Suárez, Francisco

Abstract

Francisco Suárez, S.J., born in Granada, Spain, in 1548, was perhaps one of the brightest luminaries ever produced by the Society of Jesus. Astonishingly, his early years and youthful academic promise were mediocre at best. After being initially rejected for admission to the Society of Jesus, scholasticism’s future Doctor Eximius was eventually admitted with probationary status. During his early formation Suárez experienced an almost supernatural intellectual transformation. Ordained a priest, the Jesuit went on to hold many teaching positions throughout Spain, Rome, and eventually Portugal’s University of Coimbra. His literary output was both enormous and systematic. The Disputationes metaphysicae, published in 1597, put the science of metaphysics on a new footing. For the first time, metaphysics was treated according to the logical exigencies demanded by the science itself rather than by the commentarial practice that the haphazardly arranged treatises of the Metaphysics had generated. Suárez was also drawn into numerous controversies between the Holy See and various political powers. One such controversy pitted Suárez against James I, which resulted in Suárez’s Defensio fidei in which the oath of allegiance was roundly critiqued. Suárez’s political and legal philosophy were spelled out further and more explicitly in his De legibus, which treated everything from the nature of law (eternal, human, natural, civil, and canonical) and justice to war, ecclesiastical and temporal powers, and the old and new laws. After teaching at the University of Coimbra for nearly 20 years, Suárez retired from the classroom and sought a climate that would accommodate his ailing health. This eventually led him to Lisbon where the Doctor Eximius died in 1617.