For some three centuries Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) was a revered authority on Catholic doctrine and dogma, and his immense corpus of writings was regarded as an encyclopedia of theology hardly second to that of the great Thomas Aquinas. Suárez was one of the glories of Spain’s Golden Age and probably the last truly eminent representative of Scholasticism. From a slow start in his seminary years he moved to a preeminence in theological, juridical, and political philosophy evident in his many writings. Fifteen folio volumes of these appeared during his life time, and at least a dozen more were posthumously published by his devoted but not always discriminating disciples and admirers.
The collection here reviewed contains selections chiefly from the third book of his Defensio Fidei. They offer a comprehensive view of the political thought of Suárez, perhaps the most interesting aspect of his thinking for the modern secular layman. At the instigation of Pope Paul V, Suárez denounced the concept of personal absolutism proclaimed by James I of England, who required that his subjects take a “loyalty oath” upholding it. It is interesting that as an orthodox Spanish theologian Suárez clearly indicated the dangers inherent in this form of political absolutism and emphasized the medieval tradition that God had directly bestowed political sovereignty on the people who, in turn, conferred it upon their rulers. James I responded by ordering that copies of the Defensio Fidei be publicly burned in London on December 1, 1613, and banned the reading of its text under the gravest penalties (shades of the Spanish Inquisition!). Suárez’ refutation of the “divine right of kings” and his defense of more democratic government made him a precursor of Hugo Grotius and of Samuel Pufendorff. This first volume of the series El pensamiento político hispanoamericano also contains extended excerpts of Suárez’s “The Origin of the State,” “The Legislative Power of the State,” “The Peoples’ Rights,” “The Right of War,” “The Right of Intervention,” and “The Right of Disobedience to the State.”
