ACOSTA, JOSÉ. – Spanish Jesuit, writer, and missiologist, b. at Medina del Campo in Sept. or Oct. 1540, d. at Salamanca on 15 Feb. 1600. He entered religious life at Salamanca at only twelve years of age (he had four Jesuit brothers), and taught grammar in various colleges before studying philosophy and theology at Alcalá; during these years, at the request of his local Superiors, he wrote many “quarterly letters” (twelve of which were published in the Monum. Histor. Soc. Iesu, Epist. Quadr., vols. III, VI, VII). He had begun teaching theology (Ocaña-Palencia) and was being considered as the successor to Fr. Toledo at the Roman College when he obtained his assignment to Peru (1572). Rather than a missionary in the strict sense of the word, he was a professor of theology, preacher, and organizer there. Rector of the college of Lima (1575), then second provincial of Peru (1576-81),
he founded various houses and missions and conducted a visitation of the extensive province, gathering material for his future works. He then took, as theologian to the archbishop St. Toribio de Mogrovejo, a leading part in the work of the Third Provincial Council of Lima (Aug. 1582-Oct. 1583), which was of great historical importance; he drew up its acts and, with other confrères skilled in the languages, composed the trilingual catechism in Spanish, Quichua, and Aymara, and also supervised its printing (Lima 1585, this being the first book printed in Lima); he likewise collaborated on the Confessionario para los curas de Indios (Lima 1585) and on other works prescribed by the Council.
Recalled to Europe, where he landed in 1587, A. obtained from Sixtus V in Rome the approval of the Council (1588), and printed its acts: Concilium Limense (Madrid 1590). Returning to Spain, where he was visitor of the Jesuit provinces of Andalusia and Aragon, he devoted himself to literary composition and preaching, using the authority he enjoyed in such matters both within his Order and at the royal Councils for the benefit of the missions. Acquaviva employed him in delicate negotiations with the court of Madrid, amid the difficulties then facing the Society in Spain; but there A., recently appointed superior of the professed house of Valladolid, allowed himself to be induced to support with his authority the intrigues of a small faction of restive religious, chiefly pursuing nationalistic aims, against Acquaviva himself. With the support of Philip II he came to Rome (1592) and obtained from Clement VIII the convocation of the Fifth General Congregation of the Society (1593-94). When it had vindicated Acquaviva and preserved the Institute of the Society intact, A. submitted and was reconciled with the General, declaring that he had always acted in good faith (his apologia is printed in Rodriguez Carracido, pp. 123-153). Returning to Spain, he resumed the governance of the house of Valladolid and then of the college of Salamanca.
A. was an indefatigable writer (a complete list of his works is found in the bibliography of E. Uriarte-M. Lecina). We have mentioned the writings connected with the Council of Lima. The fruits of his theological teaching in Peru are De temporibus novissimis, Rome 1590, and De Christo revelato, Rome 1590; A. himself published three volumes of Conciones, Salamanca 1596-99 (others remained unpublished). But he owes his principal fame to two works that became classics: De natura novii Orbis et de promulgatione Evangelii apud barbaros sive de procuranda Indorum salute, Salamanca 1589 (several reprints, the latest at Manila in 1858; the work is commonly cited as: De procuranda Indorum salute). Without being the first synthesis of theoretical missiology, it was the first to achieve wide circulation, and its influence was very great; the work still retains its value for general problems of missionary methodology and for those of a Christian colonial policy. An even wider circulation, though of less lasting value, was achieved by the Historia natural y moral de las Indias, Seville 1590 (numerous reprints and translations; in Italian by Gio. Paolo Galucci, Venice 1596). Of the seven books, the first two are the De natura novii Orbis of the preceding work; the next three deal with the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms; the final two, on American ethnography, are addressed more directly to missionaries. Without being original in every part (the section on Mexico depends on the Historia de las Indias de Nueva España by the Dominican Diego Durán), this vast synthesis earned A. the name of “Pliny of the New World,” given him by the Benedictine critic P. Feijoo.
BIBLI: J. E. de Uriarte-M. Lecina, Biblioteca de Escritores de la Compañía de Jesús..., I, Madrid 1925, pp. 24-33; Streit, Bibli., I, pp. 72-74; II, pp. 249-54 and passim; J. Rodriguez Carracido, El p. José Acosta y su importancia en la literatura científica española, Madrid 1889; L. Lopetegui, El p. José de A. y las Misiones, Madrid 1942 (supersedes earlier publications for the missionary aspect); id., Como debe entenderse la labor misional del p. José de A. S. I.7, in Studia missionaria, 1 (Rome 1943), pp. 115-36; L. Kilger, Die Peru-Relation des José de A. 1376 und seine Missionstheorie, in Neue Zeitschrift für Missionwissenschaft, 1 (Schöneck 1943), pp. 24-36; A. Astrain, Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la Asistencia de España, III, Madrid 1925, pp. 401-20, for the incidents of 1932-95 and the struggle with Acquaviva. Edmondo Lamalle