Author
Francisco Suárez
1548–1617
Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) was born at Granada and studied law at Salamanca before entering the Society of Jesus in 1564. He taught philosophy and theology at Segovia, Valladolid, the Roman College, Alcalá and Salamanca, and from 1597 until 1616 held the principal chair of theology at the University of Coimbra. He died at Lisbon. He was called the Exceptional Doctor, Doctor Eximius.
He was the most influential Jesuit theologian of his age. His Disputationes metaphysicae of 1597 were the first systematic treatise on metaphysics independent of the commentary form, and they were used in Catholic and Protestant universities for more than a century. His theology follows the Summa theologiae while departing from Thomist positions in several places, notably on the distinction of essence and existence and on grace, where he developed a form of congruism. His De legibus was an important work in the history of natural and international law.
The library holds his commentaries and disputations on the first part of the Summa theologiae, on God one and three. They are a direct way to compare his reading of Thomas with those of the Dominican commentators in this library.
Works
Texts currently available in the library.
Disputationes metaphysicae
1597Francisco Suárez's fifty-four metaphysical disputations, the systematic metaphysics of the late scholastic tradition, first published at Salamanca in 1597. This edition gives the Latin of the prooemium and all fifty-four disputations — the first part on being and its passions (I–XI), the second on its causes (XII–XXVII), and the third on the division of being into infinite and finite, substance and the nine kinds of accident, and beings of reason (XXVIII–LIV) — with the transcription's apparatus of variant readings from the 1597, 1600, 1605, 1614, 1751 and 1861 editions, and the facsimile of the 1597 print.
Commentaria ac Disputationes in Primam Partem D. Thomae: De Deo Uno et Trino
1607Francisco Suárez’s Commentaria ac Disputationes in Primam Partem D. Thomae: De Deo Uno et Trino is a systematic scholastic treatment of the doctrine of God in relation to Aquinas’s Prima Pars. Its three principal divisions examine the divine substance and attributes, predestination and reprobation, and the mystery of the Trinity. Rather than simply reproducing Aquinas’s sequence of articles, Suárez recasts the material into books and disputations, allowing extended treatment of metaphysical and theological problems. The work is characteristic of his method: close engagement with Aquinas combined with an independent organization and detailed comparison of scholastic positions.