LESSIUS (Lessius, Leys), Leonard. - Jesuit, theologian, spiritual writer. Born on 1 October 1554 at Brecht (Antwerp) and died at Louvain on 15 January 1623. He pursued his studies at the University of Louvain (1567-71), graduating in philosophy, a discipline which, after entering the Society of Jesus (1572), he taught for six years at the College of Douai, also holding there, in the year after his priestly ordination (1581), the prefecture of studies. In 1581-84 he studied theology in Rome at the Roman College under Suárez and St. Robert Bellarmine. Having returned to Belgium, he directed for one year (1584-85), at Liège, a Marian Congregation of students. In 1584 he assumed at Louvain the chair of theology at the College of the Society, distinguishing himself at once for having replaced, from his very first lectures, the commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas with that on the Liber Sententiarum of Peter Lombard, an innovation encountered in Rome, and which, despite some opposition, was later adopted on his example also in the University. Excellent gifts of clarity and concision won for L. the hearts of the students, who moreover admired in him a profound priestly and religious spirit, since he openly professed that the task of theology was not only to make men learned and skilled in disputation, but wise and holy, without which every study was vanity (De perfectionibus divinis, l. XII, cap. 18). In 1587 Michael Baius with Henry van Kuyck and James Janson, animated by antipathy toward the Order of the Jesuits, stirred up against L. a bitter struggle on the part of several professors of the University, attacking his doctrine on Grace, as though it were Pelagian, and certain of his opinions inexactly expressed concerning the inspiration of the Bible.
The painful controversy, conducted by his adversaries with animosity, was overcome by L. with edifying virtue and Christian charity, and the matter having at last been silenced with honor to him by Sixtus V, through the nuncio Frangipani (1588), his name became famous in Europe, especially when, in 1605, there issued at Louvain from the press of Masius his work De iustitia et iure ceterisque virtutibus cardinalibus libri IV, a true masterpiece, which placed him among the most authoritative moralists. This work, admired by St. Francis de Sales, by Federico Borromeo and by the most celebrated doctors of the age, had within the space of about a century 20 editions (12 during the author's lifetime). From 1600 L. left teaching in order to devote himself with greater freedom to the composition of his works. He was provincial consultor and was sent twice to Rome as procurator, taking part in the VII General Congregation (1615-1616), which elected the general Muzio Vitelleschi. L.'s literary activity was moral-ascetical, apologetic and theological. In 1613 he brought to light a short work on the religious vocation and in 1615 another justifying the situation of persons who took the vow of chastity while remaining in the world. Rare fortune attended the Hygiasticon seu vera ratio valetudinis bonae una cum sensuum, indicii et memoriae integritate ad extremam senectutem conservandae (Antwerp 1613). The short work had 33 editions, in Latin, English, Spanish, Flemish, French, Italian, Polish, etc. The little book Quae fides et quae religio sit capessenda consultatio (ibid. 1609), of only 142 pages, in which he refuted with clarity, loyal objectivity and delicate charity, religious indifferentism and the Protestant doctrine of the equality of cults and demonstrated the truth of the Catholic religion, succeeded in converting many heretics, especially Calvinists, among them John of Nassau-Siegen. The other works too: De Providentia Numini et immortalitate animorum (ibid. 1613), translated even into Chinese; De Antichristo (1611) and Defensio potestatis Summi Pontificis (1613), judged by Paul V the best defense written in favor of the papacy against the attacks of James I of England, demonstrate in L. the care to place science at the service of the most concrete and actual interests of the Church. In dogma, L. distinguished himself with the treatise De Gratia efficaci, decretis divinis libertate arbitrii et praescientia Dei condicionata (ibid. 1610) with the attached question of predestination post praeper cortina of the Curia of the Fathers Jesuits
LESSIO, LEONARDO - Portrait executed by F. van Abohoven (1613). The original is in the College of the Society of Jesus at Louvain.
life deserves, that, having been published in a climate still heated by the controversies de Auxiliis (v.), it became for the author a source of great moral suffering. For these reasons, L., tired and disgusted at having always to argue, gave up composing the commentary on St. Thomas, to which he wished to devote himself, and applied himself entirely in the last years of his life to ascetic studies, publishing true literary gems such as the De summo bono et aeterna beatitudine hominis (ibid. 1616) and the De perfectionibus moribusque divinis (ibid. 1620), which placed L. among the greatest spiritual writers of every century. After his death various opuscules appeared posthumously, among them Quinquaginta Nomina Dei (1640) and the Horologium Passionis Dominicae (1640). L. lived constantly in the practice of union with God, with the exercise of the most heroic virtues, and died in the odor of sanctity. The fame of the miraculous healings attributed to his intercession and occurring through contact with his relics gave rise to numerous pilgrimages to his tomb throughout the 17th century, also from France and Germany, but the attempts to begin the ordinary processes for his beatification failed because of the opposition of certain Jansenist bishops. During the suppression of the Society (1773-1814) and the wars of the French Revolution, the remains of L. were lost, but on the trace of documents preserved by the Bollandists, they were happily found again in 1891 and placed in the church of the Theological College of the Jesuits at Louvain. His cause for beatification was resumed.