A Companion to the Spanish Scholastics ed. by Harald E. Braun, Erik de Bom, and Paolo Astorri

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Companion to the Spanish Scholastics ed. by Harald E. Braun, Erik de Bom, and Paolo Astorri Ulrich L. Lehner A Companion to the Spanish Scholastics. Edited by Harald E. Braun, Erik De Bom, and Paolo Astorri. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition Series 102. Leiden: Brill, 2022. Pp. 627. $275.00 (hard). ISBN: 978-90-04-29441-7. Interest in Spanish Scholasticism has been thriving for a number of years now, but hitherto neither beginner nor seasoned academic had a reliable guide available to maneuver these difficult waters. This new companion, published in Brill’s reputable series, provides such an orientation. The editors have wisely decided to carve up the otherwise unpalatable mass of information into nine parts, each presenting two or three chapters. The first two parts of the handbook give, over one hundred pages, a detailed overview of the contexts of Spanish Scholasticism. It seems that sometimes the chapter titles do not properly correspond to the text. For example, the chapter “Theology” by Christophe Grellard does not introduce Spanish Scholasticism as such but sets out to merely present the “social, cultural and intellectual context in which the theological doctrines of Salamanca took shape” (32), thus giving a very narrow window into the cosmos of Scholastic thought. Although the author skillfully shows how the encounter with Protestant theologies and Columbian culture animated Domingo de Soto and Domingo de las Cuevas to reflect on the sufficiency of implicit faith among the colonial natives, he never delivers the promised “social context,” and at times does not explain important concepts. For example, it is not enough to state that a “moderate nominalism” can be compatible with Thomism without giving a hint of how such a convergence would come about and what it would entail (35). After all, this seems to be a crucial piece of contextualization and necessary for the chapter to work as an introduction and guide. Thomas Duve provides in the next chapter not only an excellent overview of the juridical context, but also corrects widespread exaggerated views of the Salamancans, especially Vitoria. Research has demonstrated that Vitoria was “part of a broad intellectual current that had not started in Salamanca but that he had brought it with him, which means it started there later than in Paris, perhaps also later than in Cologne or Louvain” (72). Following Scattola, Duve reminds the reader that Salamanca was less a “school” and more a “community of discourse” and a “community of practice.” Consequently, we should not look for its normative results but rather see it as a network in which the forms of discourse about normative knowledge were under consideration (76). One of the most original and enlightening chapters is Mara Vega’s account of how Scholastics managed dissent. Carefully examining Scholastic taxonomies of dissent and disagreement, she shows how the censurae became a standard reference point for theologians from the fifteenth century on. Melchor Cano, for example, articulated how the censures help the theologian to stay clear from error, diagnose errors with precision, and engage productively in controversies (89). If error, however, included stubborn resistance to the truth, could a heretic’s proposition be considered in abstracto or was it [End Page 347] also necessary to consider his or her moral status? Suarez suggested that there were two types of heretical propositions, one of which could be judged considering the character of the person, while the other comprised propositions that were “heretical in themselves, absolutely and independently” (95). More difficult to judge were propositions bordering on heresy (99). A few errors slipped into Vega’s bibliography: two cited authors were omitted (Antonio Cordoba and Antonio de Panormo), and some entries do not give the volume number of rather large sets such as Banez’s Commentaria or the Cursus Salmanticensis. The more specialized first part looks at theological questions. Paolo Broggio’s chapter deals with grace. His claim that “Lutheranism”—not clear whether he means Luther, Melanchthon, or someone else—places “itself in close proximity to Peter Lombard and Thomas itself” and thus pushed men like Erasmus to reflections that could be coined “pre-Molinist” is not only imprecise and overly...