The Jesuit School

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the contributions of three influential early modern Jesuits and one Dominican: Robert Bellarmine, Francisco Suárez, Gabriel Vásquez, and John of St. Thomas. As the earliest of these thinkers, Bellarmine considers Aquinas in the context of the continued polemics with second- and third-generation Protestant Reformers he encountered at Louvain. As later sixteenth-century approaches to Eucharistic sacrifice, the writings of Suárez and Vásquez are in dialogue with a variety of previous contributions to this subject, particularly those of Spanish origin. However, both of these thinkers also represent new and innovative approaches to the question of Eucharistic sacrifice that would prove influential for subsequent interpretations of Aquinas. Initially a student at the Jesuit school at Coimbra, John of St. Thomas critically engages Suárez and other members of the Jesuit school, developing the connections made by Suárez between sacrifice, moral act, and sign in continued dialogue with Aquinas’ Summa theologiae. In this regard, John’s understanding of the relationship between sign and moral act allows him to describe the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharistic liturgy in a way that intersects with the work of previous thinkers, such as Cajetan and the Salamancans.