SUÁREZ, FRANCISCO (1548–1617), was a Spanish Jesuit philosopher, theologian, and jurist. Francisco de Suárez was born on January 5, 1548, at Granada, where his father was a wealthy barrister. Destined by his family to an ecclesiastical career, he prepared for it by studying canon law at the University of Salamanca. In 1564 he joined the Society of Jesus. From 1566 to 1570 he was a student of theology at the same university at a time when it was undergoing a lively Thomist revival.

In 1571, the year before he was ordained priest, Suárez was assigned to teach philosophy at Segovia, and over the next decade he taught both philosophy and theology at various Jesuit colleges in Castile, including Valladolid, where he delivered a set of celebrated lectures on the first part of Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae. Called to Rome in 1580, he continued the series...