Author
Domingo Báñez
1528–1604
Domingo Báñez (1528–1604) was born at Valladolid, studied at Salamanca and entered the Dominican convent of San Esteban there in 1546, where he studied under Melchor Cano and Domingo de Soto. He taught at Ávila, where for several years he was the confessor and adviser of Teresa of Ávila, and at Alcalá and Valladolid, before holding the principal chair of theology at the University of Salamanca from 1581 until 1599.
He was one of the leading Thomists of the School of Salamanca. He held the real distinction between essence and existence as the centre of Thomas's metaphysics, and in the controversy on grace with Luis de Molina he defended the teaching that God moves the free creature to act by physical premotion and grants grace that is efficacious of itself. The Congregatio de Auxiliis, which examined the dispute between 1597 and 1607, was closed without deciding it.
The library holds his Scholastica commentaria on the Prima Pars and on the Secunda Secundae of the Summa theologiae, and his Tractatus de vera et legitima concordia on the agreement of free will with divine grace. The commentary on the first questions of the Prima Pars is a good place to begin.
Works
Texts currently available in the library.
Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae
1584Dominicus Báñez, O.P.'s Scholastica commentaria in primam partem Summae Theologiae is a Salamanca-school commentary on the opening part of Aquinas's Summa. The first printing appeared at Salamanca in 1584, after Báñez's teaching at the Dominican studium and University of Salamanca; later editions and editorial continuations helped make the work a major witness to late sixteenth-century Thomism. Its close exegesis of Aquinas intersects the debates over divine grace, human freedom, predestination, and physical premotion that defined the de auxiliis controversy. Schola presents the Latin text from a 1934 Urbano edition; the catalogue's 1584 year identifies the original work, not the modern reprint.
In progress
Scholastica commentaria in Secundam Secundae Summae Theologicae
1586Editorial notice: José Ángel García Cuadrado's scholarly introduction and bibliography to Q. 40 are available as a separate Spanish work under his own authorship, linked to this commentary. His Spanish translation of Q. 40 is attributed to him in the text metadata. Domingo Báñez's commentary on the Secunda Secundae of the Summa Theologiae. The work begins here with Q. 40, De bello, and is incomplete. Q. 40 is presented in Latin with José Ángel García Cuadrado's Spanish translation. Both languages are attributed separately in the text source metadata.
In progress
Tractatus de vera et legitima concordia liberi arbitrii creati cum auxiliis gratiae Dei
1600Domingo Banez's treatise on the concord of created free choice with efficacious grace (composed 1600): the Thomist answer to Molina. Latin with facing Schola English translation.