FONSECA, PEDRO de. - Portuguese philosopher and theologian, b. at Proença-a-Nova in 1528, d. at Lisbon on 4 Nov. 1599. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of twenty. From 1555 to 1561 he taught philosophy at the College of Arts of the University of Coimbra, where he acquired very great fame, to the point of being called the Portuguese Aristotle. Because of poor health, he had to leave teaching; he resumed it only for one year, in 1564, when he taught theology to his young fellow religious. He held various offices in the government of the Society and, in particular, was assistant and visitor for Portugal.
In 1564 he published at Lisbon Iustitutiorum dialecticarum libri VIII, which reached its 34th edition in 1625. His principal work, however, is the commentary on Aristotle: Commentariorum in libros Metaphysicarum Aristotelis Stagyritae volumina quatuor. The first volume appeared in Rome in 1577. In the third volume, published in 1596, F. says that thirty years earlier he had conceived a doctrine that shed light for him on the questions of providence and predestination: this was the conception of “middle knowledge,” and thus he seems to claim priority over Molina, whose Concordia dates from 1588. On the other hand, Molina believed that F. had known and used his ideas before they were printed. It may be that, having lived together for many years (from 1555 to 1567), F. and Molina had discussions together concerning those questions, so that later it was not clear from whom came the first idea of the system that bears Molina’s name.