like chimeras: incompatible properties cannot be
simultaneously apt to exist within a single, unitary being. Suárez’s middle way
between possibilism and actualism seems like a powerful and fruitful way to
navigate many of the voluntarist challenges to Thomistic metaphysics.
One challenge especially important to Suárez was the Scotistic argument for
the univocality of being.7 Suárez is careful to claim that, properly speaking, the
6 This is the major theme of DM 2.4.

7 For a detailed discussion, see Daniel Heider, “Is Suárez’s Concept of Being Analogical or Uni-
vocal?,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2007): 21–41.
378 Hill
Being is analogical, and he develops an important alternative form of analogy

to Cardinal Thomas Cajetan’s (1469–1534) famous and influential doctrine of
analogy to support that.8 Suárez rejected Cajetan’s doctrine of proper propor-
tionality, which requires that there are two concepts of Being (one for God
and one for creatures) but each is contained within their respective beings in
similar (i.e., proportional) ways. Instead, Being was analogical according to
the doctrine of attribution, according to Suárez, which requires that Being be
properly and primarily attributed to God but derivatively attributed to crea-
tures. This constituted a return to a Thomistic conception of the analogy of Be-
ing, but Suárez argued that the Being derivatively attributed to creatures was,
pace Cajetan, an intrinsically denominated property nonetheless. It was the
fact that this attribution involved an intrinsically denominated property of be-
ing that Suárez was able to maintain: (a) his strong notion of the containment
of the objective conception of Being, pace Thomas; (b) his characterization
of metaphysics as a proper science, pace Scotus; and (c) his avoidance of the
analogy of proportionality, pace Cajetan.
3 Theory of Distinctions
Suárez had interesting and influential things to say about the notions of
unity, individuality, goodness, and truth. But from among the transcenden-
tal properties, I want to highlight his influential theory of distinctions (DM
7), because it has been, and continues to be, an important topic of scholarly
discussion.9
Transcendental properties come in pairs of opposites. Unity is central to
the account of beings, according to Suárez, for every entity or thing (res) that
exists is a single, unitary individual. Because every thing is a unitary individual,
everything is distinct from everything else. Understanding distinctness, then,
is as central to understanding being as understanding unity is.
Suárez recognizes three types of distinction—real, modal, and rational—
and their different applicability to Being help to identify and highlight the
various types of beings, namely things, non-things, and beings of reason. Since
distinction in general is just the differences obtaining between beings, these
8 For an excellent discussion, see Jennifer Ashworth, Les théories de l’analogie du xiie au xvie
siècle (Paris: Vrin, 2008).
9 For a good overview of the theory, see also Richard Glauser, “Descartes, Suárez, and the The-
ory of Distinctions,” in The Philosophy of Marjorie Grene, ed. Randall Auxier and Lewis Edwin
Hahn, Library of Living Philosophers 29 (Chicago: Open Court, 2002), 420–27.
differences arise because of the natures of the different types of being, or how
those natures are conceived.
The real distinction is the easiest and most familiar. Two things that are re-
ally distinct are capable of existing independently of one another. For Suárez,
this notion of independent existence is important and the key to there being a
real distinction. The paradigmatic example of independent existence is when
two things are able to exist naturally even though the other is annihilated. The
distinction between two substances is a real distinction, then: I could naturally
exist without my brother and vice versa. (Unfortunately, one conjunct is all
too often actualized!) But natural, mutual independence is only one form of
real distinctness, according to Suárez. Another way that two things could ex-
ist independently is through God’s absolute power. This greatly expands the
category of really distinct beings. For, this allows for: (a) certain accidents to
be really distinct from their substances, because God could hold the accident
in existence while annihilating the substance, and of course the substance
could naturally survive the loss or annihilation of the accident; (b) substan-
tial forms to be really distinct from informed matter, because again God could
hold the substantial form in existence while annihilating its substance, and
matter naturally persists despite the loss or annihilation of its substantial
form.10 Just as important as recognizing that the independence between things
can be either natural or due to God’s absolute power is recognizing that the in-
dependence must be mutual. It is the mutual character of the independence
behind a real distinction that marks the difference between real and modal
distinctions (more on this below). Finally, it is important to recognize that the
independence between things encompasses subjunctive conditionals about
their separate existence. The paradigmatic examples involve two things exist-
ing at different times, different locations, and even in different possible worlds.
Thus it is sufficient for substance A to be really different from substance B if
the one were to exist without the other, and vice versa, which includes the pos-
sibility that one exists at some point even though the other could but never
does exist. But Suárez’s notion of independence is also compatible with two
things existing co-located and at the same time; indeed, the real distinction
between matter and form is an example of such a case of independence. They
could continue to persist—even in the same place and at the same time—
even though they are substantially disunited, according to Suárez. So, the
10 The human substantial form, the everlasting rational soul, is different because it naturally
persists despite the loss of the matter it informs. This allows Suárez to accept the natural
immortality of the human soul and dissolves the paradox of what happens to it while
awaiting resurrection and re-embodiment.
380 Hill
i ndependent existence behind the real distinction is best understood in terms

of subjunctive conditionals regarding annihilation by God.
This characterization of real distinctness highlights that the category of en-
tities or things includes more than just individual substances. It also includes
individual rational souls, certain accidents, substantial forms, and matter. All
of these will be things or res for Suárez. And because each of them is capable
of independent existence, each will have to possess individual unity and be
self-subsistent entities (pending divine conservation, of course).
Suárez’s chief contribution regarding distinctions is the development and
defense of his notion of a modal distinction. A modal distinction is character-
ized by the non-mutual independence or separability of two things. Here, one
thing may exist without the other, but the other cannot. For example, motion is
modally distinct from its subject, according to Suárez. What this means is that
the subject could continue to exist without the motion, but the motion cannot
survive the annihilation of its subject. And this is so even given the absolute
power of God. God could annihilate all motion in Creation, thereby “freezing”
everything, but God could not create a world of nothing but motion—motion
requires that there be something that moves. The inherence of an accidental
form in its subject is also a mode according to Suárez. Because these accidents
are res, as described above, they can continue to exist without inhering in their
subject. But inherence itself cannot remain in existence without the accident,
even with God’s absolute power. So, inherence is only modally distinct from
the accident and is simply a way of being of the accident itself. The subject has
the property of being inhered in, which is also a mode of it and is conceptually,
though not metaphysically, related to the inherence of the accident. The same
thing is said of the substantial unity obtaining between a substantial form and
matter. The matter is informed by the substantial form, but its being informed
by it is not some entity or thing over and above its being formally caused to
structure itself in a certain way. The same applies for the informing of the
substantial form—it is a way that the substantial form exists as it informs its
matter. Were God to separate the matter and form, and keep both in existence
yet disunited, the informing could not persist no matter what God would do.
Other important examples of Suárezian modes include figure, location, and
persistence or subsistence. It is important to note that the modal distinction is
a genuine kind of metaphysical distinction because it is rooted in the nature
of things themselves. Like the real distinction, it is, according to Suárez, ex na-
tura rei. It is not, therefore, simply a way of conceiving of a thing, but really is
a way that a thing acts or exists. Modes, therefore, are not nothings, but they
are not things properly speaking; they are non-things yet something-s within
his metaphysics.
So, some accidents are modes of substances and only modally distinct from
them. René Descartes (1596–1650) picked up on this aspect of Suárez’s theory
of distinctions and tried to make good use of it in his reductive, mechanistic
account of substance. But the real purpose of Suárez’s account of the modal
distinction was to block William of Ockham’s (c.1287–1347) nasty critique of
relations of inherence and union. Ockham had argued that inherence and
unions, as res intermediating between two other res, would themselves require
yet another relation uniting them to both relata. And, of course, so would these
two new relations, and so on ad infinitum. Suárez blocks the regress by making
inherence and unions to be modes rather than real relations. As modes, they
do not need anything more connecting them to their subjects, for metaphysi-
cally speaking they just are their subjects acting or being in a certain way. Yet
they also have the requisite reality to make inherence and union be something
more than a merely conceptual relation.
The final category of distinction for Suárez is the distinction of reason. A dis-
tinction of reason is not ex natura rei; it is not rooted in the nature of anything
but is merely a way of thinking about a (single) thing, even when there is some-
thing in things that legitimately occasions that way of thinking about them.
The hallmark of a rational distinction is the absolute lack of separability or
independence of the things thought to be distinct. Examples of a mere distinc-
tion of reason include thinking of a single thing under two different concepts.
Suárez gives the traditional examples of distinguishing God’s omnipotence or
mercy from his omniscience or distinguishing the identity relation from its
relatum. In these cases, something that is not distinct in itself is held up by the
mind as distinct and different from itself. Suárez recognizes two ways of fram-
ing a distinction of reason, and he uses those ways to distinguish two types of
distinctions of reason. The first type is the distinction of the reasoning reason,
which obtains when we ourselves create and impose different concepts onto
a thing. There is no basis in the things for creating or imposing those concepts
onto it; we just do. The second type is the distinction of the reasoned reason,
which obtains when we recognize different aspects of a thing, but because we
have only a partial and incomplete understanding of the thing’s objective con-
cept, we think of these different aspects as distinctions within the thing. An
example of the first, the distinction of the reasoning reason, is “Hesperus is
not Phosphorus.” Venus is given two names based on whether it is perceived
in the morning or in the evening. But being perceived in the morning or in the
evening has nothing to do with Venus. Thus the distinction between Hesperus
and Phosphorus is not founded on anything in Venus and is nothing more than
a reflection of our mind’s working. “God’s justice is not his mercy,” however, is
an example of a distinction of the reasoned reason. No one has an adequate
382 Hill
objective concept of God in his infinite simplicity. What we have is a partial

concept pieced together through some understanding of his acts of judging.
Being based on different aspects of acts of judgment, the distinction is rooted
in differing aspects of God’s nature. But they are not distinct natures, or even
different acts, within God, and so when we distinguish them, it is we who are
making these different aspects of God into different things or properties.
4 Substantial Form
Perhaps the most significant philosophical achievement of the Disputations

is the defense of the existence and nature of substantial forms. At the end of
the sixteenth century, the doctrine of substantial forms was in a state of crisis.
Substantial forms were a kind of theoretical posit, something not observed in
their own right but nonetheless needed to account for what is observed about
and in substances. The chief characteristics of substances that substantial
forms were posited for were the substantial unity of certain sets of accidents
or powers, the internal development and changes within substances, and the
regularity of substantial changes and generation. Substantial forms were sup-
posed to be, then, simultaneously, both physical and metaphysical.11 They were
put to metaphysical work determining the type of potentialities a parcel of
matter was to possess and making a substance be the kind of substance it was
while at the same time they were put to physical work as the efficient causes
of naturally generated primary substances and that which returned disordered
and disrupted substances back to their normal state. Moreover, in the case of
the human substantial form, the rational soul, theological commitments to its
natural immortality added even more pressure toward its physicalization—its
persistence and subsistence between death and resurrection required its inde-
pendent existence.12 This dual nature threatened the whole doctrine with col-
lapse because it seemed to make substantial forms out to be both substances
and non-substances in their own right.13 Insofar as they can independently
subsist and persist, they are just like traditional primary substances; yet inso-
far as they inform matter and compose primary substances, as metaphysical
constituents but not as parts, they are not at all like traditional primary sub-
11 Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
12 Suárez fully embraced this trend toward fully physicalizing substantial form and matter
as such, as seen above in the discussion of their real distinctness.
13 Christopher Shields, “The Reality of Substantial Forms: Suárez, Metaphysical Disputations
xv,” in Interpreting Suárez: Critical Essays, ed. Daniel Schwartz (Cambridge: Cambridge
stances. Suárez was able to push back this contradiction, defend the postula-
tion of substantial forms as a theoretical entity, and explain how substantial
forms could function physically as efficient causes without being a physical
part of a substance.
To avoid the problem that substantial forms are substances in their own
right, Suárez characterized them as incomplete substances.14 This helps to
generate a principled divide between the human rational soul and all other
substantial forms while giving them some degree of independence from the
composites they exist within. This was made possible, even though substantial
forms are in themselves res, by the aptness of a substantial form to persist only
under God’s absolute power. By itself, this move does not solve the problem,
because it leaves unexplained how it is that an incomplete substance can nev-
ertheless do what a substantial form is supposed to do. But it does open up the
conceptual space needed to be in a position to talk coherently and plausibly
about what a substantial form can and cannot do.
What a substantial form is supposed to do lies at the heart of Suárez’s ar-
guments in favor of postulating them. He recognized, rightly, that all we ever
experience of a substance are its accidents and how those accidents change,
modify, and react to various forces. Thus the only things we have to go on
in postulating a substantial form are the behaviors and trends of accidents.
Suárez identifies four phenomena that in his estimation require the postula-
tion of substantial forms. First is the substantial form as an internal principle
of homeostasis. The phenomenon of homeostasis occurs when a body, hav-
ing been acted on in such a way as to disorder or disorganize it, returns to its
normal state when the force is removed. If there were no other force acting
on the body, the body should just remain in its new state when the original
force is removed. But it does not. It reverts back to its normal state. Thus, says
Suárez, there must be some additional force or principle internal to the body
that causes it to revert back to its original state, a substantial form. Second is
substantial change. Substantial change occurs when a substance is so altered
or disordered as to become de-natured and transformed into something else. It
manifests itself to us by the radical and apparently irremediable alteration of a
substance’s properties and accidents. When coal is transformed into diamond
by heat and pressure, for example, what explains the failure of it to return to
coal’s original homeostasis is the absences of coal’s substantial form and the
presence of a new one, diamond’s, causing a new homeostasis. Third is the cor-
relate and joint reactions of apparently independent accidents. For example,
when milk sours, its color also changes from a snowy white to a more yellowy
14 DM 15.5.1.
384 Hill
white. The loss of one gustatory quality should not cause or be correlated with
the loss of one color quality, unless the two qualities were united by some third
thing that acts as either the intermediary between them or, more likely, as the
underlying cause of both changes. This idea is just like the idea beneath the
non-accidental correlation between falling barometers and stormy weather:
the correlation is explained by both independent phenomena sharing a cause,
the development of a low pressure system. The fourth phenomenon Suárez ap-
pealed to in arguing for the postulation of substantial forms is the interference
a greater intensity of one accident presents to the expression of another. Again,
it is supposed to be the underlying substantial form unifying the apparently
independent accidents that accounts for this phenomenon. Substantial forms
are finite, of course, which means that they have limited amounts of energy or
activity to distribute so that when one accident receives an abnormally exces-
sive amount, others have to make do with less. This phenomenon just goes to
show that accidents do not have their own, independent sources for actualiza-
tion and so must be relying on underlying substantial forms that connect them
together and ultimately activate them, or at least limit their potential.
Three of these four phenomena require substantial forms to act as efficient
causes or be acted on by efficient causes. It is the form itself that activates the
changes in accidents. The other, the phenomenon of substantial change, re-
quires that the particular, individual substantial form be corrupted and utterly
destroyed, or created, by forces acting on the substance. How is it that these real
components of composites be physical and enter into physical relationships
of efficient causality without being integral parts of those composites properly
speaking? Suárez’s answer to this apparent paradox is the eduction of the sub-
stantial form from, or back into, matter. In the case of substantial change, the forc-
es act on the substance to cause the alterations in the accidents. These altered ac-
cidents are then the instruments for the substantial change in that they create the
conditions necessary for the possibility of the emergence of the new substantial
form and the disappearance of the old one. The substantial form is best thought
of as an emergent or supervenient entity—the underlying basal properties are
necessarily connected to the form but not identical to it.15 Informing, then, is a bi-
conditional, physical relationship obtaining between the substantial form and
15 A specialist in the history of natural philosophy, Helen Hattab discusses the way the
formal requirements for causality need to be reconceived for this idea of education to
be v iable (“Suárez’s Last Stand for the Substantial Form,” in The Philosophy of Francisco
Suárez, ed. Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012],
101–18, here 110–15).
the set of basal accidental properties, and the substantial form is an incomplete
substance in the sense that it is a generic property or attribute structuring a pri-
mary substance but not, without God’s absolute power, self-subsistent.
5 Causation
The conceptualization of causation as a properly—and fundamentally—meta-

physical topic was central to Suárez’s revolution in metaphysics. Aristotle had, of
course, developed a metaphysics of causation and emphasized its importance
in his Metaphysics. Suárez’s treatment of it was importantly different, however.
First of all, there had been nothing so detailed and exhaustive before. It is no
exaggeration to say that Suárez’s treatment was the most extensive then to date,
and even since.16 Second, Suárez placed the discussion of causation early in
DM, in disputations 12–27, and before the discussion of substance. This place-
ment is significant for it marked causality as either a transcendental property,17
that is, a property that crosses over all the categories and applies to all beings, or
at least a necessary feature of all beings.18 So, in Suárez, causality as a property
stands alongside unity, truth, and goodness and, most importantly, is in some
sense metaphysically prior to even infinite being (i.e., God). In placing causality
where he did, Suárez thus marked causality as a property of being as such. That
is to say, “causality is just like a property of being, from which it follows there is
no being that does not participate in some way in the principle of causality.” Be-
cause there is no being that is not either caused or (in the case of God) causes—
even the principles of being are “per se and properly” caused—causality must
be considered by the metaphysician as part of the science of being qua being.19
16 Speaking of DM as a whole, scholar Alfred Freddoso writes that it is “truly comprehensive;

there is hardly a metaphysical topic of any importance that [the disputations] do not deal
with systematically and at length” (Alfred Freddoso, “Introduction,” in Francisco Suárez,
On Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17, 18, and 19, trans. Alfred Freddoso [New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1994], xiii–xx, here xiii. The same applies to Suárez’s discus-
sion of causation.
17 Jorge J.E. Gracia, “Suárez and the Doctrine of Transcendentals,” Topoi 11 (1992): 121–33.
18 For an overview of medieval theories of transcendentals, see Wouter Goris and Jan
Aertsen’s “Medieval Theories of Transcendentals,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy;
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentals-medieval/ (accessed September 19,
2017).
19 DM 12, introduction, 25:372: “Et ideo propria ejus consideratio ad metaphysicum perti-
nent. […] quia ipsa causalitas est veluti proprietas quaedam entis, ut sic; nullum est enim
ens, quod aliquam rationem causae non participet. […] nam Deus causam non habet,
386 Hill
The account of causation begins with an important redefinition of causal-

ity: “A cause is a principle infusing per se being into something.”20 This concept
of “infusing per se” is significant. Suárez means it to capture the notions of
dependence, following-from, and intelligibility that lie at the root of the (so-
called) necessary connection between effects and causes. And it does seem
like a genuine improvement over previous definitions and the modern charac-
terization of causality in terms of a naturally necessary connection. But it also
generates a host of potentially troublesome issues that Suárez had to address.
First of all, the concept seems to privilege, and even prioritize, efficient causal-
ity over the other three forms of causality (material, formal, and final) because
infusing per se seems to best fit the model of efficient causality, that of an ex-
tant thing transferring motion or being into another.21 Second, the concept
seems to undercut the univocality of the predicate “is a cause” insofar as mate-
rial and formal causes do not infuse being into their composite substance so
much as they jointly constitute the being of a composite substance. Suárez is
keen to maintain that they are true causes as much as efficient cases are,22 but
he has to tread a fine line here. A third issue concerns the metaphysics of infus-
ing and the sorts of ontological requirements the concept carries with it. For
example: What is the status of the “thing” that is infused in causal relations? Is
infusing a kind of transfer or transference of something (a proper part?) from
one to something else? If not a transference, what? What is the subject of the
infusing, the agent or the patient? Many of the details in Suárez’s discussions
of each of the kinds of causes revolve around or address these three issues,
among others.
The kinds of causes are addressed in the following order: material causes
(DM 13–14), formal causes (DM 15–16), efficient causes (DM 17–22), final causes
(DM 23–24), and exemplary causes (DM 25). Further consideration of causality
tamen omnia alia praeter ipsum, causam habent; et in eis non solum determinatae seu
particulares rationes entis, sed etiam ipsa entis ratio per se ac proprie causatur, […].”
20 Ibid., 12.2.4, 25:384: ‘Causa est principium per se influens esse in aliud’.
21 Helen Hattab, “Suárez’s Last Stand for Substantial Forms,” in Hill and Lagerlund, Philoso-
phy of Francisco Suárez, 101–18; Dennis Des Chene, Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Late
Aristotelian and Cartesian Thought (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996). Cf. Kara Rich-
ardson (“Formal Causality: Giving Being by Constituting and Completing”) and Sydney
Penner (“Final Causality: Suárez on the Priority of Final Causation”) in Suárez on Aristote-
lian Causality, ed. Jakob Fink (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 64–84 and 121–49. Interpretatively, this
is a contentious issue. Some see a modernizing trend in this privileging or prioritizing
efficient causality; others see a potential abandonment of the Aristotelian fourfold ac-
count of causality.
22 DM 12.3.3, 25:388–89.
takes up disputations 26 and 27. Regarding material causes, Suárez is keen to

reject the possibility that there is more than one material cause in a composi-
tion and defend the thesis that prime matter has some sort of subsistence even
though it does not exist and is only pure potentiality. Central to this is the in-
complete and imperfect nature of prime matter as a substance. Regarding sub-
stantial formal causality, much of Suárez’s focus is on explaining the eduction
of form from matter. At issue here is the extent to which the educed substantial
form must be a physical entity or a metaphysical entity. Scholars have noted a
physicalizing tendency toward Suárez’s account of eduction,23 which in some
eyes threatens to undercut Suárez’s hylomorphism.24 It is part of what moves
many to see Suárez as privileging or prioritizing efficient causality and to see
him as developing a more modern rather than medieval account of causality
and substance.
Efficient, final, and exemplary causality are characterized as “extrinsic” prin-
ciples, which means that they do not infuse any of their own being into their
effects. Rather, they communicate to their effects a being different from their
own. Key features of Suárez’s discussion of efficient causality concern: (1) the
way in which efficient causality is considered a mode of the effect, really dis-
tinct from the effect, insofar as it is an action;25 (2) the formal features of or
conditions for the exemplification of efficient causality;26 and (3) the rejection
of mere conservation and the defense of the need for divine concurrence with
secondary causes.27 In his discussion of final causality, Suárez attempts to ac-
count for their causality in terms of a “metaphorical motion” in the will toward
23 Norma Emerton, The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1984); Benjamin Hill, “Substantial Forms and the Rise of Modern Science,” Saint Anselm
Journal 5 (2007): 1–23; Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes; and Des Chene, Physiologia.
24 The explanatory power of hylomorphism lies in its use of form and matter as metaphysi-
cal principles (rationes) that use formal causality to impose certain faculties and poten-
tialities, and not others, onto their constitutive primary substance. Transforming form
and matter into physical substances in their own right recasts their relationship to one
another in efficient causal terms, which puts pressure on the traditional concept of for-
mal causation, on the concept of constituting a primary substance, and ultimately on the
explanatory force of the hylomorphic model.
25 Stephan Schmid, “Efficient Causality: The Metaphysics of Production,” in Suárez on Aris-
totelian Causality, ed. Jakob Fink (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 85–121.
26 Dennis Des Chene, “Suárez on Propinquity and the Efficient Cause,” in Hill and Lager-
lund, Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, 89–100.
27 Alfred J. Freddoso, “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Secondary Causation
in Nature,” in Divine and Human Action, ed. Thomas V. Morris (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1988), 74–118, and Freddoso, “God’s General Concurrence with Secondary Causes:
Why Conservation Is Not Enough,” Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 553–85.
388 Hill
the goodness of the end.28 The central challenge facing Suárez (and indeed any
who want to posit final causes in nature) is accommodating this characteriza-
tion to non-mental activity. Divine concurrence is important here because the
finality of non-mental activity is derived from God’s ends.29 The central thesis
in his discussion of exemplary causation, the “Platonic” form of causation ex-
hibited by the divine ideas, is to deny that it reduces down to or collapses into
either material or final causality.
6 God and the Metaphysical Demonstration of God’s Existence
Suárez’s proof for God’s existence is an excellent example of his willingness to

critique and abandon the teachings of St. Thomas when they are inadequate
and his willingness to follow in the footsteps of Scotus when the ideas demand
it. Suárez categorically rejects the idea of proving God’s existence on the basis
of natural philosophy. Aquinas’s famous argument of the first way as an ex-
emplar of such a proof receives detailed, focused, and critical attention from
Suárez. It is based on the principle that whatever is moved is moved by some-
thing else. As a principle, this proposition is false: there are a number of self-
moving entities. But most damning, for Suárez, is that there is no contradiction
in the concept of self-motion (DM 29.1.7). It is crucial, then, that we provide a
metaphysical demonstration of God’s existence, like Scotus advocated for, ac-
cording to Suárez.
The failed arguments from motion are not without worth, however, for they
point toward the proper, metaphysical demonstration of the existence of God.
The proper, metaphysical argument is focused on being and uses the true prin-
ciple that whatever is made is made by another—omne quod fit, fit ab alio:
Every being is either made or not made, that is uncreated. But all beings
in the totality [of being] cannot be made. Therefore, it is necessary that
there be some being which is not made, or which is uncreated. The major
[premise] is evident because: of two contradictories one must be found
in something or other. The minor [premise] is proven: because every be-
ing which is made is made by another. Therefore, either that other by
28 DM 23.5.2: “Causalitas finis consistit in motione metaphorica voluntatis, qua illam ad se

allicit.”
29 Ibid., 23.10.6: “Atque ita fit ut in his actionibus, ut sunt a naturalibus agentibus, non sit
propria causalitas finalis, sed solum habitudo ad certum terminum; ut vero sunt a Deo, ita
sit in illis caualitas finalis, sicut in aliis externis et transeuntibus actionibus Dei.”
which it is made is itself made or not. If it is not made, there is given some
uncreated being, which is what we are looking for. But if it also is made,
it will be necessary that it be made by another, about which the same
question will have to be asked. Thus, in the end, either we will have to
stop with a Being that is not made, or we will have to proceed to infinity,
or we will have to reason in a circle. But we cannot reason in a circle, nor
can we proceed to infinity; therefore we must necessarily stop with some
Being that is not made.30
The key relationship here is an efficient causal one, according to Suárez, and
such relationships cannot be bent back onto themselves or have continued
through an infinite series of causes and effects. Consequently, it does not mat-
ter if the causal series is an essentially subordinated series or an accidentally
subordinated series; in neither case can the series be infinite because of the
existential dependence that efficient causality brings along with it.
Suárez recognizes that a significant limitation of the argument—indeed of
any cosmological argument, Thomas’s included—is that although it proves the
existence of an uncreated being, it does not guarantee that there is only one
such being; nor does it guarantee that this uncreated being is God in the usual
Christian sense. So, he strives to rectify this and provide arguments following
from and supporting this metaphysical demonstration of the existence of an
uncreated being. The second and third sections of disputation 29 are dedicated
to this.
In Section 2, Suárez considers the prospects of developing an a posteriori
argument for these theses. It does not look good, he says. At best, we might be
able to establish that the being who is the uncreated substance is the one and
only God, but that line of reasoning would be defeatable and only probable.
This would not help to support a metaphysical demonstration. Moreover, it
does not support the thesis that this uncreated being is the creator of every-
thing, which is what needs to be developed and defended. It only supports the
thesis that this being is the cause of what we perceive and understand, rather
than everything as such. To properly establish that this uncreated being is God,
Lord of all, we need an a priori argument to that effect. This is the purpose of
Section 3 of the disputation.
The argument Suárez develops is not an a priori argument for God’s
existence and nature all at once, like Anselm of Canterbury’s (1033–1109) on-
tological argument is. It begins with the already established premise that an
30 DM 29.1.21, translated by John Doyle in The Metaphysical Demonstration of the Existence of

God: Metaphysical Disputations 28–29 (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2004), 66–67.
390 Hill
uncreated being exists. But once this premise is in place, the argument goes
through. It may be best to characterize this argument as an a priori hypotheti-
cal argument that is completed by the premise that an uncreated being exists.
In any case, the argument itself rests on the premise that among eternal
things there is no distinction between what they are and what they could be.
They are whatever they are and could not be otherwise than they are, in other
words; for the eternal, unactualized possibilities are impossible. Uncreated be-
ing, qua uncreated, is of course eternal. So the trick is showing that a multiplic-
ity of uncreated beings is impossible, and another regress argument is used
here. If the uncreated being were to be multiplied at all (if there were to be
two, in other words), there is no reason why there could not be more. Since
this applies no matter how many there are, if the uncreated being could be
multiplied at all, it would have to be multiplied out to infinity. Yet an infinity of
uncreated beings is clearly absurd. So, no uncreated being could be multiplied.
Any uncreated being would have to be singular, in other words. And since one
does exist, it must be the only one that exists (DM 29.3.15).
The argument that this essentially singular, uncreated being is infinitely per-
fect, all-powerful, and the creator of everything is founded on the traditional
maxim that the creator of anything must contain more perfections than what
it creates. Since there are an infinite number of created beings, actual and pos-
sible, this uncreated creator must contain an infinite number of perfections
and so must be all-powerful. It is here, undergirding this move, that Suárez
is able to bring Thomas’s idea of an essentially ordered cause into the largely
Scotistic framework of a metaphysical demonstration of God’s existence and
nature. It shows yet again Suárez’s desire to find a middle way between volun-
tarism and intellectualism and his willingness to concede ground to Scotus
and the voluntarists more generally without completely abandoning the rich
and powerful Thomistic program.
7 Accidents
Suárez addresses all accidents, and what he has to say about every one is inter-
esting. But I wish to briefly highlight his detailed and extensive treatment of
relations. The category of relations was especially important during the Scho-
lastic and early modern periods, and especially problematic. No one could do
without the category of relations, yet no one was quite able to make any real
progress or forge any consensus about what relations were. Throughout the
whole period, everyone—realists and nominalists alike—held some version
of what we nowadays consider as an “anti-realist” metaphysics, and everyone
combined it with some version of what we nowadays consider as a “realist”

semantics.31 Within this conceptual framework, Suárez defends a moderate
version of realism.
Relations are not things or res for Suárez, and there is no ontological com-
mitment to the existence of polyadic properties, such as would mark a “realist”
nowadays. The reality of relations, for Suárez, obtains because they have some
real grounds in things. All real relations, then, must consist of four compo-
nents: a subject, a foundation, a direction or reference, and a term or relatum.
Suárez is a realist in the last Scholastic sense because of his commitment to
the necessity of a foundation for a real relation—any comparison lacking a
foundation in a subject is just an ens rationis (a being of reason). The subject
is the substance having or exhibiting the relation. The foundation is the aspect
or constituent of the subject that points toward or refers to the relatum. The
pointing toward is what semantically grounds the relation. And the term or
relatum is the substance connoted by and compared to via the relation. This
structure is simple enough to state, but working out the metaphysical details
can get difficult and convoluted.32
Suárez identifies a variety of kinds of relations. Some are grounded in causal
powers and activities (these include thinking, perceiving, sensing, etc.). Oth-
ers are comparative and grounded in qualities or quantities themselves. Still
others are grounded in spatial or temporal properties. Thinking of specific
examples of relations can help to highlight their ontological structures and
the conditions necessary for those structures. For example, I am the father of
my son. Being a father is dependent on a past act, but that past act, although
ended, has been completed and provided me with a certain characteristic that
is the ground for the relation. That characteristic is directed at my son, and
remains so as long as my son continues to exist. It remains so even if I am es-
tranged from my son, but were my son to no longer exist, I would no longer be
a father. So, I am the subject, the characteristic of fatherhood is the completion
of the past act, and it is directed at my son who is the term or relatum of the re-
lation. The completedness of the act of paternity fixes the direction of the rela-
tion of fatherhood for the future, but the case of being whiter than is different
in this regard. The new-fallen snow is whiter than my flesh, but it is not whiter
than my starched shirt. The comparisons are grounded in the qualities of the
31 Jeffrey Brower, “Medieval Theories of Relations,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy;

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relations-medieval/ (accessed September 19, 2017); Ben-
jamin Hill, “The Background and Sources for Locke’s Anti-realism about Relations,” paper
presented to the ucla Department of Philosophy, March 2010.
32 For a good discussion of those details, see Jorge Secada, “Suárez on the Ontology of Rela-
tions,” in Schwartz, Interpreting Suárez, 62–88.
392 Hill
objects (subjects and terms), but the directedness is fixed by the conditions of
the comparison. So long as I remain ruddy-complexed and the snow retains its
initial whiteness, the comparison is grounded in the natures of the things. But
change the comparison and the same subject and unchanging ground may not
support the relation because of the change in its directedness.
Suárez also recognizes formal characteristics of relations, like symmetry
and reciprocity, and considers which types of relations tend to exhibit these
formal characteristics. Some relations are mutual, according to Suárez, which
means that they exhibit a kind of symmetry, although not symmetry in the
strict sense. Being a father is a mutual relation in that the very same character-
istic in the son that terminates the fatherhood relation is grounds for the op-
posite relation of being a son of terminating in the characteristic of paternity.
Some relations are symmetrical in the strict sense, however. The love obtaining
between a father and a son, for example, could be what Suárez calls a recipro-
cal relation in that both have a common, emotional grounding, namely love. In
other words, the subject, the term, and the foundation are all the same in the
loving relations; the difference between the father’s love for the son and the
son’s love for the father is simply a difference in the direction of the directed-
ness of the relations.
Suárez also recognizes that there is an important class of non-categorical
relations, which he calls transcendental relations. Like categorical relations,
these must be real, and so they must exhibit the same ontological structure
as real categorical relations. The difference between categorical and transcen-
dental relations is in how their grounds are directed toward their terms. Histo-
rian Jorge Secada explains it as follows:
While a categorical relation is essentially and exclusively a certain direct-

edness from the subject to the term, so that it supposes no real reference
in its foundation unless there be an appropriate term, a transcendental
relation results from a foundation which essential makes reference to its
term. Unlike a categorical relation, a transcendental relation “is not di-
rected to its term purely as term.”33
The foundation in a transcendental relation in some important way concep-

tually contains the term, so that the relation obtains even though the term
does not exist or subsist as an independent res. There remains a term in
this case, so there is no violation of the ontological structure of a real rela-
tion, but the term need not have the independence of a self-subsisting thing.
33 Ibid., 79.
We c onsidered an example of a real transcendental relation above in the sec-

tion on real d istinctness—the informing relation between a really distinct but
not yet independently substantial form and its matter.
8 Commentary on De anima (1621)
Suárez was reworking his much earlier lecture notes on Aristotle’s De anima
when he died in 1617. He was attempting to bring the same kind of systematic
approach that he brought to metaphysics to the nature of the soul. It is unfor-
tunate that he died before he was able to get very far in this project. Extending
the rich metaphysical structures laid down in the Disputations into the realms
of life and soul, mind and cognition, and human nature would have been an
interesting result. As it is, he was only able to revise the first few questions
before his death.
Nonetheless, the De anima commentary provides an interesting and signifi-
cant account of soul and human psychology. The character of Suárez’s philo-
sophical thought about the nature and powers of soul is remarkably similar to
that displayed in the Disputations—he is extremely irenical, seeking a middle
way between the more robust rationalism and intellectualism and the nomi-
nalist and voluntarist critiques of it. And as in the Disputations, he has a ten-
dency to alter the understanding or interpretation of much of what he adopts
from his predecessors, maintaining as much of the letter of their thoughts even
though he does not always retain its spirit. But when he deviates from Aqui-
nas’s thinking in particular, it is almost always because he is updating it in light
of the nominalist and voluntarist critiques or insulating it from them.
9 Sensible and Intelligible Species
With regard to the great debate about species, Suárez adopted the terminology
of species theory but fundamentally altered its conceptual structure and na-
ture. For Suárez, sensible species get explained or reduced away to the efficient
causal structures of sense perception. This generates a fundamental divide be-
tween the sensible species, which are the way of talking about the mechanics of
sense perception, the phantasm, which is the image produced by the sensible
species in the imagination, and the intelligible species, which are ultimately
produced as the intentional contents of cognition. The move is motivated by
the traditional problem of the existence of sensible species in the medium,
but the result of the division is that a certain degree of independence is now
394 Hill
accorded to the phantasm and the intelligible species, at least in regard to their
cognitive contents. And this generates a philosophical puzzle of their own, ap-
parently unrecognized by Suárez, of the ultimate origin of the contents. It also
generates a problem concerning the characterization of intellectual represen-
tation, which Suárez did recognize and address in disputation 9. Resolving the
problem of the existence of the species in the medium as he does makes the
conception of representation rather mysterious. There is no longer any basis
for a resemblance between the intelligible species, the phantasm, the sensible
species, and the object cognized. And Suárez’s reduction of the sensible spe-
cies undercuts the move to a causal relation as the grounds for representation
because the sensible species is no longer the source or origin for the intelligible
species. So, there seems to be something primitively object-directed about the
intelligible species for Suárez. They just seem to be representative of what they
represent by their nature.34
10 Agent Intellect
If the origins of contents and the representational nature of intelligible spe-

cies are problematic for Suárez, so is the generation of the intelligible species.
The source of the problem here is the ontological independence of the intel-
ligible species. Because the phantasm is a material idea, which is less noble
than the immaterial, universal intelligible species, and the less noble cannot
act on the nobler, the intelligible species cannot be directly produced in the
intellect by the phantasm. There must be something at least as noble as the
intellect that can act on it to produce the intelligible species. This is, of course,
the traditional problem of the agent or active and passive intellect.
The agent intellect is the faculty that produces in the passive intellect the
intelligible species as occasioned by the phantasm in the imagination. Suárez
is very clear that this process does not involve any change or transformation
in the phantasm itself. The phantasm is the occasion for the activity of the
agent intellect and the instantiation of the universal in the particular, mate-
rial phantasm determines the content of the intelligible species. But neither
the intelligible species nor the agent intellect are caused by the phantasm.
What happens is that the passive intellect is formally changed by the agent
intellect: the form that obtains materially in the phantasm is created anew
34 Tuomo Aho, “Suárez on Cognitive Intentions,” in Mind, Cognition, and Representation: The
Tradition of Commentators on Aristotle’s De anima, ed. Paul Bakker and Johannes Thijssen
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 179–205.
but s piritually (spirituali modo) in the passive intellect.35 What distinguished

Suárez here within the Jesuit tradition was his insistence that this process did
not change the phantasm itself. Unlike others, abstraction to the intelligible
form was not accomplished by removing or prescinding away any particular-
izing or obscuring features of the phantasm. The phantasm’s role is nothing
more than to provide an example of the form that determines the content of
the intelligible species.
11 Immortality of the Soul
The above types of independence are of great theological and philosophical

significance for Suárez’s overall thinking. For it is those kinds of independence
that allow him to resolve the customary, and damning, problem with Thomas’s
argument for the intellective soul’s immortality. Thomas and Suárez thought of
the intellective soul’s immortality as ultimately rooted in the fact that intellect
has no bodily organ properly speaking. Thomas had attempted to make that
the heart of his argument for the immateriality and separability of soul. But
the problem concerns the power of thinking during the period of separation
from the body: since intellection is essentially dependent on material phan-
tasms, how could the soul think—or even be said to have the power of think-
ing—while separated from the body? And in what sense is an intellective soul
without the power to think intellective, or a soul for that matter?
This puzzle is one that haunted the Thomistic account of soul’s immortality
since its formulation. But by ontologically separating the operations of intel-
lection from the operations of the sensible soul and the body, Suárez devel-
oped the resources necessary to resolve the puzzle. Because the possession of
intelligible forms is simply occasioned by phantasms and the sensible species,
the forms themselves must be accessible to the intellect solely by the power
of the agent intellect. The agent intellect could continue to operate, and the
intellect could continue to have the power to think, if not continue to actu-
ally think, without relying on the obtaining of material phantasms or corpo-
real memory. Therefore, the proper operations of the intellective soul are not
only inorganic; they are also essentially independent of the operations of the
body and its vital powers. These fundamentally un-Thomistic accounts of in-
telligible species, the agent intellect, and their relationships to phantasms and
35 Suárez, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima, ed. Salvador
Castellote (Madrid: Fundación Xavier Zubiri, 1991), 9.2.17, 3:28.
396 Hill
sensible species are what allow Suárez to take on Aquinas’s basic argument for
the immortality of the soul:36
Our intellectual principle is immortal, and natural reason proves this

conclusively. St. Thomas in [the Summa theologiae] 1 p., q. 75, a. 6 proves
this conclusion from the preceding one since the rational soul is in itself
subsistent. Therefore it is incorruptible. The consequence is obvious for
the soul would either be corrupted intrinsically or accidentally. It can-
not be corrupted accidentally because to come to be and to be corrupted
belong to something in the same way that being belongs to it. Therefore,
to that to which to be intrinsically belongs, to come to be and to be cor-
rupted also belong either intrinsically, or they do not belong at all. This
proves that [corruptibility] does not belong intrinsically [to the soul] for
what is only form and is subsistent cannot be corrupted intrinsically. The
proof is that what belongs to something intrinsically cannot be separated
from it. But to be intrinsically belongs to a form; therefore it cannot be
separated from it. Therefore it cannot be corrupted.37
12 De legibus (1612)
12.1 Ethics and the Natural Law

The sixteenth century on the whole saw a return to a more Thomistic, intel-
lectualist conception of ethics and the natural law. Cajetan and the Salamacan
School turned their back on the voluntaristic moves of Scotus and Ockham by
downplaying the role that will played in the obliging force of duties and the
natural law and emphasizing the idea that the natural law is to be connected
with rational nature. But this return to intellectualism was pushed harder and
further by Suárez’s fellow Jesuit and long-time antagonist Gabriel Vázquez.
Suárez’s conception of ethics and the role that law plays in it was a clear repu-
diation of Vázquez’s version of rationalism. Suárez did not go so far as to return
to any broadly voluntaristic conception of the natural law. But he did aim to
bring the conception of ethics back to something closer to what Domingo de
36 For detailed discussion of Suárez’s account of the immortality of the soul and how the
independence described above supports it, see James B. South, “Suárez, Immortality, and
the Soul’s Dependence on the Body,” in Hill and Lagerlund, Philosophy of Francisco Suárez,
121–36.
37 Suárez, Selections from De anima, trans. John Kronen and Jeremiah Reedy (Munich: Phi-
losophia, 2012), 2.3.21, 129–30.
Soto (1494–1560), Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546), and Cardinal Cajetan de-

fended as the Thomistic position.
Vázquez pushed the usual intellectualist claim that the natural law was noth-
ing but rational nature itself.38 So far, so good, from a Thomistic perspective.
He also claimed that certain things are good and bad in themselves, a ccording
to rational nature. Again, so far, so good, from a Thomistic perspective. But
Vázquez went too far in maintaining that this can provide a foundation for the
morality of certain actions independently of the divine will. Vázquez was able
to make this move because he conceived of the way that the natural law was
related to rational nature as one of identity in the strict sense—the natural law
as identical to rational nature. Suárez saw this as a rejection of the fundamen-
tally law-like nature of morality and an abandonment of the way that God’s
wisdom is at least partially constituted by his will. The account of morality
and the natural law that Suárez developed in response to Vázquez, then, was a
moderate or weak form of intellectualism that resisted the collapse of morality
into the rational nature itself without giving up on the idea that, as Thomas put
it, “law belongs to reason” because “it belongs to reason to order us to our end”
and “the source in any kind of things is the measure and rule of that kind of
thing,” which is the definition of law.39
But Suárez did not seek just a return to a more Thomistic conception of eth-
ics. He aimed to return to a Thomism that could deal with some of the classic
voluntaristic objections that were raised against Thomistic rationalism. But in
doing so, he further moderated Thomas’s rationalism, so much so that in some
people’s eyes Suárez made ethics out to be too voluntaristic and too Scotistic.
At the heart of this debate over the degree to which Suárez conceded
ground to the voluntarists was Suárez’s conception of duty (debitum) and ob-
ligation (obligatio). Although this is a debated point,40 it does not seem to me
that Suárez conceded too much to the voluntarist. Against the voluntarists, he
admitted that there was a fundamental difference between counsels of pru-
dence and precepts of the natural law. For voluntarists, the distinction tends
to collapse because the natural law is to be followed only because God as law-
giver commanded it, only because it is prudent to do so in other words. But like
the voluntarist, he admitted that the precepts of the natural law are obligating
38 Gabriel Vázquez, Commentariorum ac disputationum in primam secundae S. Thomae (Al-

cala, 1599), d. 150, chapter 3, 22.
39 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica 1–2, q. 90 a. 1, resp., trans. Richard Regan in Aquinas:
On Law, Morality, and Politics, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), 11.
40 Terence Irwin, “Obligation, Rightness, and Natural Law: Suárez and Some Critics,” in
Schwartz, Interpreting Suárez, 142–62; Thomas Pink, “Reason and Obligation in Suárez,”
in Hill and Lagerlund, Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, 175–208.
398 Hill
and have a moral necessity (morale necessitatem) that is distinct and peculiar
to them. It is clear that for Suárez this type of reason is normative and some-
thing in addition to the reasons given by prudence. What seems to push Suárez
into the moderate intellectualist camp, however, is the recognition that even
duties not commanded by God or prescribed by the natural law—things that
are intrinsically good, in other words—make a distinctively moral, normative
demand on us. Because these duties are a part of reason but not commanded
by God in either his capacity as giver of positive law or creator of the natural
law, they cannot be recognized as properly moral by a voluntarist. It is the rec-
ognition of both the dutiful and the obligatory that constitutes Suárez’s mod-
erate intellectualism, midway between Ockham’s and Scotus’ voluntarism and
Thomas’s and Vázquez’s intellectualism.
The nature of this middle path between voluntarism and intellectualism
pushes Suárez away from Thomas’s original positions on the knowability of the
natural law and the analysis of God’s apparent dispensations of it. With regard
to the knowability of the natural law, much of what Suárez says sounds classi-
cally Thomistic. The natural law is naturally knowable. It is not readily or easily
knowable, but it is knowable nonetheless. There are different levels of princi-
ples within the natural law too. Some are the first and most general principles,
and the rest are derived from them. The first and most general principles are
clearer, and most people perceive them, but the secondary, derived principles
are subtler and less widely observed. The first and most general principles are
the Decalogue and the principles of virtue. So far, so good, at least from the
Thomistic perspective.
But the character of these principles is different for Suárez, as can be seen in
his account of the apparent divine dispensations. Like Thomas, he rejects the
possibility that God could dispense with the natural law. But his explanation
differs. Aquinas accounts for the apparent dispensations (the near sacrifice of
Isaac, the marriage of Hosea, etc.) by relativizing the application of the natu-
ral law to its context. In the cases of the apparent dispensations, it is not the
case that the law applies but was suspended by God; rather, for Thomas, the
context of the situation is such that the law does not really apply. We tend to
see it as a dispensation of the law by God because of our limited awareness of
the context of the action. For Thomas, then, the precepts of the natural law
are principles of various levels of generality, and they apply in some contexts
and do not apply (or others apply) in other contexts. Things are very different
for Suárez. Suárez relativizes the content of the natural law to encompass the
cases of the apparent divine dispensations. The natural law always applies to
everyone at all times. Its applicability does not depend on the context of the
activity or the agent’s situation. However, part of the content or formulation
of the natural law precept itself specifies the context in which it needs to be
followed. It is a subtle point that does not make a difference with regard to the
behaviors prescribed or condemned, but one that makes a difference regarding
the ontology of the natural law. Historian James Gordley has characterized the
ontological difference as the difference between a map and a cookbook: as a
map always applies to everyone but what it says to do depends on where one
is located within the structure relative to an endpoint, so Suárez’s conception
of the natural law always applies to everyone, but not everyone is at a point
where its percepts should be followed. And as a cookbook is only used by those
seeking to produce a certain outcome, so Aquinas’s conception of the natural
law will sometimes apply and other times not, depending on whether one’s ac-
tions are directed toward a certain end or not.41 So, at the level of Divine Ideas,
for Suárez the natural law is a fully filled out and specified Divine Idea operat-
ing as a maxim for the divine will, but for Aquinas it is a general principle that
the divine will sometimes follows and sometimes does not, as determined by
God’s wisdom.
13 International Law and Just War Theory
Suárez also contributed materially to the development of modern interna-

tional law and just war theory. Regarding international law, or the ius gentium,
Suárez’s main contribution was built on Vitoria’s work. Vitoria had developed
specific legal principles in reaction to Spain’s activities and conquest of the
New World. Vitoria had conceived of international law as properly moral and
binding regardless of the pacts or agreements countries may have made. His
focus was on the legal and moral bases for Spanish sovereignty and authority
over the newly conquered native peoples: by what right did the Spanish have
to conquer the native nations, by what right did the Spanish crown have to
rule over the native peoples, and by what right did the Catholic Church have
to convert them.
Suárez’s contribution was to systematize the specific principles Vitoria devel-
oped. Breaking away from Thomas yet again, he structured the ius gentium as a
form of human positive law, but one whose roots are not the will and decree of
a sovereign but the practices and conditions for sociability obtaining between
moral equals. For Suárez, international law is rooted in the universal customs
and practices of nations: these are the practices that bind member-states into
41 James Gordley, “Suárez and the Natural Law,” in Hill and Lagerlund, Philosophy of Fran-
cisco Suárez, 209–29.
400 Hill
an international community, and the integrity of that community is the source

for the precepts of international law. This was grounded by a distinction be-
tween ius intra gens (law within a people) and ius inter gentes (law between
tribes of peoples). It is only the customs and habits between nations, consid-
ered as moral equals, that are constitutive of international law. Customs and
habits within nations, no matter how universal, are not constitutive of it.
Suárez used this notion of ius inter gentes to formulate a very modern ver-
sion of just war theory. He addresses themes within all three core areas of just
war theory, ius ad bellum (rightness for waging war), ius in bello (rightness in
waging war), and ius post bellum (rightness after a war). He was one of the first
to recognize an important difference in the moral status of defensive and of-
fensive wars. To be just, a war had to be properly authorized. Although in most
cases such authorization stemmed from the authority of a sovereign, Suárez
recognized the authority of the church and the pope to legitimize war. It must
also have a sufficiently grave cause. He allowed that such a cause could be
the need to punish another state for wrongdoing or the need to avenge a past
wrong. It could also be waged to recoup lost territory or property. Yet another
condition according to Suárez was that the war be likely to achieve its aim.
Waging a war in vain makes it unjust, except in the case of a defensive war,
which is just simply because it is defensive, other things being equal. Finally,
for ius ad bellum, the war must be proportional to its cause: war requires a
rather serious and grave cause precisely because of its severity, and all-out war
requires something extremely grave. Proportionality is also a requirement for
ius in bello for Suárez. He was especially concerned with the harm and killing
of innocents, an all-to-common occurrence in early modern sieges and cam-
paigns. Suárez did recognize what we now call the doctrine of double effects
as an exculpatory factor in the harming of innocents. Finally, Suárez rejected
the idea that victory or conquest gave one the right to do anything to or take
anything from the vanquished. The rights of the conqueror are limited by the
demands of justice and must respect the basic rights all people have to life.
14 Conclusion
The major theme that emerges from Suárez’s philosophical thought is of some-
one seeking to follow Aquinas within a post-voluntarist and post-nominalist
environment. Time and time again, we see him seeking to respond to volun-
tarist and nominalist critiques. But the character of his responses is what is
significant. He does not summarily dismiss the critiques or simply dig his heels
in. He seeks to absorb the critiques, where necessary, or block them, where
possible. This produces a new or revised form of Thomistic realism, one that
preserves as much of it as possible without opening it up to further attack.
Bibliography
Aho, Tuomo. “Suárez on Cognitive Intentions.” In Mind, Cognition, and Representation:

The Tradition of Commentators on Aristotle’s De anima, edited by Paul Bakker and
Johannes Thijssen, 179–205. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
Ashworth, Jennifer. Les théories de l’analogie du xiie au xvie siècle. Paris: Vrin, 2008.
Casalini, Cristiano. “The Jesuits.” In The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth-Century Phi-
losophy, edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund. New York: Routledge, 2017,
159–88.
Darge, Rolf. “Suárez on the Subject of Metaphysics.” In A Companion to Francisco
Suárez, edited by Victor Salas and Robert Fastiggi, 91–123. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Des Chene, Dennis Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian
Des Chene, Dennis. “Suárez on Propinquity and the Efficient Cause.” In The Philosophy
of Francisco Suárez, edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 89–100. Oxford:
Emerton, Norma. The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1984.
Fichter, Joseph. Man of Spain: Francis Suárez. New York: Macmillan, 1940.
Freddoso, Alfred. “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Secondary Causation
in Nature.” In Divine and Human Action, edited by Thomas V. Morris, 74–118. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1988.
Freddoso, Alfred. “God’s General Concurrence with Secondary Causes: Why Conserva-
tion Is Not Enough.” Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 553–85.
Glauser, Richard. “Descartes, Suárez, and the Theory of Distinctions.” In The Philosophy
of Marjorie Grene, edited by Randall Auxier and Lewis Edwin Hahn, 420–27. Library
of Living Philosophers 29. Chicago: Open Court, 2002.
Gordley, James. “Suárez and the Natural Law.” In The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez,
edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 209–29. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012.
Gracia, Jorge J.E. “Suárez and the Doctrine of Transcendentals.” Topoi 11 (1992): 121–33.
Hattab, Helen. “Suárez’s Last Stand for the Substantial Form.” In The Philosophy of
Francisco Suárez, edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 101–18. Oxford:
Heider, Daniel. “Is Suárez’s Concept of Being Analogical or Univocal?” American Catho-
lic Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2007): 21–41.
402 Hill
Hill, Benjamin. “Substantial Forms and the Rise of Modern Science.” Saint Anselm Jour-
nal 5 (2007): 1–23.
O’Malley, John W. The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present. New York: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2014.
Pasnau, Robert. Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Penner, Sydney. “Final Causality: Suárez on the Priority of Final Causation.” In Suárez
on Aristotelian Causality, edited by Jakob Fink, 121–49. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Regan, Richard. Aquinas: On Law, Morality, and Politics. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett,
2002.
Richardson, Kara. “Formal Causality: Giving Being by Constituting and Completing.”
In Suárez on Aristotelian Causality, edited by Jakob Fink, 64–84. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Schmid, Stephan. “Efficient Causality: The Metaphysics of Production.” In Suárez on
Aristotelian Causality, edited by Jakob Fink, 85–121. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Shields, Christopher. “The Reality of Substantial Forms: Suárez, Metaphysical Disputa-
tions xv.” In Interpreting Suárez: Critical Essays, edited by Daniel Schwartz, 39–61.
South, James. “Suárez, Immortality, and the Soul’s Dependence on the Body.” In The Phi-
losophy of Francisco Suárez, edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 121–36.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Suárez, Francisco. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima.
Edited by Salvador Castellote. Madrid: Fundación Xavier Zubiri, 1991.
Suárez, Francisco. On Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17, 18, and 19. Trans-
lated by Alfred Freddoso. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Suárez, Francisco. Selections from De anima. Translated by John Kronen and Jeremiah
Reedy. Munich: Philosophia, 2012.
Part 4
Reverberations
∵
Chapter 16
Descartes and the Jesuits

Alfredo Gatto
1 Introduction
Until the early twentieth century, the image we inherited of René Descartes
(1596–1650) was ruled by the Hegelian interpretation of modern philosophy.
According to this view, Descartes was “a bold spirit who re-commenced the
whole subject from the very beginning and constituted afresh the groundwork
on which Philosophy is based.”1 This interpretation is largely based on the
Meditations, where the “common sense protagonist”2 drawn by Descartes frees
himself from all acquired beliefs. However, as we will see in this chapter, the
Hegelian interpretation is misleading, as Descartes’s work was deeply rooted in
the system of knowledge prevailing at the time.3
The earlier interpretation of Descartes and his work has now changed con-
siderably thanks to the pioneering work of philosopher and historian Étienne
Gilson (1884–1978). Starting with the publication of the Index scolastico–
cartésien (Scholastic–Cartesian index),4 a great deal of work has been carried
out with the aim of identifying the intellectual milieu in which Descartes de-
veloped his thought, as it is impossible to comprehend his work without ana-
lyzing the theoretical framework that preceded it. Although Descartes did not
refer to a great number of authors—he was very sparing with direct references
both in his works and, albeit to a lesser extent, in his letters—his philosophical
investigations nevertheless took place in a very specific cultural context. The
two sections that follow consequently examine Descartes’s relationship with
1 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Medieval and Mod-
ern Philosophy, trans. Elisabeth S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (Nebraska: University of
Nebraska Press, 1995), 3:220–21.
2 Harry G. Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers and Madmen: The Defense of Reason in Descartes’ Med-
itations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 57.
3 Hegel, Lectures, 224.
4 Étienne Gilson, Index scolastico–cartésien (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1913). The Nouvel index
scolastico–cartésien, edited by Igor Agostini, will be published by Vrin. See Igor Agostini,
“Qu’est-ce que constituer un Index scolastico–cartésien?,” in Gilson et Descartes à l’occasion
du centenaire de “La Liberté chez Descartes et la théologie,” ed. Daniel Arbib and Francesco
Marrone, Examina philosophica: I quaderni di Alvearium 2 (2015): 11–24.

406 Gatto
the Jesuits in the period from his studies at La Flèche to the publication of his
Principles of Philosophy in 1644. This is followed by a further two sections that
focus on the relationship between Descartes’s philosophy and that of the Soci-
ety via an examination of his analysis of the Eucharist and substantial forms.
Finally, in the sixth and seventh sections, the chapter concentrates on causa-
tion and material falsity, since Descartes’s discussion of these issues is the only
place where he directly refers to the Jesuits’ work.
2 Descartes at La Flèche
In Descartes’s biographies,5 and in most texts devoted to his Scholastic sources,6

there is an almost mandatory reference to the fact that Descartes studied at
the Jesuit College of La Flèche.7 Descartes was sent to La Flèche by his father
Joachim (1563–1640) around 1606—two years after King Henry iv (r.1589–1610)
had given the Jesuits permission to re-enter France (1604)—and he would stay
there until around 1615. Even though the dates are uncertain, we know that he
attended the Jesuit college for eight years, a period that was divided into five
years of humanities and three years of arts (logic, physics, and metaphysics).
Little is known about the commentaries used at La Flèche, and thus it is
not possible to determine with absolute certainty the texts that informed Des-
cartes thinking during this period. However, some idea of the sources that
Descartes studied during this period can be gained by looking at the textbooks
used in the other Jesuit schools and the references in the Cartesian corpus.8
Over the triennium of his philosophical training, Descartes began studying
5 See Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995);
Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, trans. Jane M. Todd (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1998); Desmond M. Clarke, Descartes: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005).
6 See Jorge Secada, Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Roger Ariew, Descartes among the Scholastics
(Leiden: Brill, 2011).
7 As far as the history and the education of La Flèche are concerned, see Camille de Roche-
monteix, Un collège de jésuites aux xviie et xviiie siècles: Le collège Henri iv de la Flèche, 4
vols. (Le Mans: Leguicheux, 1889).
8 For a more general overview of Jesuit education over that period, see Laurence W.B. Brockliss,
French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century: A Cultural History (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1987); and Mordechai Feingold, ed., Jesuit Science and the Republic of
Letters (Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2003).
Descartes and the Jesuits 407
logic: according to the Ratio studiorum,9 philosophy was supposed to be taught

through the works of Francisco de Toledo (1534–96)10 and Pedro de Fonseca
(1528–99).11 The Ratio does not indicate any specific text for the second and
third years: when teaching physics, the professor was meant to focus on Ar-
istotle’s Physica (Physics), De generatione (On generation), and the first book
of De caelo (On the heavens); and with respect to metaphysics, he was to ex-
plain the second book of Aristotle’s De generatione, De anima (On the soul),
and the Metaphysica (Metaphysics). In the other Jesuit schools, some of the
most frequently used commentaries were edited by the Jesuits of Coimbra,
whose Cursus Conimbricensis, published between 1592 and 1606, played a
highly important role in shaping Jesuit philosophical pedagogy in the seven-
teenth century.12 Alongside the Conimbricenses, Toledo’s commentary on the
Physica and on De anima13 was also used, as well as two of the most important
works on metaphysics available at that time: the Disputationes metaphysicae
(Metaphysical disputations) of Francisco Suárez (1548–1617)14 and the com-
mentary by Fonseca.15 With the sole exception of Fonseca, we know that Des-
cartes had read or was aware of these works because he mentions them in his
correspondence.16
The above list contains the sources to which Descartes more than likely re-
ferred during his education, though there may of course have been many more.
9 Allan Farrell, trans., The Jesuit Ratio studiorum of 1599 (Washington, DC: Conference of
the Major Superiors of Jesuits, 1970), 41–42.
10 Francisco de Toledo, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in universam Aristotelis logicam
(Venice, 1572).
11 Pedro da Fonseca, Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo (Lisbon, 1564).
12 See Mário A. Santiago de Carvalho, Psicologia e ética no curso jesuíta conimbricense (Lis-
bon: Edições Colibri, 2010); and Cristiano Casalini, Aristotele a Coimbra: Il Cursus Conim-
bricensis e l’educazione nel Collegium Artium (Rome: Anicia, 2012).
13 Francisco de Toledo, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in viii libros de Physica auscul-
tatione (Cologne, 1574); Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros Aristotelis De
anima (Venice, 1575).
14 Francisco Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, vols. 25–26 (1861), in Opera omnia, new ed.,
28 vols. (Paris, 1856–78).
15 Pedro da Fonseca, In Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagirita, Tomi Quatuor (Cologne,
1615).
16 For the Conimbricensis and Toledo, see John Cottingham et al., trans., The Philosophical
Writings of Descartes: The Correspondence (vol. 3: henceforth pwd 3) (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991), 153–54; Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (hereafter AT),
Œuvres de Descartes, 11 vols. (Paris: Vrin, 1964–76), 3:185; see AT 3:251. For Suárez, see John
Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, trans., The Philosophical Writings of
Descartes (vol. 2: pwd 2) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 164 (AT 7:235).
408 Gatto
After all, in what we may call his intellectual autobiography, the Discourse
on the Method, Descartes makes no mention of specific authors; rather, he
criticized the school learning he received. Although he studied at La Flèche,
“one of the most famous schools in Europe,”17 Descartes was not satisfied with
the Jesuits’ teaching. Descartes states that, in his college days, he discovered
“that nothing can be imagined which is too strange or incredible to have been
said by some philosopher.”18 However, Descartes’s view of Jesuit education
needs to be understood in the context of two letters. In June 1637, after the
publication of the Discourse, Descartes wrote to Étienne Noël (1581–1659), his
old repetitor in philosophy, stating that he was happy to send him the volume
“as a fruit that belongs to you, and of which you have sowed the first seeds in
my soul.”19 Furthermore, in September 1638, Descartes wrote a letter in which
he recommended that his correspondent’s son be sent to the same college he
had attended because “there is no place on earth, I believe, where [philosophy]
is better taught than La Flèche.”20 If, in the first case, the tone of Descartes’s
letter is related to a specific and well-determined interest, that is, the desire
to spread his ideas among the Jesuits, the second letter sheds new light on the
education he received, which seems to be inconsistent with the polemical tone
of the Discourse.
3 Descartes and the Society: 1640–50
Descartes’s relationship with the Jesuits was more complex than is often as-
sumed.21 After writing the Meditations, Descartes was interested in receiving
some comments on the work.22 Descartes wanted to ensure that he was able
to respond to the Jesuits’ objections to his work, and on September 30, 1640 he
told Mersenne that he intended to
17 John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, trans., The Philosophical
Writings of Descartes (vol. 1: pwd 1) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 113
(AT 6:5).
18 pwd 1:118 (AT 6:16).
19 AT 1:383. In October 1637, Descartes would write another letter to Noël, where he stated
that “there is no one, I think, who has a greater interest in examining this book than the
members of your Society”; pwd 3:75 (AT 1:455).
20 AT 2:378.
21 For a more extensive discussion, see Ariew, Descartes, 13-69; Ariew, Descartes and the First
Cartesians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 18–26.
22 For an overview of the Objections and the Cartesian Replies, see Roger Ariew and Mar-
jorie Grene, ed., Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995).
reread some of their philosophy, which I have not looked at for twenty
years. I want to see if I like it better now than I did before. For this pur-
pose, I beg you to send me the names of the authors who have written
textbooks of philosophy […]; I remember only some of the Conimbri-
censes, Toletus and Rubius.23
Besides the works quoted in the letter, we know from his correspondence that
Descartes’s renewed Scholastic interest was also shaped by Eustachius a Sanc-
to Paulo (1573–1640)24 and Charles François d’Abra de Raconis (1580–1646).25
Thus, as historian Roger Ariew has pointed out, “from 1640 on, in the Replies to
the Objections to the Meditations and in the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes
relearned scholastic philosophy (and scholastic terminology) and began the
process of reinterpreting his thoughts (or translating his doctrines) to make
them more compatible with scholasticism.”26 The Cartesian Replies conse-
quently represent a turning point in the evolution of Descartes’s thought: from
that point onward, Descartes not only tried to recover part of his Scholastic vo-
cabulary but also began working on a treatise that would follow the structure
of the commentaries used in the Society’s colleges. The philosophy textbook
he was planning to write would differ from the traditional ones with respect to
its contents, despite presenting the subjects it discussed in a classical way. The
initial plan suffered a setback,27 possibly due to the death of Eustachius,28 but
Descartes would resume the project shortly thereafter, leading to the publica-
tion of the Principles of Philosophy in 1644.
The period between 1640 and 1642 was a key moment in the relationship
between Descartes and the Society: in addition to his new attitude toward
Scholasticism, Descartes also faced severe criticism from Pierre Bourdin (1595–
1653), who had publicly attacked Descartes’s work in Paris. The Jesuit teacher,
who was professor of humanities at La Flèche between 1618 and 1623, had com-
posed a velitatio criticizing Descartes early in the summer of 1640. Thanks to
23 pwd 3:153–54 (AT 3:185).

24 Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Summa philosophica quadripartita de rebus dialecticis, morali-
bus, physicis et metaphysicis (Paris, 1609). When referring to “the opinions of the Scholas-
tics,” Descartes states that “the Philosophy of Father Eustache of St. Paul” is “the best book
of its kind ever made”; pwd 3:156 (AT 3:232). See also pwd 3:154 (AT 3:185); AT 3:251; pwd
3:161 (AT 3:259–60); AT 3:470.
25 Charles François d’Abra de Raconis, Totius philosophiae, hoc est logicae, moralis, physi-
cae, et metaphysicae brevis, et accurata, facilque, et clara methodo disposita tractatio (Paris,
1617). See AT 3:234; AT 3:251.
26 Ariew, Descartes, 46.
27 AT 3:470.
28 pwd 3:156 (AT 3:286).
410 Gatto
the letters that Descartes sent to Mersenne29 and Constantijn Huygens (1596–
1687),30 and to the content of both the Objections and Replies,31 it is possible to
reconstruct the terms of this philosophical debate. The most interesting aspect
the letters reveal is Descartes’s growing concern that the Bourdin affair could
damage his relationship with the Society.32
In this regard, the Letter to Father Dinet has to be interpreted as a personal
defense of the accusations leveled at Descartes by Bourdin in Paris and Gisber-
tus Voetius (1588–1676) in the Netherlands.33 In this turbulent period of his life,
Descartes had started working on the Principles with the aim of seeing his book
adopted in the Jesuit colleges.34 The letter to Jacques Dinet (1584–1653) should
also be read in this context: since Descartes was perfectly well aware of the
Society’s cautious attitude toward novelties in philosophy and theology,35 he
reassured Father Dinet that “there is no need to fear that my opinions will dis-
turb the peace of the Schools.”36 Descartes would confirm this consideration
in the last part of the Principles, stating that his “philosophy is not new, but
the oldest and most common of all,” and that he did not employ “any principle
which was not accepted by Aristotle and all other philosophers of every age.”37
When compared with the Discourse, Descartes’s approach toward Scholasti-
cism and the Jesuits more generally had clearly changed by this point. As we
will see, the general tone used by Descartes both in the Principles and in his
29 See AT 3:94–96; AT 3:106–18; pwd 3:149–50 (AT 3:126–28).

30 See pwd 3:150–51 (AT 3:750–53).
31 pwd 2:302–82. Pierre Bourdin’s Objections and Descartes’s Replies were published, togeth-
er with the Letter to Father Dinet, in the second edition of the Meditations (Amsterdam,
1642).
32 See pwd 3:151 (AT 3:752): “I am going to become engaged in a war with the Jesuits.” See also
pwd 3:150 (AT 3:126).
33 See Theo Verbeek, René Descartes et Martin Schook: La querelle d’Utrecht; Textes établis,
traduits et annotés (Paris: Les impressions nouvelles, 1988); Verbeek, Descartes and the
Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637–1650 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1992).
34 pwd 2:389 (AT 7:577).
35 See, for instance, pwd 3:75 (AT 1:455–56): “I know that the main reason why your Colleges
take great care to reject all sorts of innovations in philosophical matters is their fear that
these innovations may bring about some change in theology as well. That is why I want
especially to point out that you have nothing to fear on this score so far as my own innova-
tions are concerned, and that I have reason to thank God that the views which, from my
reflection on natural causes, seemed to me most true in physics were always those which
are the most compatible with the mysteries of religion, as I hope to show clearly when
I have the opportunity.”
36 pwd 2:392 (AT 7:581).
37 pwd 1:286 (AT 8:323).
correspondence is not surprising.38 Descartes failed in his attempt since his

works did not become part of the Jesuit curriculum, but his relationship with
the Jesuits would nevertheless improve39 and remain cordial until his death.40
4 On the Eucharist
Having outlined the historical context of the relationship between Descartes

and the Jesuits, the following provides a comparative analysis of the relation-
ship between Descartes’s work and Jesuit philosophy. It is important to start
by focusing on the Eucharist,41 as doing so provides a number of insights into
Descartes’s relationship with the Society.
Despite what is commonly believed, Descartes did not become interested
in the Eucharist as a result of the objections of Antoine Arnauld (1612–94).
A letter addressed to Mersenne in 163042 demonstrates that he knew that his
physics should have clarified the mystery of the Holy Sacrament (Eucharist)
in order to gain acceptance, and in 1638 Descartes was already convinced that
his philosophy could explain the transubstantiation.43 Thus, he was not only
well aware that he needed to prove the compatibility of his philosophy with
the Christian faith but he was also confident that he would be able to do so.
Even if the explanation provided by Descartes and the first Cartesians would
be criticized by the Jesuits and other Scholastics,44 his views on the Eucharist
did not cause him any problems with the Society of Jesus during his lifetime.
Arnauld’s Objections on the Eucharist are part of a common trend in Second
Scholasticism. Especially after the Council of Trent (1545–63), every scholar
38 See, for instance, AT 3:465–68.

39 One example of this is Descartes’s decision to assign Bourdin the task of distributing the
Principles to the members of the Society. See AT 4:143.
40 For the further condemnations faced by Descartes and Cartesianism, see Roger Ariew,
“Quelques condamnations du cartésianisme: 1662–1706,” Bulletin cartésien xxii, Archives
de philosophie 57 (1994): 1–6; Tad M. Schmaltz, “A Tale of Two Condemnations: Two Carte-
sian Condemnations in 17th-Century France,” in Descartes e i suoi avversari: Incontri car-
tesiani ii, ed. Antonella del Prete (Florence: Le Monnier, 2004), 203–21; Schmaltz, “French
Cartesianism in Context: The Paris Formulary and Regis’s Usage,” in Receptions of Des-
cartes: Cartesianism and Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe, ed. Tad M. Schmaltz
(London: Routledge, 2005), 80–95.
41 See Jean-Robert Armogathe, Theologia Cartesiana: L’explication physique de l’Eucharistie
chez Descartes et dom Desgabets (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977), 41–81.
42 pwd 3:28 (AT 1:179).
43 pwd 3:88 (AT 1:564).
44 See the works quoted in note 40.
412 Gatto
was supposed to demonstrate that their theories on physics were in harmony

with the dogma of faith represented by the Eucharist. For this reason, Arnauld
was concerned that Descartes’s doctrines were unable to explain the tran-
substantiation that takes place on the altar.45 In his reply, Descartes sought
to engage with Arnauld’s reasoning, and after providing some clarification
about the real accidents, he evoked the incomprehensible nature of divine
power.46 Descartes then began an analysis devoted to the intentional forms,
concluded by quotes from the Council of Trent.47 In his exposition of the in-
tentional forms, Descartes was mainly interested in stating that the principles
of his philosophy were not in any way in opposition to orthodox theology;48
indeed, rather than providing a complete discussion of the transubstantiation,
Descartes underlined how all the difficulties involved in explaining theological
issues through physics “are completely removed if my explanation of this mat-
ter is adopted.”49 This stance was restated in a letter to Mersenne: “I reconcile
the doctrine of the Councils about the Blessed Sacrament with my own phi-
losophy so much so that I maintain that it is impossible to give a satisfactory
explanation of the doctrine by means of the traditional philosophy.”50
These statements on the issues surrounding the Eucharist should be inter-
preted within the rhetorical framework Descartes was trying to outline. Des-
cartes was seeking to demonstrate that his system of knowledge, as well as
being consistent with the faith, could also explain and defend the Catholic tra-
dition better than any other philosophy. In doing so, he was laying the ground-
work for a long-term project that would have culminated in the foundation of
a new Scholasticism based on his own principles. This is clear from Descartes’s
45 See pwd 2 (AT 7:217–18). In short, when the substance of bread is taken away, what re-
mains is only its accidents. But if Descartes believes that there are not any accidents apart
from the substance they inhere, how can he explain the sacred mystery of the Eucharist?
46 pwd 2:173 (AT 7:248–49).
47 pwd 2:173–75 (AT 7:249–51).
48 pwd 2:175 (AT 7:252): “I have no reason to fear that anything here will give the slightest
offence to orthodox theologians; on the contrary I am confident that I will receive their
hearty thanks for putting forward opinions in physics which are far more in accord with
theology than those commonly accepted.”
49 pwd 2:177 (AT 7:254). These passages were eliminated from the first edition of the Medita-
tions (Paris, 1641) due to the concern shown by Mersenne: see AT 3:771–72. They were re-
integrated in the edition of 1642 printed in Amsterdam, as Descartes explains to Huygens:
“This edition is more correct than the Paris one, and even a little larger, particularly at the
end of my reply to the Fourth Objections, where I have so far abandoned my restraint as to
say that the common view of our theologians regarding the Eucharist is not orthodox as
mine. This was a passage that father Mersenne had cut out so as not to offend our learned
doctors”; pwd 3:213 (AT 3:785).
50 pwd 3:177 (AT 3:349).
correspondence with the Jesuit Denis Mesland (1615–72), in which he recog-

nized that his replies to Arnauld’s objections did not provide a full answer to
all the issues involved in the traditional treatment of the Eucharist. Thus, as he
wrote in a letter to Mesland:
As for the extension of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament, I gave no explana-

tion of it, because I was not obliged to, and I keep away, as far as possible,
from questions of theology; [nevertheless], I venture to say that if people
were a little more used to my way of philosophizing, they could be shown
a way of explaining this mystery which would stop the mouths of the
enemies of our religion.51
Two points should be emphasized here. First, Descartes, probably because of

his prudence, still wanted to avoid being dragged into theological questions.
At the same time, he was continuing to maintain that his philosophy, if it were
better known and more widely adopted, could effectively respond to the crit-
icism of the Catholic faith. Leaving aside the specific solution suggested by
Descartes in the next two letters to Mesland,52 the treatment of the Eucharist
confirms the subtext of the Cartesian strategy. Descartes was taking part in
Jesuit debates in order to demonstrate the reliability and efficacy of his own
philosophical system. Indeed, it is not by chance that the exchange of letters
with Mesland on the Eucharist occurred while Mesland was trying “to adapt
them [the Meditations] to the style which is commonly used for teaching.”53
Thus Descartes was not merely aiming to please the Jesuits; he was trying to
replace their textbooks with his own.
5 The Souls of Cartesian Mechanism
The debate on the Eucharist is a perfect example of Descartes’s approach to Je-

suit Scholasticism. He rarely emphasized the aspects of his thought that were
in conflict with the positions the Jesuits endorsed. Most of the time, he simply
ruled out their assumptions without explicitly mentioning them, as it is not al-
ways necessary to make a direct reference to a solution to excise the arguments
51 pwd 3:235–36 (AT 4:119–20).

52 See pwd 3:241–44 (AT 4:163–70); pwd 3:278–79 (AT 4:346–48). Their correspondence was
interrupted by the departure of Mesland for Canada. No real evidence supports the view,
expressed by different scholars, that Mesland’s departure was a form of punishment for
his correspondence with Descartes.
53 pwd 3:236 (AT 4:122).
414 Gatto
on which it is based. In this regard, the elimination of the substantial forms

provides a further example of the Cartesian working method.
In a letter addressed to Henricus Regius (1598–1679), Descartes stated that
“when we deny substantial forms, we mean by the expression a certain sub-
stance joined to matter, making up with it a merely corporeal whole.”54 He
believed that substantial forms were introduced “to account for the proper ac-
tions of natural things, of which they were supposed to be the principles and
bases.”55 Descartes was referring here to hylomorphism, the Scholastic theory
of the body as (substantial) form joined to (primary) matter.56 If this doctrine
is compared with the position held by Descartes in the Principles, the reasons
for the Cartesian criticism are immediately clear. According to Descartes, the
properties of bodies must be understood and analyzed only through exten-
sion. The matter to which he refers is simply extended matter, and the form,
far from being the inherent function that belongs to all natural things and that
determines and differentiates them from each other,57 is nothing more than
the specific arrangement of their extended components. Thus corporeal things
have to be investigated in terms of division, shape, and motion alone: “Since all
natural phenomena can be explained in this way,” no other principle is “either
admissible or desirable in physics.”58
In Cartesian physics, there is no place for the substantial forms of the Scho-
lastic accounts. And the substantial form reported is the unique real argument
used by Descartes to prove their uselessness. Besides being the only one, it
is also an implicit argument, since the substantial forms are not directly in-
volved. As historian Daniel Garber has shown, if Descartes was successful in
explaining the uselessness of the substantial forms, he nevertheless failed to
prove that they do not exist.59 Despite what might be expected, there is no
54 pwd 3:207 (AT 3:502).

55 pwd 3:208 (AT 3:506).
56 Hylomorphism cannot be described as a unified concept, since different schools and
philosophers have interpreted it in various ways. See, for instance, Marleen Rozemond,
Descartes’s Dualism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 139–71. However,
in this case, we follow Descartes, who had no interest in dealing with the details of the
Scholastic disputes: see pwd 3:156 (AT 3:232). For a general description of hylomorphism
in Scholastic accounts, see Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Intro-
duction (Heusenstamm: Editiones Scholasticae, 2014), 160–84.
57 See, for instance, Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Jesu, In octo libros Physi-
corum Aristotelis Stagyritae (Coimbra, 1592), 1: Chapter 9, q. 9, a. 2, 190–91.
58 pwd 1:247 (AT 8:78–79); see also pwd 1:232–33 (AT 8:52–53).
59 Daniel Garber, Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992),
94–116. See also Garber, Descartes Embodied: Reading Cartesian Philosophy through Carte-
sian Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 257–73.
specific treatment of this issue in the Cartesian corpus.60 Descartes considered

these forms obscure, unintelligible, chimerical, and in need of explanation,61
but he never made them the object of a specific analysis.
This attitude toward the substantial forms may be related to the same moti-
vations that led Descartes to treat the sacrament of the Eucharist with particu-
lar caution. In October 1644, Descartes wrote to Étienne Charlet (1570–1652)
in order to send him the Principles. In the letter, Descartes stated that he was
concerned that his philosophy could be accused of refuting “the received views
of the Schools, and to try to render them absurd; but they will see that I do not
discuss them any more than I would if I had never learnt them.”62 Indeed, in
the Principles, he neither analyzed nor considered the substantial forms but
limited himself to laying the philosophical groundwork for their elimination.
This is why he composed the treatise “in such a way that it can be said to be not
at all in conflict with the ordinary philosophy, but actually to have enriched
it with many things that were missing from it.”63 Descartes adopted the same
approach in the Meteors, when his substance/mode ontology had not yet been
fully developed. He claimed that “in order not to break the peace with the phi-
losophers,” he did not want to “deny the things that they imagine to exist in the
bodies,” such as “their substantial forms, real qualities and the like.”64
The substantial forms played a key role in Scholastic thought; as such, Des-
cartes’s caution is entirely understandable. Despite its elimination in physics,
Descartes still referred to soul as the “principal form”65 or the “true substan-
tial form of man.”66 He rejected the substantial forms and refused to use them
consistently with the hylomorphic doctrine of body, considering these forms
nothing but “little souls”67 joined to matter. But when it comes to the human
60 For a complete reconstruction of this issue, see Helen Hattab, Descartes on Forms and
Mechanisms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
61 pwd 1:89 (AT 11:25–26), 132 (42–43); AT 8:26, 62; pwd 3:107 (AT 2:200), 122 (367–68); AT
3:211–12; 188 (420), 205–9 (492–506).
62 pwd 3:238 (AT 4:141).
63 pwd 3:252 (AT 4:225).
64 AT 6:239. See Lucian Petrescu, “Cartesian Meteors and Scholastic Meteors: Descartes
against the School in 1637,” Journal of the History of Ideas 76 (2015): 25–45. Some years
later, Descartes would give the same advice to Regius (pwd 3:205; AT 3:492): “Why did you
need to reject openly substantial forms and real qualities? Do you not remember that on
page 164 of my Meteorology, I said quite expressly that I did not at all reject or deny them,
but simply found them unnecessary in setting out my explanation? If you had taken this
course, everybody in your audience would have rejected them as soon as they saw they
were useless.”
65 pwd 2:246 (AT 7:356).
66 pwd 3:208 (AT 3:505).
67 pwd 3:216 (AT 3:648–49).
416 Gatto
soul, Descartes seemed to maintain the Scholastic concept, interpreted as

something that, albeit distinct from the properties of matter, helps to provide
a complete account of the human being.68 Thus, whereas Descartes set aside
the substantial and material forms, he did not eliminate the substantial form
of the human body represented by the rational soul. This potential incongruity
may be due to Descartes’s strategic motivations: by referring to the soul as a
substantial form, he was able to incorporate this unique Scholastic tool with-
out destroying or deeply modifying his own system. This can thus be consid-
ered a further example of Descartes’s approach toward the Jesuits’ philosophy.
His work did not simply reject Scholastic knowledge; instead, Descartes was in
the middle of a process of continuous negotiation, both theoretical and stra-
tegic, with the earlier tradition. Descartes’s criticism preserved the elements
of continuity that could be saved, stored, or translated in his new system; with
regard to the others, he largely remained silent.
6 On Causation and Created Truths
Causality is one of the issues that clearly demonstrate the relationship be-
tween the Scholastic tradition and the development of Descartes’s thought. As
historian Dennis Des Chene has observed, “Descartes’s views here are rather
the culmination of a trend than a radical departure.”69 Hence, if in Descartes
the domain of causality was expanded,70 this was only possible on the basis of
a pre-existing trend. All of the most influential Jesuits of the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries dealt with causation, even though they often started from
different perspectives. The framework they used was essentially unitary and
based on the gradual reduction of the centrality of the ends in the explanation
of the material world, laying the groundwork for the Cartesian rejection of fi-
nal causes. Setting aside the role played by the Scholastic division between the
68 It is possible that Descartes’s approach was linked to the work of Francisco Suárez, who
treated the rational soul as the paradigm of substantial forms to preserve its immortal-
ity. See Hattab, Descartes, 40–64 and passim. For the Suárezian account, see Francisco
Suárez, On the Formal Cause of Substance: Metaphysical Disputation xv, trans. John Kro-
nen and Jeremiah Reedy (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2000).
69 Dennis Des Chene, Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian
Thought (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 394.
70 See Vincent Carraud, Causa sive ratio: La raison de la cause, de Suarez à Leibniz (Paris:
puf, 2002); Jean-Luc Marion, On the Ego and on God: Further Cartesian Questions, trans.
Christina M. Gschwandtner (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), 139–60.
primary and secondary causes71 in Descartes’s work,72 the chapter now turns
to the Cartesian extension of efficient causality.73 In doing so, Suárez’s reflec-
tion can be used as a paradigm.
It is commonly acknowledged that Suárez emphasized efficient causality by
turning it into the main pattern of causation.74 Therefore, the emphasis Des-
cartes placed on efficient causation was inscribed in a well-defined Scholastic
context. Yet while Suárez helped prepare the ground for Descartes’s reflection
on causality, it is important to avoid overlooking the differences between the
two philosophers, such as the Cartesian elimination of substantial forms in ex-
plaining the extended substance. Nevertheless, as historian Tad Schmaltz has
underlined, “Descartes’s rejection of the scholastic ontology of the material
world did not prevent him from adopting certain general features of the ac-
count of causation that we find in Suárez.”75
There are many examples that support the centrality attributed to the ef-
ficient causes by Descartes. He believed that efficient causality was the privi-
leged way to investigate created things. In the Principles, he held that, instead
of searching for the final causes and looking at the purposes of divine will, we
should simply consider God “as the efficient cause of all things.”76 Descartes
71 With regard to the Jesuits more strictly closed to Descartes, see, for example, Commentarii
Conimbricensis, In Physic., 2: Chapter 7, q. 1–15, 259–311, in particular q. 11, 293–96.
72 The debate on causation and the concourse of secondary causes in late Scholasticism is
mostly related to Des Chene’s Physiologia. See Helen Hattab, “The Problem of Secondary
Causation in Descartes: A Response to Des Chene,” Perspectives on Science 8, no. 2 (2000):
93–118; Stephen Menn, “On Dennis Des Chene’s Physiologia,” Perspectives on Science 8, no.
2 (2000): 119–43; Dennis Des Chene, “On Laws and Ends: A Response to Hattab and Menn,”
Perspectives on Science 8, no. 2 (2000): 144–63. See also Helen Hattab, “Conflicting Causali-
ties: The Jesuits, Their Opponents, and Descartes on the Causality of the Efficient Causes,”
in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press 2003), 1:1–22; Hattab, “Concurrence or Divergence? Reconciling Des-
cartes’ Physics with his Metaphysics,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 45 (2007): 49–78.
73 As far as God as causa sui is concerned, see Jean-Luc Marion, On Descartes’ Metaphysical
Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought, trans. Jef-
frey L. Kosky (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Thierry Gontier, Descartes et la
causa sui: Autoproduction divine, autodétermination humaine (Paris: Vrin, 2005); Richard
A. Lee Jr., “The Scholastic Resources for Descartes’s Concept of God as causa sui,” in Ox-
ford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2006), 3:91–118.
74 Francisco Suárez, On Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17–19, trans. Alfred J.
Freddoso (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Suárez, On Creation, Conservation, and
Concurrence: Metaphysical Disputations 20–22 (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 1999).
75 Tad M. Schmaltz, Descartes on Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 47.
76 pwd 1:202 (AT 8:15–16).
418 Gatto
stressed the impossibility of sharing God’s plans: we should limit ourselves

to examinations of the results of his absolute and incomprehensible power.
This assumption was confirmed when Descartes referred to the free creation
of eternal truths.
Compared with the Suárezian account of causality, Descartes’s reflection
marks a turning point. As has been highlighted elsewhere,77 on May 6, 1630,
when Descartes was explaining the ontological status of the eternal truths
to Mersenne, namely the idea that they have been freely created by God, he
quoted almost verbatim a passage taken from Suárez’s Disputations. A compar-
ison of the two original texts78 reveals that, when Descartes cited the passage,
he added a negation that reversed the meaning ascribed by Suárez.79 Unlike
Suárez, Descartes held that the eternal truths were not independent of God
and that they were true or possible only because God decided to create them in
this way.80 In fact, according to Descartes, God was the free and indifferent cre-
ator of all truths, and since “God is a cause whose power surpasses the bounds
of human understanding,”81 it is not possible to establish any limits to his
causal volition. In the next letter, on May 27, 1630, Descartes provided further
clarification: “You ask me by what kind of causality God established the eternal
truths. I reply: by the same kind of causality as he created all things, that is to
77 See Timothy J. Cronin, Objective Being in Descartes and Suárez (Rome: Gregorian Univer-
sity Press, 1966); see also Jean-Luc Marion, Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes (Paris:
puf, 1981); Norman J. Wells, “Suárez on the Eternal Truths (Part i),” Modern Schoolman 58
(January 1981): 73–104; Wells, “Suárez on the Eternal Truths (Part ii),” Modern Schoolman
58 (March 1981): 159–74.
78 See Suárez, Disputationes, 31:s. 12n40, 295: “Rursus neque illae enunciationes sunt verae
quia cognoscuntur a Deo, sed potius ideo cognoscuntur, quia verae sunt, alioqui reddi
posset ratio, cur Deus necessario cognosceret illas esse veras”; AT 1:149: “Pour les vérités
éternelles, je dis derechef que sunt tantum veræ aut possibiles, quia Deus illas veras aut
possibiles cognoscit, non autem contra veras a Deo cognosci quasi independenter ab illo sint
veræ.” See also Suárez, Disputationes, 31:s. 12n45, 297: “Unde, si per impossibile nulla esset
talis causa, nihilominus illa enunciatio vera esset”; AT 1:150: “Il ne faut donc pas dire que si
Deus non esset nihilominus istæ veritates essent veræ.”
79 See Gregory M. Walski, “The Opponent and Motivation behind Descartes’ Eternal Truths
Doctrine,” in Il Seicento di Descartes: Dibattiti cartesiani, ed. Antonella Del Prete (Florence:
Le Monnier, 2008), 43–60; Walski, “The Cartesian God and the Eternal Truths,” in Garber
and Nadler, Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, 23–44. If we give credence to the
content of a letter cited above (see pwd 3:153–54), it is difficult to assume that Descartes
was directly quoting Suárez’s Disputations in 1630. More likely, Descartes was comment-
ing on a passage pointed out by Mersenne in the previous letter. Nevertheless, this does
not entail, as Walski seems to suggest, that the recipient of Descartes’s criticism was pri-
marily Mersenne rather than Suárez.
80 pwd 3:24 (AT 1:149).
81 pwd 3:25 (AT 1:150).
say, as their efficient and total cause.”82 God is the efficient cause of eternal
truths:83 thus Descartes radicalized the Suárezian account of causality. For the
Jesuit, despite the accent placed on efficiency, there were certain things—such
as the propositions endowed with intrinsic necessity sua naturali virtute84—
that did not rely on God’s casual power and did not require an efficient cause in
order to be what they already are. With the theory of eternal truths, Descartes
removed this limit, freeing the divine power from any bonds. However, Des-
cartes expanded the domain of the concept of divine efficiency only because
his account was grafted onto a historical and theoretical tendency that already
existed. Thus, the Cartesian treatment of both eternal truths and causation is
important for at least two reasons: first, because the significance granted to ef-
ficient causation demonstrates Descartes’s intellectual connection with Scho-
lasticism; and, second, because it confirms that his investigation, while being
rooted in the Scholastic tradition, ultimately goes far beyond it.
7 On Material Falsity
The last issue that needs to be discussed is material falsity. The aim here is
not to analyze this issue in order to verify its consistency with the Cartesian
corpus;85 its importance in the current context instead resides in it being a
unique example of Descartes directly quoting a Jesuit scholar in his published
works. In the “Third Meditation,” Descartes talks about the ideas of corporeal
82 pwd 3:25 (AT 1:151–52).

83 As further confirmation, see pwd 2:294 (AT 7:436): “There is no need to ask what category
of causality is applicable to the dependence of this goodness upon God, or to the depen-
dence on him of other truths, both mathematical and metaphysical. For since the various
kinds of cause were enumerated by thinkers who did not, perhaps, attend to this type of
causality, it is hardly surprising that they gave no name to it. But in fact they did give it
a name, for it can be called efficient causality, in the sense that a king may be called the
efficient cause of law.”
84 See, for instance, Suárez, Disputationes, 31:s. 12n45, 297.
85 The bibliography is extensive: for a broad overview, see Cecilia Wee, Material Falsity and
Error in Descartes’ Meditations (London: Routledge, 2006). See also, among others, Mar-
garet D. Wilson, Descartes (London: Routledge, 1978), 88–105; Norman J. Wells, “Material
Falsity in Descartes, Arnauld and Suárez,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 22 (1984):
25–50; Wells, “Descartes and the Coimbrans on Material Falsity,” Modern Schoolman 85
(May 2008): 271–316; David Behan, “Descartes and Conceptual Falsity (falsitas materialis),”
Modern Schoolman 85 (January 2008): 89–115; Paul Hoffman, Essays on Descartes (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 145–63; Gary Hatfield, “Descartes on Sensory Representa-
tion, Objective Reality, and Material Falsity,” in Descartes’ Meditations: A Critical Guide, ed.
Karen Detlefsen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 127–50.
420 Gatto
things and introduces a brief reflection on formal and material falsity. In Des-
cartes’s terms, if formal falsity can strictly occur only in judgments, material
falsity “occurs in ideas, when they represent non-things as things.”86 For in-
stance, the lack of clarity and distinction of the idea of heat and cold makes it
difficult to determine if cold is simply the absence of heat (or vice versa) and
if they are both real qualities. Furthermore, “since there can be no ideas which
are not as it were of things,” if cold were nothing but the absence of heat, the
idea that represents cold as something real should be called false.87
In his Objections,88 Arnauld argued that, if cold is merely absence of heat,
there can be no idea of cold that represents it as something positive. Descartes
was confusing judgment with idea: if cold is nothing but absence, it is not
possible to have an idea of it; consequently, there cannot be an idea, which
is materially false. Descartes’s reply to Arnauld is introduced by a distinction
between two ways of considering ideas:89 either the ideas are formally consid-
ered as representing something, or they can be materially regarded as mere
operations of the intellect. In the latter sense, the ideas are not dealing with
the truth or falsity of their objects: for example, whether or not cold is some-
thing positive does not affect the idea we have of it, and it is precisely this idea
that can provide the subject matter for error. Moreover, Descartes points out
that the idea he calls materially false corresponds to an obscure and confused
idea, namely something that does not allow us to establish if what the idea
represents positively exists outside sensation. At the end of his reply, Descartes
remarked that his conception of material falsity was perfectly in line with the
one presented by Suárez:
One fear I might have had, however, is that since I have never spent very
much time reading philosophical texts, my calling ideas which I take to
provide subject-matter for error “materially false” might have involved
too great a departure from standard philosophical usage. This might,
I say, have worried me, had I not found the word “materially” used in an
identical sense to my own in the first philosophical author I came across,
namely Suárez, in the Metaphysical Disputations, Part ix, Section 2,
Number 4.90
86 pwd 2:30 (AT 7:43).

87 pwd 2:30 (AT 7:44).
88 See pwd 2:145–46 (AT 7:206–7).
89 pwd 2:162–64 (AT 7:231–35).
90 pwd 2:164 (AT 7:235).
This citation is the only explicit quotation of another scholar in the whole of
the published Cartesian corpus (with the exception of his correspondence). It
is also unusual because the reference to Suárez seems somewhat out of place.
For Suárez, in fact, material falsity clearly concerned propositions rather than
ideas, as truth and falsity are related to the composition involving judgment.91
Regardless of the accuracy and fidelity of the reference,92 there must be a rea-
son behind Descartes’s decision to refer to Suárez. It can thus be argued that
Descartes was deliberately looking for a solution in Jesuit works that supported
his own views on material falsity. Even though it is reasonable to assume, as
Ariew has suggested, that “Descartes seems to have used the occasion to show
off his knowledge of scholastic philosophy in an ostentatious manner,”93 it is
also likely that the citation was introduced due to the difficulty of countering
Arnauld’s criticism. The reference to Suárez can thus be interpreted as a way
to highlight the consistency of the Cartesian treatment of material falsity with
the Scholastic tradition.
This example again serves to demonstrate the complexity of Descartes’s
relationship with the Jesuits. Starting from the critical judgments expressed
in the Discourse, this chapter has briefly reconstructed the evolution of Des-
cartes’s relationship, both personal and intellectual, with the Society of Jesus.
The chapter has sought to underline how this relationship was strategically
motivated, at least in part, by the aim of obtaining the Jesuits’ approval and for
his works to be adopted as textbooks in the Society’s colleges. Thus, from 1640
onward, Descartes began reformulating and calibrating his ideas, or the ways
of presenting them, to fit the Society’s theoretical needs. As a consequence,
Descartes’s philosophy, despite its novelty, was still deeply rooted in a highly
specific cultural milieu that must be recognized in order to fully understand
and appreciate his work.
91 See Suárez, Disputationes, 9:s. 2n4, 322: “Quarto considerandum est, compositionem et
divisionem reperiri posse, aut in sola apprehensiva conceptione praescindente a judicio,
aut in conceptione, quae simul sit judicativa; diximus autem in superioribus, veritatem
complexam proprie reperiri in compositione judicativa; unde fit idem dicendum esse de
falsitate, nam contraria sunt ejusdem generis.”
92 Lilli Alanen, “Sensory Ideas, Objective Reality, and Material Falsity,” in Reason, Will and
Sensation: Studies in Descartes’s Metaphysics, ed. John Cottingham (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1994), 229–50, states that the Cartesian reference is not very helpful, while Secada,
Cartesian Metaphysics, 91–102, holds that Descartes’s treatment of material falsity is not
consistent with the Suárezian account. Wee, Material Falsity, 29–48, on the other hand,
has tried to show that Descartes uses the word “materially” in the same way as Suárez.
93 Ariew, Descartes, 48–49.
422 Gatto
Bibliography
Agostini, Igor. “Qu’est-ce que constituer un Index scolastico–cartésien?” In Gilson et

Descartes à l’occasion du centenaire de “La Liberté chez Descartes et la théologie”, ed-
ited by Daniel Arbib and Francesco Marrone, Examina philosophica: I Quaderni di
Alvearium 2 (2015): 11–24.
Alanen, Lilli. “Sensory Ideas, Objective Reality, and Material Falsity.” In Reason, Will
and Sensation: Studies in Descartes’s Metaphysics, edited by John Cottingham, 229–
50. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Ariew, Roger. “Quelques condamnations du cartésianisme: 1662–1706.” Bulletin car-
tésien xxii, Archives de philosophie 57 (1994): 1–6.
Ariew, Roger, and Marjorie Grene, ed. Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations,
Objections, and Replies. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995.
Ariew, Roger. Descartes among the Scholastics. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011.
Ariew, Roger. Descartes and the First Cartesians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Armogathe, Jean-Robert. Theologia Cartesiana: L’explication physique de l’Eucharistie
chez Descartes et dom Desgabets. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.
Behan, David. “Descartes and Conceptual Falsity (falsitas materialis).” Modern School-
man 85 (January 2008): 89–115.
Brockliss, Laurence W.B. French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Century: A Cultural History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
Carraud, Vincent. Causa sive ratio: La raison de la cause, de Suarez à Leibniz. Paris: PUF,
2002.
Carvalho, Mário A. Santiago de. Psicologia e ética no curso jesuíta conimbricense. Lis-
bon: Edições Colibri, 2010.
Casalini, Cristiano. Aristotele a Coimbra: Il Cursus Conimbricensis e l’educazione nel Col-
Clarke, Desmond M. Descartes: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005.
Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, trans. The
Philosophical Writings of Descartes: The Correspondence. Vols. 1–3. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1984–91.
Cronin, Timothy J. Objective Being in Descartes and Suárez. Rome: Gregorian University
Press, 1966.
De Raconis, Charles François d’Abra. Totius philosophiae, hoc est logicae, moralis, physi-
cae, et metaphysicae brevis, et accurata, facilque, et clara methodo disposita tractatio.
Paris, 1617.
De Rochemonteix, Camille de. Un collège de jésuites aux xviie et xviiie siècles: Le col-
lège Henri iv de la Flèche. 4 vols. Le Mans: Leguicheux, 1889.
Des Chene, Dennis. “On Laws and Ends: A Response to Hattab and Menn.” Perspectives
on Science 8, no. 2 (2000): 144–63.
Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Summa philosophica quadripartita de rebus dialecticis,
moralibus, physicis et metaphysicis. Paris, 1609.
Farrell, Allan, trans. The Jesuit Ratio studiorum of 1599. Washington, DC: Conference of
the Major Superiors of Jesuits, 1970.
Feingold, Mordechai, ed. Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2003.
Feser, Edward. Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. Heusenstamm:
Editiones Scholasticae, 2014.
Fonseca, Pedro da. Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo. Lisbon, 1564.
Fonseca, Pedro da. In Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagirita, Tomi Quatuor. Co-
logne, 1615.
Frankfurt, Harry G. Demons, Dreamers and Madmen: The Defense of Reason in Des-
cartes’ Meditations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Garber, Daniel. Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics. Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1992.
Garber, Daniel. Descartes Embodied: Reading Cartesian Philosophy through Cartesian
Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Gaukroger, Stephen. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1995.
Gilson, Étienne. Index scolastico-cartésien. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1913.
Gontier, Thierry. Descartes et la causa sui: Autoproduction divine, autodétermination
humaine. Paris: Vrin, 2005.
Hatfield, Gary. “Descartes on Sensory Representation, Objective Reality, and Material
Falsity.” In Descartes’ Meditations: A Critical Guide, edited by Karen Detlefsen, 127–
50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Hattab, Helen. “The Problem of Secondary Causation in Descartes: A Response to Des
Chene.” Perspectives on Science 8, no. 2 (2000): 93–118.
Hattab, Helen. “Conflicting Causalities: The Jesuits, Their Opponents, and Descartes
on the Causality of the Efficient Causes.” In Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philoso-
phy, edited by Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler, 1:1–22. Oxford: Clarendon Press
2003.
Hattab, Helen. “Concurrence or Divergence? Reconciling Descartes’ Physics with his
Metaphysics.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 45 (2007): 49–78.
Hattab, Helen. Descartes on Forms and Mechanisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Medieval and
Modern Philosophy. Translated by Elisabeth S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson. Vol.
3. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
Hoffman, Paul. Essays on Descartes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
424 Gatto
Lee, Richard A. Jr. “The Scholastic Resources for Descartes’s Concept of God as causa
sui.” In Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Daniel Garber and
Steven Nadler, 3:91–118. Oxford: Clarendon Press 2006.
Marion, Jean-Luc. Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes. Paris: PUF, 1981.
Marion, Jean-Luc. On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of
Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought. Translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1999.
Marion, Jean-Luc. On the Ego and on God: Further Cartesian Questions. Translated by
Christina M. Gschwandtner. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.
Menn, Stephen. “On Dennis Des Chene’s Physiologia.” Perspectives on Science 8, no. 2
(2000): 119–43.
Petrescu, Lucian. “Cartesian Meteors and Scholastic Meteors: Descartes against the
School in 1637.” Journal of the History of Ideas 76 (2015): 25–45.
Rodis-Lewis, Geneviève. Descartes: His Life and Thought. Translated by Jane M. Todd.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Rozemond, Marleen. Descartes’s Dualism. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1998.
Schmaltz, Tad M. “A Tale of Two Condemnations: Two Cartesian Condemnations in
17th-Century France.” In Descartes e i suoi avversari: Incontri cartesiani ii, edited by
Antonella del Prete, 203–21. Florence: Le Monnier, 2004.
Schmaltz, Tad M. “French Cartesianism in Context: The Paris Formulary and Regis’s Us-
age.” In Receptions of Descartes: Cartesianism and Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern
Europe, edited by Tad M. Schmaltz, 80–95. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
Schmaltz, Tad M. Descartes on Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Secada, Jorge. Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy.
Suárez, Francisco. On Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17–19. Translated by
Alfred J. Freddoso. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Suárez, Francisco. On Creation, Conservation, and Concurrence: Metaphysical Disputa-
tions 20–22. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 1999.
Suárez, Francisco. On the Formal Cause of Substance: Metaphysical Disputation xv.
Translated by John Kronen and Jeremiah Reedy. Milwaukee: Marquette University
Press, 2000.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in universam Aristotelis
logicam. Venice, 1572.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in viii libros de Physica aus-
cultatione. Cologne, 1574.
Toledo, Francisco de. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros Aristotelis De
anima. Venice, 1575.
Verbeek, Theo. René Descartes et Martin Schook: La querelle d’Utrecht; Textes établis,
traduits et annotés. Paris: Les impressions nouvelles, 1988.
Verbeek, Theo. Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637–
1650. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992.
Walski, Gregory M. “The Cartesian God and the Eternal Truths.” In Oxford Studies in
Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler, 1:23–44. Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press 2006.
Walski, Gregory M. “The Opponent and Motivation behind Descartes’ Eternal Truths
Doctrine.” In Il Seicento di Descartes: Dibattiti cartesiani, edited by Antonella Del
Prete, 43–60. Florence: Le Monnier, 2008.
Wee, Cecilia. Material Falsity and Error in Descartes’ Meditations. London: Routledge,
2006.
Wells, Norman J. “Suárez on the Eternal Truths (Part i).” Modern Schoolman 58 (Janu-
ary 1981): 73–104.
Wells, Norman J. “Suárez on the Eternal Truths (Part ii).” Modern Schoolman 58 (March
1981): 159–74.
Wells, Norman J. “Material Falsity in Descartes, Arnauld and Suárez.” Journal of the His-
tory of Philosophy 22 (January 1984): 25–50.
Wells, Norman J. “Descartes and the Coimbrans on Material Falsity.” Modern School-
man 85 (May 2008): 271–316.
Wilson, Margaret D. Descartes. London: Routledge, 1978.
Chapter 17
John Locke and the Jesuits on Law and Politics

Elliot Rossiter
1 Introduction
Any evaluation of the influence of the Jesuit intellectual tradition on John

Locke’s (1632–1704) thought about law and politics faces obvious difficulties.
Locke often speaks about the worthlessness of the Scholastic method of pro-
ceeding in philosophy, and his moral philosophy aims at demonstrative cer-
tainty grounded in empirically derived ideas: he is not interested in casuistry
and disputation. Furthermore, much of Locke’s political work can be seen as
a defense of the 1688 Glorious Revolution in which the Catholic James ii of
England (r.1685–88) was replaced by the Protestant William of Orange (r.1689–
1702) and his wife Mary (r.1689–94), James ii’s daughter. Finally, Locke famous-
ly did not extend toleration to Catholics. Given the seemingly anti-Catholic
tenor of Locke’s thinking and political orientation, it would be unsurprising if
one were to conclude that Locke and the Jesuits were strict opponents in their
views on ethics and politics.
Some critics contemporary with Locke, however, grouped him with the
Jesuits in political matters. In a sermon preached several years after Locke’s
death, Luke Milbourne (1649–1720), a Tory cleric, defended the scriptural ba-
sis of the doctrine of passive obedience. In the sermon, he collectively labels
“Mariana, Suárez, Bellarmine, Sanctarellus, Hotman, Buchanan, Bradshaw,
Milton, Baxter, Owen, Goodwin, Sidney, [and] Locke” as opponents to this
view; furthermore, he labels them all as one “Loyal and Religious Fraternity.”1
What is interesting is that the first four figures are all Jesuits. One, of course,
needs to be careful in treating claims like these as evidence. A polemic context
is not the best place to find accurate representations of the views of a given
figure’s enemies. Indeed, Tories were wont to exploit the emotive appeal of
associating Whigs like Locke with Jesuits and other characters who might be
1 Luke Milbourne, The Measures of Resistance (London: George Sawbridge, 1710), 3. The sermon
was preached on a day of fasting set aside to lament the execution of Charles i (r.1625–49) in
1649. For a brief discussion of the Whig use of Jesuit sources and the Tory response, see Mark
Goldie, “John Locke and Anglican Royalism,” Political Studies 31 (1983): 61–85, here 73.

John Locke and the Jesuits on Law and Politics 427
seen as s editious and revolutionary. Nevertheless, the label above prompts a

comparison between Locke and the Jesuits with whom he was grouped by his
opponents. I argue that there are some important and interesting points of
continuity between Locke and the Jesuit intellectual tradition in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries (especially Francisco Suárez [1548–1617]). The pur-
pose of this essay is to draw out these continuities in a way that helps to illumi-
nate Locke’s thought on law and politics.
2 Law and Theological Voluntarism
Locke’s theory of natural law bears some important similarities to that of

Suárez in that both are moderate theological voluntarists about the moral laws
of nature. It is best to think of theological voluntarism not as a single position
but as a spectrum of views ranging from extreme to moderate. In relation to
ethics, an extreme voluntarist holds that no moral properties obtain prior to an
act of divine willing and that there is no essential connection or congruence
between human nature and certain actions. The extreme voluntarist, for in-
stance, will say that it is possible for God to command us to steal and that there
are no facts about our nature that could constrain God’s command in this case.
A moderate voluntarist, however, holds that there are some moral properties
that obtain prior to an act of divine willing or that human nature conditions
the kinds of commands that God can make with respect to it. But for the mod-
erate voluntarist, a divine command is necessary for ethical precepts to have
their full normative force. In contrast, a theological intellectualist or naturalist
will hold that the moral precepts of the natural law obtain prior or apart from
any commands (and may even obtain, per impossibile, if God did not exist or
did not exercise any providence over human beings). This, of course, is to ex-
amine theological voluntarism from the perspective of moral properties, but
related to this is a view of the divine psychology.
The basic distinction between theological voluntarism and intellectualism
is that the former position holds that the divine will is prior to the understand-
ing in the creation of moral properties, whereas the latter holds that the under-
standing is prior to the will. For the voluntarist, God understands what is good
and evil in reference to what has in fact previously been decreed to be good or
evil by God’s will. The intellectualist, however, holds that God understands the
nature of good and evil without reference to any act of will. And the moderate
voluntarist holds that God understands some moral properties without refer-
ence to an act of will. Both Locke and Suárez are moderate voluntarists as they
428 Rossiter
hold that the content of the law of nature is given by the nature of human be-
ings, but that the full normative force of the law can only come from a divine
command.
Concerning the character of the natural law, Suárez claims to be steering a
middle course between the extremes of both an overly intellectualistic and an
overly voluntaristic account of law. The first extreme holds that the natural law
is entirely demonstrative (or indicative): in other words, the law merely indi-
cates what is intrinsically good and should be done, and what is intrinsically
evil and should be avoided.2 In this view, the natural law consists of the set of
actions that are in conformity with the rational nature (and which are respec-
tively prescribed or prohibited). Suárez ascribes this view to Gregory of Rimini
(c.1300–58) and others, but his principal target is Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604),
a fellow Spanish Jesuit with whom he often disagreed.3 The second extreme
holds that the natural law is entirely preceptive: in other words, the natural
law consists entirely of divine commands.4 The list of figures who hold this
2 Tractatus de legibus ac Deo legislatore (hereafter DL) 2.vi. 3. “On this point, the first opinion
which we shall discuss is, that the natural law is not a preceptive law, properly so called,
since it is not the indication of the will of some superior; but that, on the contrary, it is a
law indicating what should be done, and what should be avoided, what of its own nature is
intrinsically good and necessary, and what is intrinsically evil.” Selections from Three Works of
Francisco Suárez (hereafter sftw), 2:189. “In hac re prima sententia est, legem naturalem non
esse legem praecipientem proprie, quia non est signum voluntatis alicuius superioris, sed
esse legem indicantem, quid agendum, vel cavendum sit, quid natura sua intrinsece bonum,
ac necessarium, vel intrinsece malum sit.” Opera omnia (hereafter OO), 5:104.
3 The list of intellectualists is given in DL 2.vi. 3, but a discussion of Vázquez occurs in 2.v.2
and following sections. For a fuller discussion of Suárez’s dispute with Vázquez, see J.A. [José
Antonio] Fernández-Santamaría, Natural Law, Constitutionalism, Reason of State, and War:
Counter-Reformation Spanish Political Thought (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 1:97–103. Luis
de Molina also held a more naturalist or intellectualist position. For an account of Molina’s
view that law is an act of reason, see Annabel Brett, “Luis de Molina on Law and Power,” in
A Companion to Luis de Molina, ed. Matthias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele (Leiden: Brill,
2014), 155–82, here 175–76. For a general account of Molina’s view of the natural law, see Diego
Alonso-Lasheras, Luis de Molina’s De iustitia et iure: Justice as Virtue in an Economic Context
(Leiden: Brill, 2011), 67–84. Unlike Suárez, Molina countenances the impious hypothesis ac-
cording to which our moral obligations would obtain even if, per impossibile, God did not
exist or did not exercise providence.
4 DL 2.vi.4. “The second opinion, at the opposite extreme to the first, is that the natural law
consists entirely in a divine command or prohibition proceeding from the will of God as
the Author and Ruler of nature; that, consequently, this law as it exists in God is none other
than the eternal law in its capacity of commanding or prohibiting with respect to a given
matter.” sftw, 190. “Secunda sententia huic extreme contraria, est, legem naturalem omnino
positam esse in divino imperio, vel prohibitione procedente a voluntate Dei, ut auctore et
gubernatore naturae, et consequenter hanc legem ut est in Deo, nihil aliud esse quam legem
aeternam et praecipientem, vel prohibentem in tali materia.” OO, 105.
view, according to Suárez, includes William of Ockham (c.1287–1347) and two

of his prominent followers at the University of Paris, Pierre d’Ailly (1351–1420)
and Jean Gerson (1363–1429). In this view, the natural law is basically divine
positive law that is “natural” only in the sense of being known through natural
reason. Suárez’s via media, though, holds that natural law is simultaneously
both preceptive and demonstrative.5 There are actions that are intrinsically
good or evil, and the set of these actions provides the content of the natural
law. But in order for these actions to properly form the subject matter of a
law, they must either be prescribed or prohibited by the will of a sovereign.6
A consideration of an action’s conformity or non-conformity with our nature
is not enough to generate an obligation to respectively perform or avoid that
action.7 An act of will is required to impose such an obligation. Accordingly, it
is essential to the natural law that it both indicates to us what is good and what
is evil and obligates us to perform and avoid these things: God’s command thus
presupposes the intrinsic goods and evils, but it is the divine will that imposes
an obligation.8
Locke expresses moderate voluntarism about the laws of nature quite clear-
ly in his 1664 Essays on the Law of Nature (hereafter, eln). In this text—written
while he was censor of moral philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford—Locke de-
scribes the law of nature as the decree of the divine will, the formal cause of
5 DL 2.vi.5. “Not only does the natural law indicate what is good or evil, but furthermore, it
contains its own prohibition of evil and command of good.” sftw, 191. “Lex naturalis non
tantum est indicativa mali et boni, sed etiam continet propriam prohibitionem mali, et prae-
ceptionem boni.” OO, 105.
6 DL 2.vi.7. “The natural law, as existing in man, points out a given thing not only as it is in itself,
but also as being forbidden or prescribed by some superior.” sftw, 193. “Lex naturalis, prout
in homine est, non solum indicat rem ipsam in se, sed etiam ut prohibitam, vel praeceptam
ab aliquo superiori.” OO, 106.
7 Suárez has a subtle position here. He thinks that there are natural debita that exist apart
from a divine command, but that these debita do not rise to the level of an obligatio. Suárez
makes a similarly subtle distinction between peccata and transgressiones. The key idea is
that a complete moral obligation requires a command. Philosopher Reijo Wilenius notes that
while Suárez thinks that certain features of the moral order are independent of God’s will (as
expressed in the counterfactual situation that acts would be sinful even if God had issued no
commands), this does not commit him to the view that the natural law would still have the
same legal character if God did not exist (The Social and Political Theory of Francisco Suárez
[Helsinki: Acta Philosophica Fennica, 1963], 59–60).
8 DL 2.vi.13. “Although the additional obligation imposed by the natural law is derived from the
divine will, in so far as it is properly a preceptive obligation, nevertheless [such action on the
part of] that will presupposes a judgment as to the evil of falsehood, for example, or similar
judgments.” sftw, 199. “Quamvis ergo obligatio illa quam addit lex naturalis, ut proprie prae-
ceptiva est, sit ex voluntate divina, tamen illa voluntas supponit judicium de malitia, verbi
gratia, mendacii et similia.” OO, 109.
430 Rossiter
law being the decree of a superior; but he also identifies the law with what is in
conformity with rational nature: “The law of nature can be described as being
the decree of the divine will discernible by the light of nature and indicating
what is and what is not in conformity with rational nature, and for this very
reason commanding or prohibiting.”9
While Locke thinks that the natural law has an indicative capacity (i.e., it in-
dicates to us what conforms to our rational nature), he does not think that the
law consists in a dictate of reason (dictatum rationis), as it is something given
to us by a superior power (eln 1). Unlike an intellectualistic understanding of
the natural law, a simple consideration of our rational nature does not yield
this law. (Reason, however, is important, as it is the tool by which we grasp the
natural law.) To understand what Locke means here, it is important to discuss
the distinction he develops between an effective and a terminative obligation.
An effective obligation refers to the source of an obligation—namely the will
of a sovereign legislator—while terminative obligation refers to the content of
an obligation.10 A complete obligation, we might say, requires both an effective
and a terminative obligation. In order to be bound by the natural law, it is not
enough to know that God has willed a law, if we do not know the content of the
law; this content must be promulgated in some way. Locke thinks that we can
infer some of the content of the natural law from a consideration of our nature.
Locke thinks that our constitution shows us that we are sociable beings,
for whom society is necessary in order to preserve ourselves (eln 4, 157). And
since God has designed our constitution, we can infer that God has made us to
be sociable. From this, we infer that we have a duty to be sociable. Locke thinks
that the law that God has willed can be inferred from the ends set for us and
that these ends are evident in our constitution. What undergirds this inference
is the idea of harmony—or convenientia—for we know that God will harmo-
nize the natural law with our constitution:
[The law of nature] is a fixed and permanent rule of morals, which reason
itself pronounces, and which persists, being a fact so firmly rooted in the
soil of human nature. Hence human nature must needs be changed be-
fore this law can be either altered or annulled. There is, in fact, a harmony
between these two, and what is proper now for the rational nature, in so
9 eln 1, 111. “Lex naturae ita describi potest quod sit ordinatio voluntatis divinae lumine
naturae cognoscibilis, quid cum natura rationali conveniens vel discoveniens sit indicans
eoque ipso jubens aut prohibens.”
10 Locke discusses this distinction in eln 6, 185–87.
far as it is rational, must needs be proper forever, and the same reason
will pronounce everywhere the same moral rules.11
Locke says that there is a harmony between human nature and the natural
moral law given by God. And there is a necessity involved in this harmony,
for presuming that human nature remains the same, the natural law is immu-
table. Accordingly, we can determine the content of the natural law (i.e., the
terminative obligation of the law) from a consideration of our capacities. But
only knowing that there is some determinate content—i.e., a set of actions
that include things we should perform and avoid—does not yield an obliga-
tion unless we know that the content is willed into law by God. And as we
know that the content derives from God’s will, we also have an effective obliga-
tion to follow the law.
It follows from what Locke has to say about obligation that he has a volun-
taristic understanding of morality. Human nature, for Locke, does not serve as
a sufficient foundation for the natural law, for God must will the law in order
for it to be effectively binding. We should see God’s will and human nature,
then, as complementary features of a single theory of obligation. God wills
the law of nature according to what is in conformity with human nature. The
terminative aspect of the law is supplied by our nature, but the effective as-
pect is supplied by God’s will. The divine will is not superfluous here, for it
is necessary to generate an obligation. Without it, the natural law would not
obtain. This view of the natural law is also reflected in Locke’s mature work
on moral philosophy. In “Of Ethick in General,” a draft intended to be the final
chapter of the Essay concerning Human Understanding, Locke describes what
is involved in knowing the duties of the natural law in a way that is similar to
his earlier Essays: establishing morality “upon its proper basis” involves both
knowing (1) that God exists and issues commands and (2) the content of those
commands (§12, 304). Locke never felt satisfied with his treatment of the natu-
ral law, which is evident from the fact that he never published his early Essays,
despite pleas from friends, nor did he develop “Of Ethick in General” in this re-
gard and include it in later editions of the Essay. But while Locke never offered
a complete treatment of moral philosophy in his later works, he still maintains
a moderate voluntarism about the laws of nature. I have also argued elsewhere
11 eln 7, 199. “[Lex naturae est] fixa et aeterna morum regula, quam praesenti commodo na-
tum, quam dictat ipsa ratio, adeoque humanae naturae principiis infixum haeret; et mu-
tetur prius oportet humana natura quam lex haec aut mutari possit abrogari; convenientia
enim est inter utramque, quodque jam convenit naturae rationali, quatenus rationalis est,
in aeternum conveniat est necesse, eademque ratio easdem dictabit ubique morum regu-
las.” Ibid., 198.
432 Rossiter
that there are good reasons for thinking that developments in Locke’s thinking
about ethics, including his adoption of hedonism, represent an evolution of
his commitment to the natural law, not a divergence.12
Locke, like Suárez, is a moderate voluntarist about the law of nature. God’s
will is conditioned by features of human nature in determining the law of na-
ture. But human nature on its own is insufficient to generate moral obliga-
tions; for the law of nature to obtain, God must will that certain actions be
performed and others avoided. A possible historical point of contact between
Locke and Suárez is the Elegant and Learned Discourse on the Light of Nature
by Nathaniel Culverwell (1619–51); in the work, Culverwell explicitly cites and
defends at length the theory of natural law that Suárez develops in his Tracta-
tus de legibus ac Deo legislatore (A treatise on laws and God the lawgiver [DL
hereafter]). Philosopher Wolfgang von Leyden thinks that Culverwell provides
a “stimulus” for the doctrines that Locke develops in the Essays: he argues that
Locke and Culverwell are similar with regard to both their voluntarism and
empiricism about the law of nature.13 And in a footnote on the passage de-
scribed above on there being a harmony between the law of nature and human
nature, von Leyden cites Culverwell as a source.14 While von Leyden holds that
Culverwell (and Suárez, by extension) is only one among other sources that
influence Locke, it is still important to qualify the emphasis that he places on
Culverwell by noting that there are no references to Culverwell in Locke’s early
notebooks and that Culverwell’s text is not included in the recorded catalog
of Locke’s personal library. Nevertheless, the absence of concrete textual evi-
dence of influence does not necessarily mean that Locke read neither Culver-
well nor Suárez when preparing his lectures on the natural law. Indeed, the
texts of both Culverwell and Suárez would have been available to Locke. And,
indeed, later on in life, Locke makes explicit reference to Suárez’s De legibus in
his interleaved Bible.15 What is interesting, however, is that Locke and Suárez
share some important similarities in their respective treatments of the natural
law. Both hold that a divine command is necessary to establish moral obliga-
tions, but that the scope of God’s legislative will is conditioned by the nature
of the creatures that God has made.
12 See Elliot Rossiter, “Hedonism and Natural Law in Locke’s Moral Philosophy,” Journal of
the History of Philosophy 54, no. 2 (April 2016): 203–25.
13 eln, “Introduction,” 39–43.
14 Ibid., 199n1.
15 MS Locke 16.25, fol. 812. It is unclear which edition of the De legibus Locke used, but it
is plausible that he may have used an edition published in London by Benjamin Tooke
(1642–1716) and associates in 1679. There were, though, older editions of the De legibus
circulating in England before this time.
3 Politics
Locke’s theory of natural rights and political power bears important affinities
with the work of Juan de Mariana (1536–1624), Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621),
and Suárez. Like the Jesuits, Locke thinks that the basis of potestas politica
(political power) ultimately lies with the people. Locke’s Two Treatises of Gov-
ernment are largely directed against the doctrine of the divine right of kings
advanced in Robert Filmer’s (1588–1653) Patriarcha. In arguing for the con-
nection between regal authority and paternal authority, Filmer explicitly sets
himself against Bellarmine and Suárez. In refuting Filmer, Locke comes to a
position that is, in many ways, quite close to these earlier Jesuits. In this sec-
tion, I want to focus on two related conceptual connections between moderate
theological voluntarism about the moral laws of nature and theories of limited
government: first, moderate voluntarism coheres with a rejection of absolute
sovereign power; and second, regarding social contract theory, it shapes a view
of the state of nature in which the laws of nature obtain and moderate the kind
of contract made when entering into civil society.
3.1 Moderate Voluntarism and Civil Authority

Following Thomas Aquinas (c.1224/25–74), the Jesuit Spanish neo-Scholastics
think that sovereign power is bounded by the natural law and oriented to the
common good. Human law—the law enacted by civil authority—represents a
further specification of the general principles of the natural law. Summarizing
Aquinas, Suárez says the following about the nature and necessity of human law:
[The] necessity [of the human law] springs from the fact that the natural,
or the divine law, is of a general nature, and includes only certain self-
evident principles of conduct, extending, at most, to those points which
follow necessarily and by a process of obvious inference from the said
principles; whereas, in addition to such points, many others are necessar-
ily involved in the case of a human commonwealth in order that it may
be preserved and rightly governed, so that it was necessary for human
reason to determine more particularly certain points relating to those
matters which cannot be defined through the natural reason alone, a de-
termination that is effected by means of human law; and therefore, such
law was most necessary.16
16 DL 1.iii.18 (sftw, 48). “Necessitas [lex humana] manat ex eo, quod lex naturalis vel divi-
na generalis est, et solum complectitur quaedam principia morum per se nota, et ad
434 Rossiter
Suárez goes on to argue that our social nature leads us to community and
that each community requires a law to govern it toward the common good in
its particular circumstances.17 The civil magistrate takes the natural law as a set
of general principles guiding its authority; the magistrate crafts laws that rep-
resent further determinations of law oriented toward the human good. Suárez
describes the supreme civil authority in a community as a legislative power
(potestas legislativa), following the argument that the civil authority must gov-
ern through law.18 Philosopher Francisco T. Baciero Ruiz notes that the idea
of the supreme authority as a legislative authority represents an important
conceptual similarity between Locke and Suárez.19 Beyond this, Locke sees the
role of the magistrate in a similar way to Suárez; the magistrate, bound by the
set of general principles contained in the natural law, crafts more determinate
laws that help to realize the common good in a particular community.
Locke first addresses the issue of the law of nature and the scope of the
magistrate’s authority in his Two Tracts on Government, written in the ear-
ly 1660s against the Nonconformist Edward Bagshaw (1629–71). The basic
question of the debate with Bagshaw is whether or not the authority of the
civil magistrate extends to the regulation and determination of adiaphora—
things indifferent—in the context of religious worship (such as the wearing
of s urplices, bowing at the name of Jesus, kneeling at the sacrament). Locke’s
defense of the magistrate’s authority to regulate these adiaphora rests on his
understanding of subordinate forms of law. It is important to note that Locke
later changes his view on the regulation of public worship, not by changing his
view of the nature of law, but by excluding these things from being relevant to
the common good (and thus placing them outside the purview and compe-
tency of the magistrate’s authority).
In the Second Tract on Government, Locke divides laws into four categories:
divine, political, fraternal, and private.20 Divine law represents the highest
form of law, which has God as its author, and all other laws are subordinate to it.
summum extenditur ad ea quae necessaria, et evidenti illatione ex illis principiis conse-

quuntur; praeter illa vero multa alia sunt necessaria in republica humana ad ejus rectam
gubernationem et conservationem; ideo necessarium fuit ut per humanam rationem ali-
qua magis in particulari determinarentur circa ea, quae per solam rationalem naturalem
definiri non possunt, et hoc fit per legem humanam, et ideo fuit valde necessaria.” OO, 12.
17 Suárez gives a fuller discussion of the relationship between human law and the common
good in DL 1.vii.4–5.
18 DL 3.i.6.
19 Francisco T. Baciero Ruiz, “Francisco Suárez como gozne entre la filosofía política me-
dieval y John Locke,” in El pensamiento político en la Edad Media, ed. Pedro Roche Arnas
(Madrid: Fundación Ramón Areces, 2009), 263–75, here 270–71.
20 Second Tract on Government, in Political Essays, 63.
Political—or civil—laws represent the next highest form of law, and they have
the magistrate as their author; both the fraternal and the private law are sub-
ordinate to them. There are two important senses in which the lower forms of
law are subordinate to those that are higher. First, the precepts of a lower law
can never legitimately trump the precepts of a higher one. If, for example, the
divine law forbids theft, the magistrate cannot authorize a law commanding
theft (as such a law would contravene the divine law). Second, the scope of
each lesser form of law is the set of things left indifferent by the higher forms
of law. The divine law leaves a set of actions that are morally neutral, and it is
these actions that lie within the purview of the magistrate’s power. Accord-
ing to Locke, the magistrate has responsibility for the care of the community,
which includes the power of determining and altering laws in accordance with
what the magistrate decides to be best for the common good and the preserva-
tion of peace.21 By creating and promulgating laws, the magistrate adds a new
set of obligations beyond the divine law. In other words, the civil law decreases
the set of things that are indifferent. Locke is clear that the magistrate also has
the authority to change the civil law within the bounds of providing for the
welfare of society:
But since the responsibility for society is entrusted to the magistrate by

God and since on the one hand all the evils likely to befall a common-
wealth could not be guarded against by an unlimited number of laws,
while on the other to have exactly the same constitution would not al-
ways be an advantage to a people, God left many indifferent things un-
trammelled by his laws and handed them to his deputy the magistrate
as fit material for civil government, which, as occasion should demand,
could be commanded or prohibited, and by the wise regulation of which
the welfare of the commonwealth could be provided for.
Second Tract, 64
Locke is clear here that he thinks that the magistrate is above the civil law as
he says that the “authors of laws are, by their power, superior to the laws them-
selves and to the subjects they govern” (Second Tract, 63). In the First Tract on
Government, Locke describes the magistrate as having “an absolute and arbi-
trary power over all the indifferent actions of his people.”22 The magistrate ex-
ercises authority for the sake of the common good, and should the magistrate
21 Ibid., 56. Furthermore, Locke is explicit that this responsibility has been given to the mag-
istrate by God (64).
22 First Tract of Government, 9.
436 Rossiter
enact laws designed to advance private interest then the magistrate will be
subject to God’s judgment. So it is important to emphasize that Locke does
not mean that the magistrate exercises God’s authority according to random
determinations of the will: indeed, the magistrate’s authority is circumscribed
by the natural law (which promotes the common good). In his mature work,
Locke will identify the civil authority as a legislative authority bound by the
common good.
It is worthwhile comparing Locke and Suárez with Aquinas in relation to
law and authority. According to Aquinas, law represents a promulgated ordi-
nance of reason directed toward the common good that is made by one who
has care of the community (Summa theologiae 1–2, q. 90, a. 4). Like Aquinas,
Locke thinks that law has its source in one who has care of the community and
that law should promote the common good. But Locke does not describe the
law as an ordinance of reason: he states that it is the magistrate’s “expressed
will which establishes obligation” (Second Tract, 62). Furthermore, Suárez is
also clear that right reason alone in the mind of the prince does not constitute
law; rather, an act of will in addition to this reason is necessary for there to be a
law (DL 1.vi.23).23 This is not to say that the law is irrational in Locke’s estima-
tion, but that the relevant and primary faculty in the creation of an obligation
is will and not reason (and similarly for Suárez). Accordingly, Locke speaks in
the language of power and command. But while Locke uses this kind of lan-
guage, it is useful to contrast his view with a more voluntarist conception of
regal power.
In describing regal authority and the divine right of kings, James i (r.1603–
25) argued that kings are the “authors and makers of the Lawes, and not the
Lawes of the kings.”24 He goes on to support this point by arguing that all of his
subjects receive and maintain their holdings based on his authority. Further-
more, parliament on its own may enact no laws; it is only by adding the king’s
scepter to a law that it has its force. All of this comports with the v oluntarist
23 For an account of law as the act of the prince, see Harro Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought: The
Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),
277–80.
24 “The Trew Law of Free Monarchies,” in Political Works of James i, ed. C.H. [Charles How-
ard] McIlwain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918), 62. Both Suárez and Bel-
larmine opposed James i’s political writings in numerous works. For an account of the
controversy between Bellarmine and James i, see Stefania Tutino, Empire of Souls: Rob-
ert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010),
117–58. See also Bernard Bourdin, The Theological–Political Origins of the Modern State:
The Controversy between James i of England and Cardinal Bellarmine, trans. Susan Pickford
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010).
idea that it is the will of the sovereign that legitimates laws. But the key dif-
ference between James i and the moderate voluntarism expressed by Locke
and Suárez is that James i thinks that the only limit to kingly authority is not
through natural law, but through covenant. The king binds himself to a partic-
ular legal order through a covenant with this people; in other words, the king
is bound to a certain legal order by virtue of making an oath to uphold it.25 But
in Locke’s view, the authority of the magistrate is circumscribed by the natural
law. The magistrate does not have absolute authority to issue laws; the will of
the magistrate must be conditioned by the divine law and the common good
in order to produce legitimate commands.
I want to suggest that Locke’s moderate view of civil authority is conceptu-
ally connected to moderate voluntarism concerning God’s legislative author-
ity. In the Second Tract, Locke’s discussion of the subdivision of laws suggests
that these categories are structurally similar (63). Thus there is a certain anal-
ogy between the divine legislator and the civil legislator. Just as the magistrate
is above the civil law, God is above the divine law and may act supra-legally in
the determination and alteration of the divine law. What this means is that,
before an act of legislation, things are neither morally good nor evil; in other
words, they are indifferent. The reason for this is that an act of will on the part
of a legislator is necessary to turn an action from something indifferent into
something that is morally obligatory. But Locke is clear that God cannot make
a creature and issue a law that frustrates its nature. The telos of the creature
sets bounds to the kinds of laws that God can frame. What this means is that
God as divine legislator must realize the common good of creatures through
the divine law. Likewise, civil legislators are bound by the common good of
their subjects in the laws that they enact.
This basic picture remains in Locke’s mature work. In the Essay concerning
Human Understanding and a short fragment titled “Of God’s Justice,” Locke
maintains a perfect being theology in which he makes clear that God’s power
is regulated by perfect wisdom and goodness.26 This means that God’s
25 See J.H.M. [John Hearsey McMillan] Salmon, “Catholic Resistance Theory, Ultramontan-
ism, and the Royalist Response,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700,
ed. J.H. [James Henderson] Burns with Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), 219–53, here 247–49. For the connection between covenant and the distinc-
tion between absolute and ordained powers, see Francis Oakley, “The Absolute and Or-
dained Powers of God and King in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Philosophy,
Science, Politics, and Law,” Journal of the History of Ideas 59, no. 4 (1998): 669–90, here
679–86.
26 Essay 3.vi.11 and “Of God’s Justice,” in Political Essays, 277–78.
438 Rossiter
rovidence must be exercised in the most perfect way, which includes fram-
p
ing commodious laws for the creatures under his care. Divine authority,
then, is bound by the common good of creatures. In the Second Treatise on
Government, Locke argues that the civil authority is bounded by the natural
law and that its power can be exercised no further than the preservation of
society:
The Obligations of the Law of Nature, cease not in Society, but only in
many Cases are drawn closer, and have by Humane Laws known Penalties
annexed to them, to inforce their observation. Thus the Law of Nature
stands as an Eternal Rule to all Men, Legislators as well as others.
Second Treatise, §135, 357–58
In this section, Locke is clear that the legislative power does not have an ab-
solute, arbitrary authority: as in the Two Tracts, the civil authority is bound
by the law of nature and further determines rules in accordance with it. One
key difference, however, between Locke’s earlier and mature work is that the
magistrate has a more limited scope of authority. In the Two Tracts, the mag-
istrate is accorded the authority to craft rules governing everything left indif-
ferent by the natural law, including forms of worship. But Locke’s later work
on toleration limits the scope of the magistrate’s authority in this regard: the
magistrate’s purview concerns solely those things related to the common good.
Forms of worship, so long as they do not conflict with the common good, fall
outside the magistrate’s authority. Nevertheless, the same conception of mod-
erate authority is maintained throughout Locke’s work and, as I have shown
above, it coheres with moderate voluntarism about the laws of nature. This
moderate voluntarism also shapes the conception of the state of nature from
which civil society emerges.
3.2 Natural Law and the State of Nature

Both Locke and the Jesuits discussed above are committed to the thesis that
the moral laws of nature both obtain and are intelligible apart from civil so-
ciety. The Spanish neo-Scholastics held that civil society is something that
is deliberately brought into being by a human community in which there is
knowledge of the natural law. In this sense, there is an idea of a state of na-
ture from which civil society is formed, all in accord with the natural law and
the common good. As we saw above, Suárez holds that civil authority is both
bound by the natural law and necessary for the realization of the common
good in a particular community. In accord with later social contract theory, he
also thinks that we leave the pre-political condition through the medium of
consent.27 Furthermore, Luis de Molina (1535–1600) even uses the phrase sta-
tus naturae (state of nature) to describe the pre-political condition of human
beings. Mariana describes a two-stage process of contracting: first, in the pac-
tum societatis (pact of society), there is an agreement to form a society; and,
second, in the pactum subjectionis (pact of subjection), there is an agreement
to set up a particular ruler over that community.28 And against the view that
Adam held both domestic and political power, the Jesuits hold that the state
of nature is one of equality.29 Consequently, there exists no right of dominion
in the state of nature. This serves to undermine the patriarchal defense of the
divine right of kings by holding that Adam held only domestic power and po-
litical power given the equality in the state of nature.
In his work Patriarcha, Filmer defends the divine right of kings by means of
equating royal and paternal power. The Patriarcha was first published posthu-
mously in 1680 in the context of the exclusion crisis in which certain members
of the House of Commons attempted to exclude the Catholic James, duke of
York, from the line of succession to the throne. In his text, Filmer takes aim
explicitly at Suárez and Bellarmine as defenders of the view that Adam’s au-
thority was restricted to the domestic sphere. In one of his criticisms of Suárez,
Filmer argues that there is no sharp boundary between domestic and political
authority in the case of Adam given that he lived for 930 years and would thus
be the paterfamilias to a great number of people (including his children, chil-
dren’s children, etc.).30 Filmer also raises a number of objections to Suárez’s
view that political society is formed by a decision of the community. However,
the conception of sociability employed by the Jesuits contains within it the
idea that human beings are social creatures who need one another to flourish.
27 Political scientist Daniel Schwartz argues against some commentators that Suárez does
employ a doctrine of consent and that he should be placed in the tradition of social con-
tract theory. See his “Francisco Suárez on Consent and Political Obligation,” Vivarium 46,
no. 1 (2008): 59–81. And for a general perspective on Suárez’s view of the social contract,
see Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 248–53.
28 For a discussion of this distinction, see Arthur P. Monahan, From Personal Duties towards
Personal Rights: Late Medieval and Early Modern Political Thought, 1300–1600 (Montréal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 163. And for an account of Mariana’s view of the
beginning of civil society, see Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 239–48.
29 For a fuller discussion of this theme, see Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Political
Thought, vol. 2, The Age of the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978),
156–57. And for a specific comparison of Locke and Suárez, see Baciero Ruiz, “Francisco
Suárez como gozne entre la filosofía política medieval y John Locke,” 268–69. For an ac-
count of the medieval origins of the concepts of the state of nature and social contract in
the neo-Scholastics, see Monahan, From Personal Duties towards Personal Rights, 131–42.
30 Patriarcha, 15–16.
440 Rossiter
And so, political communities are formed by social human beings who autho-
rize government bound by the end of realizing the common good of society.
And in this view, the community maintains its ability to choose and even alter
its form of government as befits the maintenance of the common good. Anoth-
er text that was published (as a reprint in 1681—the original being published in
1594) during the polemics of the exclusion crisis was the English Jesuit Robert
Persons’s (1546–1610) A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of
England. Persons’s book denies the necessity of hereditary succession and ar-
gues for the community’s power to choose the authority governing it. Persons
holds that the community may replace its head for the sake of the common
good if it turns out that the prince is destructive of the common weal.31 In
making this point, Persons’s text supports the Whig cause. Locke—a great sup-
porter of the Glorious Revolution that saw James ii replaced by William and
Mary—owned a copy of Persons’s text.32
In The Two Treatises of Government, Locke effectively presents a defense of
the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In the First Treatise, Locke offers a sustained
critique of Filmer’s Patriarcha. In the Second Treatise, Locke presents an ac-
count of civil society opposed to the divine right of kings and one that bears
important similarities with earlier Jesuit thought. Locke holds that both natu-
ral equality and the law of nature obtain in the state of nature:
The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it, which obliges ev-
eryone: and Reason, which is that Law, teaches all Mankind who will but
consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions. For Men being all the
Workmanship of one Omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; All the Ser-
vants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the World by his order and about
his business, they are his Property, whose Workmanship they are, made
to last during his, not one another’s Pleasure.
Second Treatise, §6, 271
Locke thinks that the knowledge of both the law of nature and ourselves as
God’s workmanship is evident to reason. According to Locke, we are “sent into
the world by his order and about his business.” In Locke’s view, God creates us
with specific ends, namely to be sociable and to seek ultimate happiness in God.
31 Robert Persons, A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England (London,
1681), chapter 3.
32 John Harrison and Peter Laslett, The Library of John Locke, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon,
1971), no. 1533.
Indeed, Locke describes God as “an infinitely wise Maker” before saying that
we are about his business. It is best to interpret this “business” as the ends
that are set for us since Locke considers it contrary to wisdom to work with no
design or purpose. Furthermore, Locke describes law as “the direction of a free
and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for
the general good of those under that law” (Second Treatise, §57, 305). What this
means is that law in general, including human law framed by the magistrate,
has a teleological function: it directs us toward the ends set for us. And so, it is
entirely consistent that Locke conceives of the first and fundamental natural
law as the preservation of society, which in turn governs the civil legislative
power authorized through consent (Second Treatise, §134). All this is to say that
Locke’s account of the state of nature bears some important conceptual simi-
larities with the Jesuits: both hold that the natural law and equality obtain in
the state of nature and that civil authority is legitimated by consent and bound
by the natural law.
4 Conclusion
In the end, it is not worth concluding with Milbourne that Locke and the Je-
suits form one “Loyal and Religious Fraternity.” For despite the similarities de-
scribed above, Locke has a very different ecclesiology. In his estimation, the
church represents a voluntary association that is separate from the magis-
trate’s purview, given that the civil authority is competent in dealing only with
temporal goods and not speculative positions relating to eternal welfare. But
likewise, churches are not competent in realizing the public good. Church and
state are separate entities in Locke’s conception. For this reason, Locke cannot
accept the idea that the pope has any kind of authority in secular matters—
whether according to the doctrine of plenitudo potestas, in which the pope
has direct temporal authority, or according to Bellarmine’s doctrine of potestas
indirecta,33 in which the pope can affect temporal matters indirectly through
his spiritual authority. Locke did not think that toleration should be extended
to Catholics as their loyalty to the Roman Catholic magisterium would com-
promise their political loyalties to the state. But despite these differences and
some of the anti-Catholic tenor of his thinking, Locke falls within the lineage
of the natural law tradition influenced by the Jesuit neo-Scholastics. In some of
his most important views on law and politics, Locke echoes positions already
33 For an account of this doctrine, see Bourdin, Theological–Political Origins of the Modern
State, 132–56.
442 Rossiter
formulated by Jesuits, including moderate voluntarism about the laws of na-

ture, a theory of limited government, and a certain view of the social contract.
Given these conceptual similarities, it is not unreasonable to think that Locke
followed a path that had, in some important respects, already been trodden by
figures like Bellarmine, Suárez, Mariana, and Molina.
Bibliography
Alonso-Lasheras, Diego. Luis de Molina’s De iustitia et iure: Justice as Virtue in an Eco-

nomic Context. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Baciero Ruiz, Francisco T. “Francisco Suárez como gozne entre la filosofía política me-
dieval y John Locke.” In El pensamiento político en la Edad Media, edited by Pedro
Roche Arnas, 263–75. Madrid: Fundación Ramón Areces, 2009.
Bourdin, Bernard. The Theological–Political Origins of the Modern State: The Contro-
versy between James i of England and Cardinal Bellarmine. Translated by Susan Pick-
ford. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010.
Brett, Annabel. “Luis de Molina on Law and Power.” In A Companion to Luis de Molina,
edited by Matthias Kaufmann and Alexander Aichele, 155–82. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Culverwell, Nathaniel. An Elegant and Learned Discourse on the Light of Nature. Edited
by Robert A. Greene and Hugh MacCallum. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2001.
Fernández-Santamaría, J.A. [José Antonio] Natural Law, Constitutionalism, Reason of
State, and War: Counter-Reformation Spanish Political Thought. Vol. 1. New York:
Peter Lang, 2005.
Filmer, Robert. Patriarcha and Other Writings. Edited by Johann P. Sommerville. Cam-
Goldie, Mark. “John Locke and Anglican Royalism.” Political Studies 31 (1983): 61–85.
Harrison, John, and Peter Laslett. The Library of John Locke. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon,
1971.
Hooker, Richard. Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Edited by Arthur Stephen
McGrade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Höpfl, Harro. Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630.
James, I, King of England. Political Works of James i. Edited by C.H. [Charles Howard]
McIlwain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918.
Leyden, Wolfgang von. “Introduction.” Essays on the Law of Nature, 1–94. Oxford:
Locke, John. Essays on the Law of Nature. Edited by Wolfgang von Leyden. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1958.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Peter H. Nidditch.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
Locke, John. Interleaved Bentley Bible. MS Locke 16.25, London, 1648.

Locke, John. The Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge:
Locke, John. Political Essays. Edited by Mark Goldie. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997.
Milbourne, Luke. The Measures of Resistance. London: George Sawbridge, 1710.
Monahan, Arthur P. From Personal Duties towards Personal Rights: Late Medieval and
Early Modern Political Thought, 1300–1600. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s
Oakley, Francis. “The Absolute and Ordained Powers of God and King in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries: Philosophy, Science, Politics, and Law.” Journal of the
History of Ideas 59, no. 4 (1998): 669–90.
Persons, Robert. A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England. Lon-
don, 1681.
Rossiter, Elliot. “Hedonism and Natural Law in Locke’s Moral Philosophy.” Journal of the
History of Philosophy 54, no. 2 (April 2016): 203–25.
Salmon, J.H.M. [John Hearsey McMillan]. “Catholic Resistance Theory, Ultramontan-
ism, and the Royalist Response.” In The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–
1700, edited by J.H. [James Henderson] Burns with Mark Goldie, 219–53. Cambridge:
Schwartz, Daniel. “Francisco Suárez on Consent and Political Obligation.” Vivarium 46,
no. 1 (2008): 59–81.
Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Political Thought, vol. 2, The Age of the Reforma-
tion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Suárez, Francisco. A Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver. In Selections from Three
Works of Francisco Suárez, S.J. Translated by Gwladys L. Williams et al. Vol. 2. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1944.
Tutino, Stefania. Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Wilenius, Reijo. The Social and Political Theory of Francisco Suárez. Helsinki: Acta Phil-
osophica Fennica, 1963.
Index
Acosta, José 247 materia prima as subiectum inhaesionis

Acquaviva, Claudio 3–4, 29–30, 39, 41, and 175
56–58, 60–63, 195, 216–17, 330 monarchy and government 219
Instructio pro confessariis principum 216 natural law for 398
Albert the Great 263, 286, 289 On Being and Essence 184n56, 375
Albert vii (Archduke of Netherlands) 217, Pars Prima 257, 262
222, 224 Perera, Benet and metaphysics of 275–77
Alcalá de Henares, University of 13n2, 15, 29 Posterior Analytics 99, 255, 286, 351, 359
Alexander of Aphrodisias 259, 271, 272, 274, science of soul 282
282, 289 Secunda Pars of Summa Theologiae
Alexander of Hales 182n52, 263 of 200, 202
Alexandrism 271 Summa contra gentiles 177, 180n44, 280,
Alexandrists 115 375
Al-Farabi 149, 281 Summa theologiae 7, 118–20, 122, 124, 158,
Álvarez, Baltasar 3, 117, 347, 366–68 167, 175, 177, 180, 187, 195–97, 199–202,
Treaty on the Separated Soul 347, 366–67 226, 233, 253, 261, 276, 279–81, 297, 338,
Álvares, Luís 350 350, 375, 396–97, 409, 423, 436
Ambrose of Milan 362 Toledo, Francisco de and 7, 146, 253–54
An sit utilitas in scelere, vel de infelicitate argumentation 83, 97, 107–10, 123, 146, 150,
principis Machiavelliani 224, 232–33, 286, 342, 351, 368
(Fitzherbert) 227 Aristotelian final causality 364
angels 65, 131, 142, 151, 158, 162, 275, 303–5 Aristotelian philosophy 27, 46, 144, 187, 202
antecedent 107–10, 132, 156. See also Aristotelianism 1–2, 10, 27–28, 36, 45, 53,
consequent 68–69, 71, 77, 115–16, 138, 143, 166, 170,
Apostolici regiminis (Leo X) 38n23, 39, 45, 254, 264, 266–67, 287, 312, 323, 335, 360,
60, 273, 289 368, 372, 387, 401
Aquaviva, Claudius. See Acquaviva, Claudio Christian Aristotelianism 28
Aquinas, Thomas 1–3, 7–8, 30, 40, 44, 46–47, secular Aristotelianism 27, 115
69, 80, 92, 102–3, 118–24, 143, 146, Aristotle 2, 4–5, 10, 17, 21, 27, 29, 46, 77,
148, 158, 175–77, 180, 183, 187, 195–97, 82–85, 89, 107, 113, 130, 137, 140–141,
199–202, 207, 219, 253–54, 256–59, 143–44, 147, 150–52, 155–57, 159–60,
261–63, 272, 276–77, 279–83, 286, 289, 163–64, 166–67, 169, 171, 173, 178, 185,
297, 310, 335, 342, 350, 361, 364, 373, 375, 187, 202, 255, 261, 265, 274–75, 278, 282,
388, 393, 396–400, 402, 433, 436 287, 298–99, 313, 330, 332–33, 335–37,
common being (ens commune) 340 340–344, 350, 356, 358–61, 363–365–72,
free choice and 44, 230, 310. See also 386–87, 401–2, 416, 422
under Molina concept of place of 138
God’s intellectual activity 342 container-place 140, 143–44, 147–49,
immortality of intellective soul 395–96 151–52, 156–57, 159–60
In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis De anima 14, 17–18, 98, 117, 118n10, 187,
expositio 282n42 253, 256, 257n24, 257n26261, 285, 327n2,
In Peri hermeneias commentary of 102–3 348, 350, 352, 356, 360–61, 363–65, 375,
intellect and direct concept of 393, 407
singulars 258 De caelo 18, 356–59, 407
446 Index
Aristotle (cont.) Avempace (Ibn Bâjja) 149

De interpretatione 17, 96, 99, 101, 255, Averroes (Ibn Rushd) 27, 38, 40, 45–47, 52,
351–52 54, 62, 111, 139, 259, 271–72, 274, 286–87,
four types of living beings / four modes of 289, 292, 353
life 361 Averroism 39, 50, 53, 271, 273, 277
heaven’s location 278 Averroist 27–28
interval 140 Avicenna 2, 10, 281
logic and 253–54, 327, 344 Azor, Juan 6, 193, 195, 197–202
Logic 255, 276 Aquinas, Thomas’s first seven books
natural place for 147–48, 152, 159 and 200, 204
nature of space 137–63 Aquinas, Thomas’s treatment of
Meteors 255 grace 200
On Generation and Corruption 18, 167, confession and 200–1
253, 348 conscience and 199
Organum/Organon 4, 14–17, 95–96, Institutiones morales 199
98–99, 276, 28 manual for confessors 197
On Interpretation 17, 255, 351–52 Azpilcueta, Martín de 198
On Sophistical Refutations 17, 96, 99, 351 Manual de Confesores y Penitentes 198
Prior Analytics 17, 96, 99
Topics 96, 99, 351 Balduin, Anton 50, 60, 63, 131, 271, 277
Metaphysics 7, 14, 18–19, 80, 92, 106, Barcelona, University of 29
172n21, 183n55, 184n56, 271, 281, 286, Barlow, Thomas 112–13
294, 329–43, 349, 353, 366, 375–76, 385, Barozzi, Francesco 274, 286
387, 407, 414 Bartolus of Sassoferrato 237
Nicomachean Ethics 14, 16, 327 Baxter, Richard 426
Parva naturalia 14, 18, 255, 256, 350, 360, Becanus, Martin 233–34
361 Disputatio de fide haereticis servanda 233
Physica 51, 167, 327n2, 350, 355, 357, 368, Quaestiones miscellaneae de fide haereticis
407 servanda 233
Plato and 151 Summa theologiae Scholasticae; Disputatio
Politica 235 de fide haereticis servanda 233
qualitative physics of 119 Bellarmine, Robert 6, 9, 21, 46, 51, 67, 69,
Rhetoric 81–82, 89–90 205, 217–20, 222, 227, 229, 233–34, 241,
Sophistical Refutations 17, 96, 99, 351 244, 266, 273, 279, 426, 433, 436, 439,
space 140–41 441–43
vacuum 144–45, 150, 154–56, 158, 160–61, De officio principis Christiani 221, 222n25
163 De summo pontifice 218
Arnauld, Antoine 411–13, 419n85, 420–21 papal political and spiritual
Objections 408n22, 409–11, 412n49, 420 authority 218
Arnisaeus, Henning 273, 281, 282n38, 284 potestas indirecta 218, 220, 240, 441
Arriaga, Rodrigo de 30, 115, 132–34, 206, 210 temporal and spiritual government 218,
Cursus philosophicus 30, 132n81, 132n82 441
Disputationes theologicae 206 toleration and freedom 232–33
ars rhetorica 90 Bellini, Isidoro 14
atheism 27–28 Bembo, Pietro 83
Augustine, Saint 101, 123, 132, 263, 364, 367 Benci, Francesco 85
De doctrina christiana 101 Bernardi, Antonio 358
Augustinianism, medieval 116, 132 Bessarion, Basilios 170, 172
Augustinians 42, 123, 158, 198 In calumniatorem Platonis 170, 172
Index 447
Biancani, Giuseppe 160 casuistry 81, 203, 208, 226, 228, 232, 239426
Biel, Gabriel 176, 179, 185, 263 Catanzaro, Jesuit school of 15
Expositio Canonis Missae 179 categorematic terms 100–1
Binet, Étienne Categories (Aristotle) 17, 96, 99, 106, 255,
Essai des merveilles de nature et des plus 351, 353, 375
nobles artifices 86 Catena, Pietro 274
Boethius 106, 108, 114, 168 causality 119, 123–24, 132, 185–186, 304, 340,
Bologna, University of 21, 24 343, 364, 368, 384–89, 416–19
Bonaventure 185, 263, 356 Caussin, Nicolas 85, 88, 92
Borja, Francisco de (Borgia, Francis) 28, Eloquentiae sacrae et humanae
37–38, 52, 56–57, 59–60, 62–64, 69, 252, parallela 85, 88
264–66, 271, 330 censura praevia 35
Decretum Borgianum 38, 46, 56, 64 Charles V (emperor) 201
predestination for 264–66 Chronicon (Polanco) 14n5, 15
Botero, Giovanni 226–228, 233, 241 Cicero 78, 82–84, 92–93, 195, 207, 211, 226,
Ragione di stato 226 230, 243
Bourdin, Pierre 409–411n39 Ciceronian rhetoric 78
Objections 410n31 Ciceronianism 82, 86, 88–90
Bradshaw, William 426 Coelho, Gaspar 348
Breve directorium (Polanco) 198 Coimbra Commentaries 4, 29, 96, 356n28,
Bruno, Giordano 153, 160–61, 163–64, 358n32
278–79, 292 Coimbra Jesuit College Commentaries
De immenso 160, 161n33 (cjcc) 347–68
pro absurdo argument of Perera, Commentary on Physics 348
Benet 278 Commentary on Meteorology 348
Bruyerin, Jean Baptiste 188 Commentary on Short Treatises on Natural
Buchanan, George 426 History 348
Burleus (Burley, Walter) 258 Commentary on Heaven 348
Commentary on Generation and
Cabala 273–74, 290–92 Corruption 348
Cajetan, Thomas Cardinal 106–107, 175, 180, De anima and 347, 363–65
184–85, 258–260, 353, 378, 396–397 De generatione and 356, 358–59, 362
Câmara, Gonçalves da 330 De sphaera teaching and 359
Canisius, Derick 28 division of sciences based on criterion of
Canisius, Peter 28, 39, 56, 59, 62–63, 68, learning 354
271–73, 292 division of sciences by importance 23
Canisius, Theodoric 271–72 division of sciences from four different
Capreolus, Jean 174–177, 179, 181, 184–85 perspectives 354
Cardoso, Francisco 348 doctrine of signs in 353
Cardulo, Fulvio 270 Ethics, volume and 350
Carleton, Thomas. See Compton, Thomas Ethics, will and intellect 365
Cursus philosophicus 157n20, 159n25, exposition of science and
159n29, 161n35, 161n37, 162n41, philosophizing 353
162n42 four elements and human humors 356,
Cartesian criticism 414 358
Cartesian mechanism 413 geometry and 360
Cartesian philosophy 8, 82 hermeneutics of explicatio and
Cartesian Replies 408n22, 409 dilemmatics of quaestio 354
Cartesian strategy 413 motion 356–58
448 Index
Coimbra Jesuit College Commentaries (cont.) Commentary on Euclid’s Elements

interdisciplinary approach and faith in (Proclus) 282
God 367 Commentary on the Short Treatises on Natural
logic teaching at 95 History (cjcc) 348
man and God 365 Commentary on the Metaphysics
man’s rational soul 367 (Fonseca) 327n1, 331, 337
metaphysics and theology 366 Commentary on the Metaphysics
Meteororum 356, 359–61 (Perera) 280–81
nature’s intelligent operation 364 communitas perfecta 236
omissions in 349 Compendium (1627) (Hieronymus de
Parva naturalia 14, 18, 255–56, 350, Paiva) 112
360–61 Compton, Thomas 157–63
Physica, commentary (cjcc– local movement and intrinsic place 160
1594) 170n14, 171n16, 186n62, 186n64, on space and vacuum 162–63
187n65 tower in wind mental experiment 159
physics and nature in 348, 350–51, 354 Conclusiones philosophicae cabalisticae
Posterior Analytics and 359 et theologicae (Pico della
reception in and outside of Europe 348 Mirandola) 290
science of soul 360, 363 Concordia (Aquinas) 82, 297, 301n11, 307–8,
Treaty on the Separated Soul 347 311–14, 318, 320, 322–24
Coimbra, University of 18, 29, 167, 328, 374 Conference about the Next Succession to the
Collegio Massimo, Naples 23 Crown of England, A (Parsons) 440
Collegio Romano 15, 38n19, 89, 96–97, 270 confession 194–95, 200–1, 216, 233
Collegium Complutense 168 Acquaviva, Claudio and 216
Commentaria in universam Aristotelis logicam Azor, Juan’s manual for confessors 197,
(Toledo) 253 200
Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in duos Vitelleschi, Muzio and 214–16
libros Aristotelis … (Toledo) 253 Conimbricenses. See also Álvarez, Baltasar;
Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in octo Couto, Sebastião do; Fonseca, Pedro de;
libros Aristotelis … (Toledo) 253 Góis, Manuel de; Magalhães, Cosme
Commentaria una cum quaestionibus de; and Toledo, Francisco de
in tres libros Aristotelis de anima conscience 7, 25, 193, 196–201, 203–7, 209–
(Toledo) 253 210, 216, 220–21, 223–26, 229, 239–40,
Commentarii (1641) (Rubius ) 112 253, 328. See also confession
Commentariorum ac disputationum Aquinas, Thomas on 196–97, 200–1
in primam secundae S. Thomae Arriaga, Pedro de on 206
(Vázquez) 397n38 Azor, Juan on 193, 197–201
Commentarium de certitudine Bellarmine, Robert on 220
mathematicarum (Piccolomini) 286 Coimbra College and 328
Commentarius Collegii Complutensis Council of Trent on 193
(Toledo) 172 court of 201, 206
Commentary On the Soul (cjcc) 348 of princes 216, 221, 223–26, 229,
Commentary on Generation and 239–40
Corruption’(cjcc) 253 Peñafort, Raymond of on 197
Commentary on Heavens (cjcc) 348 probabilism and 206–9
Commentary on Meteorology (cjcc) 348 Ratio studiorum and 196–97, 200, 210
Commentary on Physics (cjcc) 348 Suárez, Francisco on 204–5
Index 449
Toledo, Francisco de on 7, 253 Elegant and Learned Discourse on the Light

Constitutions, Jesuit 3–4, 16, 29, 34–35, of Nature 432
37–39, 42–45, 49, 51, 55, 77, 194–95, cursus artium 13, 15, 35
253–54, 259 Cursus Conimbricensis 51, 52n139, 407
Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and 13, Cursus philosophici 5, 131
44, 45, 195, 254, 259 Cursus philosophicus (Arriaga) 30, 132n81,
Borja, Francisco de and 38 132n82
censorship and freedom of opinion Cursus philosophicus (Carleton) 157n20,
in 37, 49, 51 159n25, 159n29, 161n35, 161n37, 162n41,
Ignatius of Loyola on Jesuit philosophy 162n42
in 16, 29, 37, 42, 253, 279n29 Cursus philosophicus (Cordeiro) 347
Jesuit education and 194–95 Cursus philosophicus
Jesuit ethics and (Oviedo) 132n81, 132n82
philosophy and 39, 44 cursus studiorum 187, 252, 255
solidity of doctrine and 42–43 cursus theologiae 195
container-place 140, 143–44, 147–49, 151–52,
156–57, 159–60 d’Abra de Raconis, Charles François 409
Contarini, Gasparo 152 Dandini, Girolamo 261
contingency 299–306, 308–9, 312, 318–23, De anima (Aristotle) 14, 98, 118n10, 187,
340. See also potency and and Molina, 257n24, 257n26, 285, 327n2, 356,
Luis 360–61, 363–65, 375, 393, 407
intramundane contingency 301, 303–5, appendix (Alvares) 366
318, 320 appendix (Magalhães) 347
transmundane contingency 303–4, commentaries (Arriaga) 132n81,
318–19 132n82
logical contingence 301 commentaries (Hurtado) 121n22,
propositional contingency 301 122n24, 123n29, 123n32, 124n37,
Contzen, Adam 222 129n63, 129n65, 130n73, 131
Politicorum libri decem 227, 239 commentaries (Oviedo) 132n81
Ten Books on Politics 227, 239–40 commentaries (Perera) 285–86
convenientia 82, 430, 431n11 commentaries (Suárez) 116–17, 131, 257,
Cordeiro, António 328, 347, 370 260, 393–96
Cursus philosophicus 347 commentaries (Toledo) 52, 253, 255, 258,
Corpus hermeticum 274, 289 259n30, 259n33, 260n34–n35, 262, 265,
Correa, Joannes 52 266n59, 407n13
Cosmopolis (Toulmin) 81 De arte rhetorica (Soares) 82
Counter-Reformation 1, 81, 88n42 de auxiliis controversy 252
Counter-Renaissance 82 De bonitate et malitia humanorum actuum
Couto, Sebastião da 3–4, 96, 98–99, (Suárez) 208, 209n66
101–5, 107–9, 111–12, 114, 347–49, 351–53, De coelo (Aristotle) 18, 167, 356–59, 407
366–68 De communibus omnium rerum naturalium
Commentary on Dialectics 348 principiis (Perera) 52, 146, 147n7,
supernatural metaphysics 367 160n31, 161n34, 272
Cremonini, Cesare 27 De doctrina christiana (Augustine) 101
Cressoles, Louis de De elocutione (Strada) 90
Vacationes autumnales 85 De filiatione Dei (Nicolaus of Cues) 170,
Culverwell, Nathaniel 172n21
450 Index
De generatione (Aristotle) 168, 171, 175n28, Defensio fidei catholicae (Suárez) 205–6
176–77, 178n38, 178n39, 185, 407 Defensio potestatis summi pontificis
Cursus Conimbricenses and 356, 358–59, (Lessius) 217
362 Delectus opinionum 40, 49
De generatione, commentaries Descartes, René 1–2, 5–6, 8, 10, 36, 64,
(Góis) 170, 176–77, 179–80, 181n48, 67–68, 115–16, 132–34, 162, 166–67, 256,
182n52, 183n54, 186–87 266–67, 343, 348, 356–57, 363, 378, 381,
De generatione, commentaries 401, 405–21
(Toledo) 168, 169n9, 172, 253, 327n2 Arnauld, Antoine and 411–13, 420–21
De immenso (Bruno) 160 Bourdin, Pierre 409–10, 411n29
De iustitia et iure (Aristotle) 96, 99, 101 causality 416–19
commentary by Lessius 203, 223, 224n32, death of 411
231 Dinet, Jacques and 410
commentary by Molina 202–3, 210, Discourse on the Method 408, 410, 421
236n59, 428n3 Eucharist 406, 411–13, 415
commentary by Soto 201, 224n32 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich on 405
de la Ramée, Pierre 275 Hegelian interpretation of modern
De la sfera del mondo (Piccolomini) 287 philosophy and 405
De legibus (Suárez) 204, 205n47, 428n2, hylomorphism 414
432 Jesuit education for 408
De officio principis Christiani Jesuits and (between 1640 and 1642) 409
(Bellarmine) 221, 222n26, 227 Letter to Father Dinet 410
De philosophia perennis (Steuco) 170, material falsity 419–21
172n21–n22, 289 Meditations 405, 408–9, 410n31, 412n49,
De rege et regis institutione (Mariana) 225 413
De rerum natura (Lucretius) 169 Mersenne, Marin and 256, 408, 410–12,
De sacramento altaris (Ockham) 176 418
De sancto matrimonii sacramento Mesland, Denis 413
(Sánchez) 203, 204n44 Principles of Philosophy 406, 409
De sex principiis (Gilbert of Poitiers) 255 Regius, Henricus and 414
De sphaera (Sacrobosco) 14, 359 Replies 409–10
De summo pontifice (Bellarmine) 218 Scholasticism and 409
Decalogue 196, 197, 200, 209, 398 Suárez, Francisco and 407, 416n68,
Decretum Borgianum (db) 38, 46–47, 56, 74 417–21
on angels 65 substantial and material forms 416
on axioms of the philosophers 64 transubstantiation 411–12
on common opinions of philosophers and Trent, Council of and 411–12
theologians 55 dialectics 77, 83, 90, 254, 327, 351, 354
on five predicables 66 Dillingen, University of 17n10, 24, 50, 52, 56,
on God 65 131, 278
on heaven 66 dimensiones interminatae 174
on humors 66 Dinet, Pierre 410
on intellective soul 65–66 Discalced Carmelites 174
on opinions 64–65 Discourse on the Method (Descartes) 408,
on predestination 66 410, 421
on quiddity of composite substances 66 Disputatio de fide haereticis servanda
on sin and evil 66 (Becanus) 233
on translation of 55 Disputationes a summulis ad metaphysicam
on Trinity 66 (Hurtado de Mendoza) 98
Index 451
Disputationes metaphysicae (Suárez) 7–8, Fernel, Jean 153, 168

52, 120n17, 157n16, 158n22, 281, 327n2, Physiology 153
328, 330, 334, 336–37, 340, 373, 375, 407 Ferrara, University of 23, 27, 353
Disputationes metaphysicae Ficino, Marsilio 168, 171, 362
(Vázquez) 158n23 Filmer, Robert 9, 205, 211–12, 236, 241, 433,
Disputationes theologicae (Arriaga) 206 439–40
Disputationes theologicae (Moncé) 159n27 Patriarcha 433, 439–40
Doctrina secura 59 Finck, Kaspar 281
Doménech Jerónimo 270 First Part of a Treatise concerning Policy and
Dominicans 101, 112, 197, 201, 207, 223, 229, Religion (Fitzherbert) 240
235, 258–59 First Tract on Government (Locke) 435
Du Trieu, Philippe 4, 97, 98, 105, 112–13 First Treatise on Government (Locke) 440
Manuductio 105n43112–13 Fitzherbert, Thomas
Durandus 44, 69, 185, 258–60, 263 An sit utilitas in scelere… 227
De studii generalis dispositione et ordine First Part of a Treatise concerning Policy and
(Nadal) 15 Religion 240
Fonseca, Pedro da 4–5, 7, 17, 48, 51–53, 62,
Eck, Johann 264 96, 98–101, 103–14, 169, 182, 188, 254–57,
eikos (probabile) 81, 83 267, 327–44, 349, 353, 357–59, 365, 407,
ekphrasis 86 423
Elegant and Learned Discourse on the Light of biography of 328–31
Nature (Culverwell) 432 Coimbra Jesuit College Commentaries
Eloquentiae sacrae et humanae parallela (Conimbricenses) and 349, 353,
(Caussin) 88 357, 365
empiricism 432 De sphaera teaching in Coimbra and 359
enargeia 86 dialectical institutions and University of
Enarratio (Toledo) 262n42–n44, 263n45–46, Évora regency 329, 331
263n48–49 divine essence treatise 340–41
Erasmus, Desiderius 221, 224 doctrine of creation and 341
Essai des merveilles de nature et des plus general assistant of Portugal 330
nobles artifices (Binet) 86 General Congregation V and 330–31
Essay concerning Human Understanding God's intellect immediate object 342
(Locke) 431, 437 Góis, Manuel de and 349
Essays on the Law of Nature (Locke) 429 imaginary space and time 358
Ethics 14, 16, 172, 193, 198, 200, 211, 327, 350, indices in Commentary on Metaphysics of
365, 396 Aristotle by 337–38
Évora, University of 59, 327–31, 339, 345, Institutiones dialecticae 331
347–49, 359, 372 Isagoge philosophica 52
Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium metaphysical quaestiones of 335–39
(Pico) 51n9, 170 Metaphysics (Aristotle) as first philosophy
Exercitationes contra Cardanum and foundational text 349
(Scaliger) 170 Molina, Luis de and 327, 339–40
Exercitia spiritualia. See Spiritual Exercises Nadal, Jerónimo’s Portugal visit and 329
Expositio canonis Missae (Biel) 179 neo-Stoicism for 365
Expositio in Primam secundae (Medina) 207 non-beings and beings of reason for 104
quaestiones or fourth element of
Fabri, Sisto 197 commentary on Metaphysics by 333
Fermo, University of 24 Ratio studiorum and 331
Fernandes, Lourenço 350 Schmitt, Charles B. 335
452 Index
Fonseca, Pedro da (cont.) life and living beings 361

Suárez, Francisco and 334 Metaphysics and 349, 366–68
Summulae 13, 96 motion 358
formal cause 121, 179, 282–83, 314, 386, 429 theological studies of 347
forum externum 201, 220 Gómez, Pedro (1535–1600) 329, 350
forum internum 201, 220, 239–40 grammar 14, 19, 21, 27, 78, 354, 374
France 2, 10, 48, 57, 68, 78, 82, 85–86, 88, Granada, Luis de 265n56
90, 93–94, 216–17, 236–38, 243–44, 252, Gregorius 258
406, 411, 424 Gregory of Rimini 428
free cause 302–6, 308, 312, 314, 318, 320–21 Gregory xiii (pope) 77, 272, 277
free choice (liberum arbitrium) 44, 230,
304–5, 309–12, 314–15, 317–18, 320–22 Henry iii (king of France) 237, 238
free knowledge 289, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, Henry iv (king of France) 237
316, 317 Henry of Ghent 263
Freux, André des 14 Higgins, Adam 271, 277
Holden, Henry 80
Gagliardi, Achille 28, 48, 50, 63, 271–73, 277 Holland 95, 273, 284
Galen 98, 366 Holywood, John of 14
Galileo 6, 155, 160, 166–67, 254–55, 273, 287, horror vacui 146, 161
290 Hotman, François 426
Letter to Madame Christina of human ingenium 84
Lorraine 273, 290 humana industria 80
Gandía, University of 111, 362 humanistic studies 19, 195
general concurrence 312–15, 318 humanities 14, 19–21, 26, 27, 78, 406, 409
General Congregation (of 1573) 39 Hurtado de Mendoza, Pedro 5, 97–98,
General Congregation, Fifth 215, 331 112–13, 115–18, 121–24, 129–33
General Congregation, First 16 Aquinas, Thomas arguments for 118, 122
Genesis commentary (Perera) 53n147, 273, Disputationes a summulis ad
289 metaphysicam 98
Genua, Marco Antonio 274, 275n16, 286 mirror experience of 126
geometry 287, 289, 354, 360 odor for 130
German colleges 15, 271, 277 Physica, commentary 122n26, 122n28
Germany 18, 23, 28, 32, 36, 47, 49, 56–57, Real Identity Thesis (rit) and 116, 123
59–63, 69, 273, 280, 284, 338 Suárez, Francisco and 128–31
Giles of Rome 90, 181, 286 Universa philosophia 116
Glorious Revolution (1688) 426, 440 Huygens, Christiaan 410
Göckel, Rudolph 273, 280–81
Góis, Manuel de 3, 48, 167–74, 176–87, Ignatian spirituality 213
347–49, 351–53, 357–58, 361–62, In calumniatorem Platonis (Bessarion) 170,
366–69, 371 172
beauty of man’s body 362 indeterminism 297, 310
Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis inference 5, 100, 107–8, 110, 124, 279, 300, 315,
Societatis Iesu and 347 430, 433
death of 347 infinity 357
divine philosophy 367 ingenium 84, 90
Fonseca, Pedro da and 349 Institutiones dialecticae (Fonseca) 31
heaven’s matter and matter of sublunary Institutiones morales (Azor) 6, 193, 197,
world 358 199–200, 202, 210
Index 453
Instructio pro confessariis principum middle (scientia media) 297, 315, 319–21,
(Acquaviva) 216 323, 339
Instructio sacerdotum (Toledo) 253 natural 297, 316–21
intellective soul 27, 65–66, 362, 395
intellectualism 390, 393, 396–98, 427 Laínez, Diego 13n2, 20, 62, 251n4, 264–65
intelligible species 103, 116n4, 123, 125, 129, Lamormaini, Wilhelm 240
131, 257, 259, 260n34, 261n38, 352–53, Landius, Johannes 170
393–95 Lateran V Council 39–40, 50, 271, 273, 289.
intentional species 116, 125, 131 See also Apostolici regiminis
intramundane contingency 301–5, 318, 320 law
intrinsic location 157 formal cause of 429–30
Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis Locke, John on natural law 429–30
(Toledo) 235 rational nature and 396–97, 428, 430
Isabella (Archduchess of The law of nature. See law, natural
Netherlands) 217 law, canon 14, 98, 223, 373
Isagoge (Porphyry) 14, 17, 52, 96, 99, 255, law, civil 202, 204, 219, 435, 437
276, 331, 351–52 law, divine 433–35, 437
Isagoge philosophica ( Fonseca) 52 law, ecclesiastical 200
Italian assistancy 22 law, eternal 199, 205, 428n4
ius divinum 219, 235 law, external 173
ius naturae 235 law, human 206, 433, 434n17, 441.
See also law, civil
James i (r.1603–25) (king) 436 human positive law 206, 399
James ii (king) 426, 440 law, international 399–400
James vi/i (r.1567–1625) (king) 436–37 law, lower forms of 435
Jesuit casuistry 226 law, natural 428–32, 434, 436–38, 440–41
Jesuit censorship 3–67 civil authority and 436–38
Jesuit education Culverwell, Nathaniel and 432
case method to solve problems in 6 law, private 202–3, 435
cases of conscience in 210 law, public 202–3
Descartes, René and 8, 406, 408 Le Bachelet, Xavier-Marie 262, 264,
Jesuit philosophy courses of/philosophical 265n60
trio 19 lectio moralis 197
Loyola, Ignatius of on 37 lectio speculativa 197
overarching theme of 194 Ledesma, Diego de 29, 37–38, 39n27,
Physics commentaries and 171 44–47, 50, 52–53, 56–57, 59–63, 67,
Ratio studiorum and 95, 195 254, 264n50, 271–72, 277, 279n29, 289.
rhetoric/classical oratory in 78 See also Averroism; Gagliardi, Achille
Jesuit ethics 6, 193, 198, 201–3, 209, 210 and; Perera, Benet
Jesuit logicians 95–96, 103, 106, 111, 113 on Aristotle and commentaries of his
Jesuit rhetoric 4, 77, 79, 82, 84, 85, 86, work 45–46, 52, 272
88, 91 Averroes and 52
João iii (king) 329, 348 death of 52
Decretum Borgianum and 38, 46
Kant, Immanuel 1, 273, 343 Jesuit philosophical censorship and
Keckermann, Bartholomew 284 37–38, 44
knowledge Jesuit pedagogy and 29, 44n69, 47
free 297, 315, 317–21 pagan and Muslim authors and 272
454 Index
Ledesma, Diego de (cont.) Pedro; Toledo, Francisco de; Trieu,

Perera, Benet and 38n23, 50–53, 271–72, Philippe du
277, 279n29, 289 Aristotelian logic 4, 5, 13, 29–30, 46,
Toledo, Pedro de 52–53 96–99, 253–55, 276, 344
Leo X (pope) 83 Cursus Conimbricenses and 348, 351–55
Lessius, Leonard 6, 80, 203–4, 217 Descartes, René and 406–7
De iustitia et iure 203, 223, 224n32, 231 Fonseca, Pedro da 327
Defensio potestatis summi pontificis 217 Jesuit schools with classes in 14, 15, 23,
Letter to Father Dinet (Descartes) 410 25–26, 270–71
Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine Jesuit teaching of 17, 19–22, 31, 54, 78–79,
(Galileo) 273, 290 96–98, 100–13, 255, 270
Lettres provinciales (Pascal) 208 Molina and 321–22
libertas opinionum 36, 41, 44, 49, 53, 60 Nadal, Jeronimo and teaching of 15–16
Lipsius, Justus 90, 214n7, 221, 222n27, 224, Perera, benet and 274–77, 280, 285
228–29, 231 Ratio studiorum and 18, 95–96, 113, 407
Politica 228 rhetoric and 79, 82
Locke, John 5, 8–9, 100, 113, 115, 391, 426–27, study of 19, 95
429–43 Summaries of logic 13
civil authority and 434, 436 Toledo, Francisco de and 253–55, 327
Essay concerning Human Logica (1622) (Valla) 98
Understanding 431 Logica (Śmiglecki) 99n18, 102n26–n27,
Essays on the Law of Nature 429 105n45, 107n52, 108n60, 109n63, 112
Filmer, Robert for 433 Loyola, Ignatius of 15, 20, 28, 37, 42, 44, 49,
First Treatise on Government 51, 56, 67, 70, 77, 80–81, 93, 215, 253, 270,
(Locke) 435, 440 279, 328–29
Glorious Revolution (1688) and 440 Jesuit education prescription for 16, 44
hedonism and 432 Jesuit pedagogy and 28
inference and idea of harmony 430 Jesuit philosophy in Constitutions 16, 29,
Jesuits and 441 37, 42, 253, 27n299
law and politics 427 Paris cursus artium and 15
magistrate responsibilities 438, 441 Scholasticism and rhetoric of painting
natural law and human nature 8, of 86–87
431–32 Spiritual Exercises 77, 161n36
“Of Ethick in General” 431 unity of doctrine 37, 42, 56
philosophy, moral and 431 Lucretius
pope for 441 De rerum natura 169
potestas politica 433 Luís, Pedro 331
public worship regulation 434 Luther, Martin 263
Second Tract on Government 434 Lutheranism 233, 365
Suárez, Francisco and 436–27, 429,
432–34, 436–39, 442–43 Macau, Jesuit school at 24
subdivision of laws 437 Macerata, University of 24
Two Treatises of Government 440 Machiavelli, Niccolò 214, 226–28, 231, 239
voluntarism, moderate and 428–29, Machiavellism 227
431–33, 437–38 Magalhães, Cosme de 3, 347
logic 1–5, 13–23, 25–26, 29–31, 46, 54, 78–79, Problems related to the Five Senses 347
82, 95–100, 110, 113, 253–55, 270–71, magis approbata 43, 59
274–76, 280, 285, 321–22, 327, 344, Mainz, Germany 24
348, 351, 354, 406–7. See also Fonseca, Makowski, Jan 273
Index 455
Maldonado, Juan middle knowledge (scientia media) 297, 315,

On the Immortality of the Soul 27, 261 319–21, 323, 339
Malebranche, Nicolas 343 Milan 22–23, 25, 362
Manila, Jesuit school at 24 Milbourne, Luke 426, 441
Mantua, Italy 23–24 Milton, John 426
Manual de confesores y penitentes modal propositions 97
(Azpilcueta) 198 Molina, Luis de 6–7, 9, 79, 202–3, 210–11,
Manuductio (Du Trieu) 105n43, 112–13 216–17, 220, 236–38, 241–42, 262, 267,
Mariana, Juan de 6, 225, 229, 231–32, 235n57, 297–99, 301–17, 319, 321–24, 327, 337,
238, 240, 254, 426, 433, 439, 442 339–40, 345, 349, 428, 439, 442
De rege et regis institutione 225 civil authority and natural law
Martini, Jakob 281, 282n39 De iustitia et iure
Martins, Inácio 329 Filmer, Robert and 9
Mary ii (queen) 426, 440 Fonseca, Pedro da and
Masius, Marcus 112 free causes and natural causes 302
materially false 420 freedom 302, 304
mathematics 14–18, 274, 277, 285–89, 354, general concurrence 312–15
360 indeterminism 297, 310–11
medicine 14, 18–19, 24, 26, 31, 49, 363 metaphysical necessity variants 301, 305
Medina, Bartolomé de 207, 229–30 middle knowledge (scientia media) 297,
Expositio in Primam secundae 207 315, 319–21, 323, 339
Meditations (Descartes) 405, 408–9, 410n31, natural knowledge 297, 316–21
412n49, 413 papal temporal power and 217
Melissus 170–72 particular concurrence 313–14
memoria 90 possibility in relation to contingent
Mercurian, Everard 53, 56–57, 59–63, 330 actuality 300–2
Mersenne, Marin 256, 408, 410–12, 418 public and private law 203
Mesland, Denis 413 secondary causes 304
Messina, Jesuit school at 14, 26 supercomprehension of God 322
Metaphysical Disputations (Suárez) 7, 17, theology of grace 79
129n71, 156, 328, 373, 377, 417n74, 420 tripartition of God’s knowledge 298
metaphysics 1–3, 6–7, 13–23, 25–26, 30–31, Molinism 366
46, 78, 96, 98, 100, 103, 106, 156, 253, Moncé, Philippe 159
270–71, 273–77, 279–85, 287, 291, 321–22, moral philosophy 15–18, 23, 431
327, 330, 332, 334, 336–41, 343, 353–54, moraliter 159
360, 364, 366–68, 373, 375–78, 380, motion 138, 142–45, 147–48, 150, 152, 155–56,
385–86, 390, 393, 406–7 159, 173, 178, 356–58, 360, 362–63, 365,
Metaphysics (Aristotle) 7, 14, 18–19, 80, 92, 367–68, 380, 386–88, 414
106, 172n21, 183n55, 184n56, 271, 281, circular motion 148, 357, 358
286, 294, 329–43, 349, 353, 366, 375–76, Muret, Marc-Antoine 83
385, 387, 407, 414
Commentary on the Metaphysics Nadal, Jerónimo 13, 15–16, 17n10, 35n4, 39,
(Fonseca) 327n1, 331, 337 42, 43n58, 49–50, 56–57, 59–60, 62–63,
Commentary on the Metaphysics 80n15, 85, 329, 366
(Perera) 280–81 cursus prescribed by 329
Góis, Manuel de and 349, 366–68 De studii generalis dispositione et
Meteorology (Aristotle) 18, 348, 350 ordine 15
Commentary on Meteorology (cjcc) doctrina solidior 43
348 Portugal visit of 329, 366
456 Index
Naples, Italy 22–23, 25 Prior Analytics 17, 96, 99

Natalis, Hervaeus 177n34, 181, 184n56 Topics 96, 99, 351
natural causes 302, 303, 305, 410n35 Oribasius 170
natural knowledge 297, 316–21 Oviedo, Francisco de 5, 115, 132n81–82
natural philosophy 2, 3, 6, 13–23, 25–27, 31, Owen, Robert 426
150, 158, 163, 185, 255, 265, 277, 282–83,
286, 348, 364, 384n15, 388 Padua, University of 19, 24, 27, 30, 274, 286
natural reason 65–66, 283, 334, 396, 429, 433 Paiva, Hieronymus de 97, 112
Nazianzen, Gregory 364 Compendium (1627) 112
neo-Stoicism 365 Palermo school 23, 25
Netherlands, The 213n2, 217, 222, 232, 410 Paré, Ambroise 170
Newman, John Henry Cardinal 80 Paria, Giuseppe 251n1, 253
Nicolaus of Cues Paris, University of 3, 13, 31, 429
De filiatione Dei 170, 172n21 Parma 21, 23–24, 28, 31
Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) 14, 16, 327 Parmenides 170–72
Nifo, Agostino 168, 260, 274, 275n16, 286 Parra, Pedro 254, 266, 279
nominalism 115–116n83, 351 Pars prima (Aquinas) 257, 262
novitas 43n61, 60 Persons, Robert 440
A Conference about the Next Succession to
Objections (Arnauld) 408n22, 409–11, the Crown of England 440
412n49, 420 particular concurrence 313–14
Objections (Bourdin) 410n31 Parva naturalia (Aristotle) 14, 18, 255, 256,
Ockham, William 116–17, 131–32, 134, 168, 350, 360, 361
176, 185, 189, 263, 381, 396, 398, 429 Pascal, Blaise
Ockham’s Razor 117, 131–32 Lettres provinciales 208
“Of Ethick in General” (Locke) 431 Pasquier, Etienne 236
On Being and Essence (Aquinas) 184n56, 375 Patriarcha (Filmer) 433, 439–40
On Generation and Corruption (Aristotle) 18, Patrizi, Francesco 5, 221
167, 253, 348 Paul V (pope) 204, 217
On Interpretation (Aristotle) 17, 255, 351–52 Peace of Augsburg 233
On Sophistical Refutations (Aristotle) 17 Pelagius 263
On the Holy Sacrament of Marriage Peñafort, Raymond of
(Sánchez) 203, 204 Summa de casibus poenitentiae 197
On the Immortality of the Soul Pereira, Benito. See Perera, Benet
(Maldonado) 27, 261 Perera, Benet 3, 5, 7, 37–39, 45, 48, 50, 52–53,
On the Laws and God the Lawgiver 59–62, 68–69, 71, 146–50, 152, 159–61,
(Suárez) 204 254, 270–94, 327, 350, 370
On Magic (Perera) 273, 291 accusations against 271–72, 277
On the Soul (Aristotle) 14, 17–18, 98, 117, anti-Aristotelian views of 278
118n10, 187, 253, 256, 257n24, 257n26, Aristotelian order of elements and 147
261, 285, 327n2, 348, 350, 352, 356, biography of 270–74
360–61, 363–65, 375, 393, 407 Cabala’s universal philosophy 291–92
ontology 1, 46, 276, 279–81, 291–92, 354, 399, Canisius brothers and 271–72
415, 417 Commentary on the Metaphysics (Aquinas)
Orationes duodeviginti (Tutino) 83 and 280
Organon/Organum (Aristotle) 4, 14–17, De communibus omnium rerum
95–96, 98–99, 276, 28 naturalium principiis 52, 146, 147n7,
On Interpretation 17, 255, 351–52 160n31, 161n34, 272
On Sophistical Refutations 17, 96, 99, 351 De magia 273, 291
Index 457
death of 274 tower in wind mental experiment 148,

Doménech Jerónimo and 270 152, 159, 160
first and the second intentions 275–77, triangle’s syllogisms 288
291 vacuum 5, 146, 149–50, 160
Gagliardi, Achille and 50, 271–73, 277 Pererius, Benedictus. See Perera, Benet
Galileo and 273, 290 Pereyra, Bento. See Perera, Benet
Genesis commentary of 53n147, 273, 289 Perpiña, Pedro Juan 82–83, 85, 89
geocentric universe as a coherent memorandum written for the Roman
system 150 Jesuit leaders 86
heaven for 149–50 perspectivism 126
heavenly spheres and elements Petau, Denis 80
separation 150, 160 Peter of Spain 13, 17
influence outside of Italy 273 phantasmata 260n34, 284, 353
Institutio logica 52 Philip iii (king) 225
Ledesma, Diego de and 38n23, 50–53, Philip iv (king) 222
271–72, 277, 279n29, 289 Philoponus 141, 143, 149, 151, 164–65
logic’s status as science 275 philosophical ratio 84, 90
logical intentions 276–77, 278–81, 291 philosophy 1–9, 13–31, 34–42, 44–48, 50–54,
Lutheran and Coimbra Jesuits opposition 56–58, 61–62, 64–66, 77–85, 89, 92, 97,
to metaphysics of 280–81 103, 106, 116–17, 133, 137–38, 144, 147, 150,
mathematics as science 287 156–58, 161, 163, 166–67, 169–72, 185,
modern ontology and confrontations with 187, 195, 202, 205, 218, 251–52, 254–56,
Aquinas 281 259, 265, 270–77, 279, 281–83, 289–92,
movement and immobility 148 327–29, 332–34, 336, 338–39, 341, 343,
natural place for 147–48, 159 347–49, 353, 356, 360, 364–65, 367–68,
On Magic. See De magia 373–75, 384, 388, 405–13, 415–16, 421,
pagan and Muslim authors and 271–72 426, 429, 431
philosophy and metaphysics Aristotelian 27, 46, 144, 187, 202
distinction 276 Constitutions, Jesuit and 34
place and space for 147–48 Decretum Borgianum on 38, 46–47,
pro absurdo argument of 278 56
properties of location 147, 152 Italian assistancy in seventeenth century
pupils of 48, 50 and teaching of 24
quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum Jesuit censorship in 34–55
and 274, 286–87 moral 15–18, 23, 431
on quantity 287, 289 natural 2, 3, 6, 13–23, 25–27, 31, 150, 158,
Roman College teaching position 270–71 163, 185, 255, 265, 277, 282–83, 286, 348,
Scholastic theology courses 273 364, 384n15, 388, 48
science of the soul and 282–84 rhetoric in Jesuit tradition and 77
Scripta in Logicam Aristotelis 276 Scholastic 35n7, 343, 409, 421
sphere for 149, 160 systemizations of 375
spherical cosmos for 149 trio of 13
study of the soul for 282, 285 Physica (Aristotle) 51, 167, 327n2, 350, 355,
Suárez, Francisco and 3, 5, 7, 37, 50, 52, 357, 368, 407
59–62, 68, 71, 254, 279, 281, 294, 327 Physica, commentary (cjcc–
Summa contra Gentiles (Aquinas) 1594) 170n14, 171n16, 186n62, 186n64,
and 280 187n65
theoretical and practical sciences Physica, commentary (Hurtado) 122n26,
distinction for 275 122n28
458 Index
Physica (cont.) Isagoge 14, 17, 52, 96, 99, 255, 276, 331,
Physica, commentary (Toledo) 52, 351–52
253n11, 258n28, 263n33 Possevino, Antonio 28, 51, 229, 233
physics 1, 3, 16, 46, 52, 78, 96, 98, 100, 119, 137, Bibliotheca selecta 52n142
149, 156, 158, 167, 254, 270–71, 274–75, Posterior Analytics (Aristotle) 99, 255, 286,
277–78, 280, 282–85, 287, 290, 327, 341, 351, 359
344, 349–50, 354–60, 363, 367, 406–7, potency 8, 119–120, 122, 124, 174, 183, 298, 300,
410–12, 414–15 303–5, 307, 309, 311, 318, 340–41, 356,
Physics (Aristotle) 14, 17–18, 24, 28–30, 32, 365. See also contingency and Molina,
36, 39, 41–42, 47, 49–50, 69, 98, 137–38, Luis de
143, 147, 150, 159, 161, 164, 170–71, 186, potentiality 298–301, 322, 387
253, 255, 258, 277, 348, 351, 356, 375, 407, potestas indirecta 218, 220, 240, 441
414, 417, 423 potestas legislativa 434
Physiology (Fernel) 153 potestas politica 236, 433
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni praesentia 65, 157
Francesco 154n13, 274, 289–91 predestination 66, 261–63, 265–66
Conclusiones philosophicae cabalisticae et prepon 81–83
theologicae 291 Principles of Philosophy (Descartes) 406,
Examen vanitatis doctrinae 409
gentium... 151n9, 170, 172n21 Prior Analytics (Aristotle) 17, 96, 99
universal philosophy 291 probabile 83, 89
Piccolomini, Alessandro 274, 288 probabilism 6, 84, 194, 206–7, 208n59, 209,
Commentarium de certitudine 229, 230n49–n50, 240
mathematicarum 286 Problems related to the Five Senses
De la sfera del mondo 287 (Magalhães) 347
mathematics as science 287 Proclus
Piccolomini, Francesco 275 Commentary on Euclid’s Elements 282
Pigghe, Albert (Pighius, Albert) 264 Prolusiones academicae (Strada) 84, 90
Plato 151, 168, 271–72, 288 propositions 7, 27, 40–42, 46–47, 52, 61, 64,
Republic 288 67, 97–98, 100–1, 110, 232, 297–98, 300–1,
Timaeus 151 308, 315, 322, 340, 419, 421
Platonism 91n48, 289, 351, 368 Protestantism 373
plenitudo potestas 441 prudentia 84, 222, 229
Plinius 170 Pseudo-Dionysius 356, 359, 368
Plutarch 170
Polanco, Juan Alfonso de 13, 15–16, 20, 29, Quaestio de certitudine mathemati-
38, 42, 56, 59–60, 63, 85, 198 carum 274, 286
Breve directorium 198 Quaestiones miscellaneae de fide haereticis
Chronicon 14n5, 15 servanda (Becanus) 233
Politica (Aristotle) 235 Quintilian 90
Politica (Lipsius) 228
Politico-Christianus (Scribani) 214, 222, 227, Ragione di stato (Botero) 226
231 Ranuccio I (Duke of Parma) 28
Politicorum libri decem (Contzen) 227, 239 Ratio Borgiana 38, 57
Pomponazzi, Pietro 27, 265, 275n16, 218, 367 Ratio studiorum 3–4, 8, 17, 29–30, 34–35,
Tractatus de immortalitate animae 27 36n9, 37n18, 38–39, 58, 95, 106, 113, 193,
Pontano, Giovanni 221 195–97, 200–1, 210, 254n15, 266n60, 272,
Porphyrian tree 280, 281, 291 274, 331, 335, 407
Porphyry 14, 17, 96, 99, 255, 276, 289, 351 of 1586 and1591 draft of 40
Index 459
of 1599 13, 18, 41, 47, 78, 272n11, 407 Rome 2, 7, 10, 14–15, 20, 22–23, 25, 28–29,
Acquaviva, Claudio and 29 32–33, 35–36, 38–39, 50–52, 59–60,
cases of conscience and 196–97, 200, 210 62, 67–68, 70–71, 77, 80, 83, 90, 92–93,
conscience professor in 196, 200 119–20, 124, 150, 161–164, 166, 181, 188,
cursus theologiae in 195 217–18, 221, 241, 243, 251, 253–54, 257,
Fonseca, Pedro da and 331 261, 264–65, 268–73, 279, 286, 290,
Jesuit education and 95, 195 293–94, 297, 323, 327, 330–32, 338,
logic and 18, 95–96, 113, 407 345–46, 349–50, 370, 374, 407, 418
logicians teaching Categories 106 Rome, Giles of 90
Scholastic theology professor in 195–96 Rondelet, Guillaume 169n10, 170
Suárez, Francisco and 3, 37n18, 210, Rouen, Edict of 86
266n60, 335, 407 Rubio, Antonio 5, 96, 98–99, 102, 105, 107,
Summa theologica of Aquinas and 177 111–12, 156–59, 164, 327, 409
Real Distinction Thesis (rdt) 115 Aristotle and intrinsic place 156
Real Identity Thesis (rit) 116 Commentarii (1641) 112
realism 103, 231, 391, 401 God and angels in natural
Reformation theology 344 philosophy 158
Reginae palatium eloquentiae (Pelletier) 85 immobility as fundamental component of
Regius, Henricus 414 place 159
Regulae Societatis Iesu 39 internal and external place 159
religious freedom 44, 233 Rules for the Professor of Scholastic
Renaissance 2, 5, 10, 13, 19, 29, 32–33, 45, 48, Theology 196
51, 68, 78–79, 81–82, 84, 87, 90, 93–96, Rules of the Provincial 196
113–14, 116, 134, 137, 171, 177, 236, 241,
251, 257, 259, 267, 274, 285, 289, 293, Sá, Manuel de 14, 254, 279
332, 335, 345, 349, 353, 355, 358, 369, Saccas, Ammonius 289
371–72 Sacrobosco, Johannes de 14
repressiva 35 Salamanca, Spain 52, 188, 198, 204,
rhetoric 4, 19–21, 27, 77–79, 81–87, 89–90, 95, 210–12, 223, 251, 260, 266, 281, 294,
195, 224, 231, 270, 354, 374 327, 346, 348
epistemological value of 88 Salmerón, Alfonso 15, 45, 56–57
of paintings 86 Sánchez, Tomás 6, 202–4, 208–10, 212
rhétorique des citations 87 De sancto matrimonii sacramento 203,
rhétorique des peintures 86 204n44
rhetoric of metaphorical translation 87 Sancto Paulo, Eustachius a 409
Rhetoric (Aristotle) 81–82, 89–90 Santalla, Tirso González de 162, 164
Rhodiginus, Caelius (Ludovico Santarelli, Antonio 426, 240
Ricchieri) 170 Scaliger, Joseph Justus 5, 51, 69, 170
Ribadeneyra, Pedro de 226–27, 228n47, 231, Exercitationes contra Cardanum 170
233 Scheibler, Christoph 281–82
Tratado de la religión y virtudes que debe Schmitt, Charles B 2, 5, 10, 29, 33, 78, 94,
tener el príncipe cristiano 226 116, 134, 141, 164, 332, 334–35, 345, 353,
Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis 369
Cardinal 83 Scholasticism 1, 77, 79–80, 85, 87, 116, 132,
Richeome, Louis 134, 156, 164, 166, 171, 205, 211, 236, 243,
Tableaux sacrez 86 409–10, 417, 419
Roman College 3, 15, 17, 24, 29, 37–38, 85, Jesuit 413
249, 252, 254, 264, 270–76, 279, 281, Lutheran 363
285–86, 330, 374 Second 115, 133n81, 299n10, 411
460 Index
scientia de anima 285, 363, 369 motion of (intellect and will) 124, 283,
Scotism 367 362
Scotus, John Duns 87, 142, 158, 163, 185, study of 282, 285
262–63, 265, 268, 281, 357, 377–78, 388, rational soul 282–84, 363–64, 367, 379,
390, 396, 398 382–83, 396, 416
Scribani, Carolus 214, 222, 227, 241–42, 244 sensitive components of 363
Politico-Christianus 214, 222, 227, 242, science of the 282–86, 360, 363
244 substantial form and 118–19, 361, 364,
Scripta in Logicam Aristotelis (Perera) 276 379–80, 382–85, 393, 406, 414–17
Sebastião I (king) 330 space 5, 17n10, 137–49, 151–163, 263, 306, 358,
second intention 96, 275–77, 291 365, 383
Second Treatise on Government (Locke) 434, spatium imaginarium 5, 149, 156
438 species 101, 116–17, 125–132, 144, 148, 174, 183,
secondary causes 179, 304, 312–14, 320, 387, 185, 187, 260–61, 275–76, 279–81, 291,
417 306, 310–11, 352–53, 356–58, 365, 367,
Secunda secundae (Soto) 201, 224n32 394–96
Semantics 100, 110, 391 expressed 125, 129
Seneca 358 impressed 125, 129
sensible species 116, 125–26, 129, 131–32, intelligible 103, 116n4, 123, 125, 129, 131,
393–96 257, 259, 260n34, 261n38, 352–53,
sententia communis 59, 61, 132 393–95
sephirot tree 291 intentional 116, 125, 131
Sicily 25 sacramental 185n60
Sidney, Algernon 426 sensible 116, 117n8, 125–26, 129, 131–32,
Simplicius 171, 272, 289 393–96
Sixtus V (pope) 77 species theory 257n24, 261, 393
Śmiglecki, Marcin 5, 96, 99, 102, 105, 107–9, Spiritual Exercises (Loyola) 77, 161n36
112–14 Stagirita (Aristotle) 114, 151, 159, 163, 170, 182,
Logica 99n18, 102n26–n27, 105n45, 188, 286, 292, 371
107n52, 108n60, 109n63, 112 Steuco, Agostino 158
Soares, Cypriano de 80, 82, 87, 329 philosophia perennis 170, 172n21, 289
De arte rhetorica 82 Strabo 170
Soares, Francisco 327, 367n53 Strada, Famiano 89–91, 93
Society of Jesus. See Jesuits Prolusiones Academicae 84, 90
Socrates 104, 271 Suárez, Francisco 1–3, 5–10, 31, 37, 50, 52, 54,
Solinus 170 68, 71, 80, 92–94, 115–22, 125–34, 156–58,
Sophistical Refutations (Aristotle) 17, 96, 162, 164–65, 169, 180, 182–83, 188, 204–5,
99, 351 208–10, 212, 218, 220, 241–42, 255, 260,
Soto, Domingo de 101, 181n51, 201–2, 223, 266, 268, 279, 281, 294, 301, 323, 327–28,
224n32, 251, 397 330, 337, 340–46, 348, 371, 373–390,
Secunda Secundae 201, 224n32 394–402, 407, 416–22, 424–429, 436–39,
soul 8, 27–28, 65–66, 85, 88, 104, 115–24, 442–43
129, 132, 142, 173, 179, 194, 200, 219–20, accidents 377, 379–80
232, 234, 255–57, 265, 271, 282–86, 303, agent intellect 394–95
352, 360–65, 367–68, 379, 382–83, 393, Aquinas, Thomas for 118
395–96, 407–8, 415–16 beings and philosophical significance of
immortality of 27, 261, 265, 367, 395, 396. metaphysics 377
See also under Aquinas; Maldonado, Cajetan, Thomas Cardinal and 378
Suárez causality 384–89
Index 461
civil authority 434 relations 375, 381, 386, 391–92

commentary on Aristotle’s De anima Roman College and Alcalá academic
375, 393 career 374
container and space 140 Salamanca studies and Jesuits 374
De bonitate et malitia humanorum Scholastic metaphysics and 375
actuum 208, 209n66 Scotists and Ockhamists and 376
De legibus 204, 205n47, 428n2, 432 Scotus and 378, 388, 396, 398
Defensio fidei catholicae 205–6 self-motion 388
Descartes, René and 407, 416n68, 417–21 social nature and community 434
Disputationes metaphysicae 7–8, 52, soul 379n10, 382–83, 393, 395–96, 407
120n17, 157n16, 158n22, 281, 327n2, 328, species expressa 125
330, 334, 336–37, 340, 373, 375, 407 species, sensible and intelligible 129,
distinctions of reason 381 393–94
Doctor Eximius ac Pius 204 Stagirite and 255
doctrine of creation and 341 Suarezian modes 380–81
duty and obligation 397 substantial change 383
ethics and natural law 396–97 substantial forms 382–85
ex natura rei 118 theology and philosophy as social
existence of God 388–90 act 374
external place 156 theory of distinctions 378–82
Fonseca, Pedro da and 334 Thomistic rationalism and 397
God's intellectual activity 341 Tractatus de legibus ac deo
God's self-knowledge 342 legislatore 428, 432
his systematizations of philosophical transcendental relations 392
areas 375 univocality of being and 377
homeostasis 383 Vázquez, Gabriel and 374, 396–97, 428
immortality of intellective soul voluntarism and intellectualism and 390
and 395–96 subiectum denominationis or quod 173
independent existence for 379 subiectum inhaesionis or quo 173
indiferente 373 Summa capitum et quaestionum 227
international law and just war Summa casus conscientiae (Toledo) 253
theory 399 Summa contra Gentiles (Aquinas) 177,
Jesuit philosophy and 373 180n44, 280, 375
kinds of causes 386 Summa de casibus poenitentiae
material causes 386–87 (Peñaforte) 197
Metaphysical Disputations of 7, 17, Summa theologica (Aquinas) 7, 118–20, 122,
129n71, 156, 328, 373, 377, 417n74, 420 124, 158, 167, 175, 177, 180, 187, 195–97,
Metaphysics (Aristotle) and 385 199–202, 226, 233, 253, 261, 276, 279–81,
metaphysics of Aquinas and 280–81b 297, 338, 350, 375, 396–97, 409, 423, 436
natural law for 396–99 Enarratio on Aquinas’ Summa theologiae
nature and human law 433 (Toledo) 251n1, 262n42–n44,
non-categorical relations 392 263n45–n49
praesentia 157 Summa Theologiae Scholasticae
psychology of faculties 117 (Becanus) 233
Ratio studiorum and 3, 37n18, 210, Summa theologica (Aquinas). See Summa
266n60, 335, 407 theologica
Real Distinction Thesis (rdt) and 115 Summulae (Fonseca) 96–98, 107
realism and 391 Summulae, Disputationes (Hurtado de
reciprocal relation 392 Mendoza) 98
462 Index
Summulae (Toledo) 96–98, 107 Commentaria una cum quaestionibus

Summulae logicales (Peter of Spain) 13, 17 in octo libros Aristotelis de physica
sumulistas 15 auscultatione 253
supercomprehension 322 Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in
supposition theory 5, 95, 97, 104 tres libros Aristotelis de anima 253
syllogisms 108–10, 254, 287–89, 353 commentaries on Aristotle 7, 252
syncretism 115, 132, 289 creation of the world for 139
Enarratio on Aquinas’s Summa
Tableaux sacrez (Richeome) 86 theologiae 251n1, 262n42–n44,
Tacitism 228–29, 241 263n45–n49
Tacitus 228–29, 242–43 Instructio sacerdotum ac de septem
Tartaglia, Niccolò Fontana 274 peccatis mortalibus 253
temporal coadjutors 20 Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis
Ten Books on Politics (Contzen) 227, 239–40 235
Tertullian 170 Laínez, Diego and 264
Themistius 143, 259, 272, 289 nature of space for 138–46
theology 4–5, 7–9, 13–14, 18–21, 24–31, On the Soul commentary of 261
35, 37–39, 44–46, 48, 50, 56–58, 61, Physica, commentary 52, 253n11, 258n28,
64–65, 78–80, 83, 89, 106, 159, 178, 185, 263n33
193–98, 200, 202, 204–6, 209, 223, 225, predestination 261–62, 265–66
228, 237, 251–52, 266, 273–76, 279–82, Ratio studiorum and 256n22
284–85, 291, 328–30, 332–34, 338, Roman College censure and 264
341–44, 353–54, 357, 367–68, 374, 410, sense, intellect and proper species
412–13, 437 for 258
theology, moral 25, 36, 159, 193, 196, 198, Sixto-Clementine Vulgate and 252
204, 206, 209, 225, 328 spatium imaginarium 149
theology, political 9, 205 sphere for 143, 148–49
theology, Scholastic 21, 25, 35, 45–46, 50, syllogisms and 254
80n15, 193, 195–96, 200, 273 time 144–46, 149
Theophrastus 110 vacuum 139–41
Thirty Years’ War 82 Toletus, Franciscus. See Toledo
Thomism 223, 367, 373, 397 Tolosa, Inácio 350
Thomist synthesis 202 Topics (Aristotle) 96, 99, 351
Thomistic rationalism 397 Toulmin, Stephen
Timaeus (Plato) 147 Cosmopolis 81
Toledo, Francisco de 4–5, 7, 17, 48, 50, 52–53, Tractatus de immortalitate animae
71, 96, 98–2, 105–7, 109–114, 117, 134, (Pomponazzi) 27
138–46, 149, 160, 165, 168, 172, 189, 237, transmundane contingency 304
251–55, 260–69, 279, 327, 337, 345–46, transubstantiation 6, 167, 172–73, 176, 185,
407, 424 277, 411–12
agent intellect 259–61 Tratado de la religión y virtudes
Aquinas, Thomas and 7, 146, 253–54 (Ribadeneyra) 226
Aristotelian theory of space 144 Trent, Council of 42, 51, 77, 87, 89, 193–94,
biography of 251 195, 207, 211, 254, 261–64, 266, 276,
Commentaria in universam Aristotelis 367, 411
logicam 253 Tridentine Council. See Trent, Council of
Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in triennium 16–17, 20, 24, 406
duos libros Aristotelis … 253 Trier 24
Index 463
Tucci, Stefano 34, 43, 49, 56, 62 Disputationes metaphysicae desumptae ex

Tutino, Stefania 89–92, 94, 218–20, 223, 225, variis locis suorum operum 158n23
236, 244, 436, 443 natural law as rational nature 397
Orationes duodeviginti 83 Steuco, Agostino 158
Two Treatises of Government (Locke) 440 Suárez, Francisco and 374, 396–97
vegetative soul 66, 361–62
ubicatio 157 Venice 22–23, 25, 168, 253, 361
uniformitas doctrinae 30 vinculum societatis 233
uniformitas et soliditas doctrinae (usd) 34 Vitelleschi, Mutio/Muzio 214–16, 265
unitas 41, 47, 171 Vitoria, Francisco de 9, 219–20, 223, 245,
Universa philosophia (Hurtado de 397, 399
Mendoza) 116 Voetius, Gisbertus 410
voluntarism 390, 398, 427, 429, 431–33437–
Vacationes autumnales (Cressoles) 85 38, 442
vacuum 5, 139–41, 144–46, 149–51, 156, 158, intellectualism and 390, 398. See also
160–63 Suárez, Francisco
angels and 151 Locke, John and 428–29, 431–33, 437–38
Aristotle and 144–45, 150, 154–56, 158, moderate 429, 431, 433, 437–38, 442
160–61, 163 Scotus and 398
Compton, Thomas on 162–63 theological 427, 433
Conimbricenses on 151 voluntarists 395, 404, 455, 456
Perera, benet on 5, 146, 149–150, 160 von Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 343
Toledo, Francisco on 139–41 von Leyden, Wolfgang 432
Valencia, Gregorio de 50n129, 262, 270 von Nettesheim, Agrippa 289
Valla, Paulo (Paulus Vallius) 97–98, 112, 114
Logica (1622) 98 way of proceeding 258
Vázquez, Gabriel 6, 121, 158, 165, 251, 262, William iii (king) 440
327, 374, 396–98, 428 Wyk, Joannes (Vicus, Joannes) 50, 62–63
Coimbra course and 327 Würzburg 24
Commentariorum ac disputationum in
Primam secundae S. Thomae 397n38 Zabarella, Jacopo (Giacomo) 112, 275

(Jesuit Studies) Cristiano Casalini - Jesuit Philosophy On The Eve of Modernity-BRILL (2019)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

(Jesuit Studies) Cristiano Casalini - Jesuit Philosophy On The Eve of Modernity-BRILL (2019)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity

James Bernauer S.J. (Boston College)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/js

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Casalini, Cristiano, 1976- editor.

Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

1 Philosophy in Jesuit Schools and Universities 13

2 Uniformitas et soliditas doctrinae: History, Topics, and Impact of Jesuit

3 From Probability to the Sublime(s): Early Modern Jesuit Rhetoric;

5 Jesuit Psychology and the Theory of Knowledge 115

6 Early Jesuit Philosophers on the Nature of Space 137

7 “Accedit Theologicum argumentum”: Discussing Transubstantiation in

8 A Juridicized Language for the Salvation of Souls: Jesuit Ethics 193

9 Political Thought 213

10 Francisco de Toledo: Setting a Standard for Jesuit Philosophy 251

11 Benet Perera: The Epistemological Question at the Heart of Early Jesuit

12 Luis de Molina: The Metaphysics of Freedom 297

13 Pedro da Fonseca’s Unfinished Metaphysics: The First Systematic Jesuit

14 Manuel de Góis: The Coimbra Course and the Definition of an Early

15 Francisco Suárez: A “New” Thomistic Realism 373

16 Descartes and the Jesuits 405

17 John Locke and the Jesuits on Law and Politics 426

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_002

volume focuses on the existence, distinctiveness, and limits of a Jesuit philoso-

and Antonio Rubio (1548–1615). Similarly, Marcin Śmiglecki (1564–1618) pro­

Stefano Caroti provides an in-depth survey of how the Conimbricenses

theory of natural rights and political power is highlighted as having impor-

Philosophy in Jesuit Schools and Universities

1 The Development of the Philosophical Cursus

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_003

summary of the contents of the books of Aristotle’s Organum. In the second

7 See Mon. paed. 1:143–48.

14 Ibid., 103–4 (paragraphs 221–23).

Jesuit philosophers delivered three hundred and more lectures annually.20 By

i­ntending to join religious orders, or to go on to universities to acquire doc-

2 Teachers and Schools

22 Laínez 5:165–67. It is reprinted in Mon. paed. 3:304–6.

Table 1.1 Philosophy in the Italian Assistancy in 1600

Province Number of Schools Total Upper Philosophy

In the province of Rome, which encompassed Lazio, Umbria, the Marches,

26 arsi, Rom. 54, fols. 50r–52r.

Table 1.2 Philosophy in the Italian Assistancy in 1649

Province Number of Schools Total Upper Philosophy

3 Conflicts with Universities

37 arsi, Sic. 184 I, fol. 53v.

In 1611, Acquaviva wrote to the superiors of all provinces to impress on them

Uniformitas et soliditas doctrinae: History, Topics,

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_004

Constitutions in around 1550 up until the promulgation of the Ratio studiorum

on Jesuit philosophy by looking at some specific examples. Finally, in the con-

1 Historical Sketch of Normative Censorship Documents

documents concerning censorship in the sixteenth century in a chronological

­moderne (1500–1650),” in Philosophie et théologie: Anthologie, ed. Philippe ­Capelle-Dumont

and issuing the first supra-provincial decree on philosophical censorship and

of several leading Jesuits and established a commission to get a grip on one

35 See Bartlett, “Evolution,” 146–63; Leinsle, Dilinganae disputationes, 54–9; Mancia,

2 Important Features of Jesuit Censorship

Jesuit censorship extended to at least three domains of learning: the Jesuits’

43 See Mon. paed. 5:397–401.

The notion of “solid doctrine” appears in several places in the Constitutions,

56 For a comprehensive account of the notion of “doctrina” according to the Constitutions,

Aquinas, the doctor communis, in theology.66 In philosophy, it was Ledesma’s

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_002

and Antonio Rubio (1548–1615). Similarly, Marcin Śmiglecki (1564–1618) pro

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_003

intending to join religious orders, or to go on to universities to acquire doc-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_004

moderne (1500–1650),” in Philosophie et théologie: Anthologie, ed. Philippe Capelle-Dumont

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_005

was undergoing a major reconfiguration in Europe;4 and second, the Cice

orator’s importance as the mediator of divine truth, according to the prescrip

formalizing, and transmitting knowledge. This privilege was therefore no lon

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��9 | doi:10.1163/9789004394414_006