Arriaga, Rodrigo

ARRIAGA, RODRIGO. - Spanish Jesuit, renowned philosopher and theologian, b. at Logroño on 17 January 1592, d. at Prague on 7 June 1667. After his studies at Valladolid, where he had Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza as his teacher, he himself taught philosophy at Valladolid and was beginning to teach theology when he was appointed to the University then entrusted to the Jesuits at Prague. He prepared for another year 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 Ferdinand University (1642-53), and from 1654 onward prefect of studies at the Clementinum College. He had been the Spanish teacher of Emperor Ferdinand III and preacher to Empress Maria Anna. His works make him one of the principal representatives of Jesuit scholasticism and of the school of Suárez in the 17th century. The Cursus philosophicus (Antwerp 1632, many reprints) shows independence of spirit, for example in cosmology with his 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. in fol., Antwerp 1643-55, reprinted at Lyon 1659-69; vol. IX, De iure et iustitia, remained unfinished); of a more speculative than positive mind, the A. relies much more on theological reason than on the authority of Scripture or of the Fathers; he sometimes abounds in subtleties and in polemical discussions. It is not accurate that the A. published the works of the distinguished Belgian mathematician Gregory of Saint Vincent S.J., whose manuscripts he saved during the sack of Prague carried out by the Saxons in 1631.

Edmondo Lamalle