ARRIAGA, RODRIGO

ARRIAGA, RODRIGO. - Spanish Jesuit, renowned philosopher and theologian, b. at Logroño on 17 Jan. 1592, d. at Prague on 7 June 1667. After studies at Valladolid, where his teacher was Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, he himself taught philosophy at Valladolid and had begun to teach theology when he was appointed to the University then entrusted to the Jesuits at Prague. He spent another year preparing at Salamanca and arrived in the capital of Bohemia in 1625. There he was professor of dogmatic theology (1626-37), dean of the theological faculty (1637-41), chancellor of the Ferdinandea University (1642-53), and from 1654 onward prefect of studies at the Clementine College. He had been Spanish tutor to Emperor Ferdinand III and preacher to Empress Maria Anna. His works make him one of the principal representatives of Jesuit scholasticism and of the Suárezian school in the 17th century. The *Cursus philosophicus* (Antwerp 1632, many reprints) shows independence of mind, e.g. in cosmology for the theory of the composition of bodies, and encountered some difficulties. More important are the lengthy *Disputationes theologicae* on the *Summa* of St Thomas (8 vols. fol., Antwerp 1643-55, reprinted at Lyons 1659-69; vol. IX, *De iure et iustitia*, remained unfinished); of a more speculative than positive mind, the author relies far more on theological reason than on the authority of Scripture or the Fathers, and at times abounds in subtleties and polemical discussions. It is not correct that he published the works of the distinguished Belgian mathematician Gregorio de Saint-Vincent S.J., whose manuscripts he did save from the sack of Prague carried out by the Saxons in 1631.