THOMAS OF JESUS (DE ANDRADA). - Augustinian mystic, b. in Lisbon to the Alvarez de Andrada family ca. 1530, d. in Morocco on 17 April 1582; he took his vows in his native convent in 1548, studied at the University of Coimbra and distinguished himself, among the disciples of Montoya (v.), by his spirit of penance and prayer.

A chaplain in King Sebastian's ill-fated African expedition, he was wounded and taken prisoner in the defeat of Alcazar Quivir (4 Aug. 1578). He assigned to others the ransom he received from the Countess of Linhares, his sister; he remained among his unfortunate companions in order to keep the prisoners firm in the faith and to convert those who had apostatized. In captivity he wrote several catechetical pamphlets and Os trabalhos de Jesus (part 1, Lisbon 1602; part 2, ibid. 1609), pathetic contemplations on the "sufferings of Jesus" based on a diligent exegetical study, without the aid of books, of the Passion in the Gospels. This text, a masterpiece of the Portuguese language and of Portuguese mysticism, was translated several times into Spanish (Madrid 1628, etc.), then into French, Italian (P. Li Fiori, Rome 1644), Latin, German, English and Dutch.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: A. Palmieri, Andrade (Thomas de), in DHG, II, 1394-95; I. Monasterio, Misticus agostinus, I, El Escorial 1929, pp. 133-41; A. F. C. Bell, A Portuguese mystic: frei T. de J., in Hispanic Rev., 1 (1933), pp. 50-54; B. Famiani, I patimenti di Gesù del ven. P. T. di G. (reprint of the Italian translation of part 2), Florence 1933.

Davide Falciani

THOMAS of JESUS. - Missiologist and mystic, in the world Diaz Sanchez de Avila, b. in 1564 at Baeza (Andalusia), d. on 24 May 1627 in Rome.

Having graduated in philosophy and theology in 1583, he studied law at Salamanca. In April 1586 he entered the Carmelite Order and was ordained a priest in 1589. In the Order he at first followed the strictly contemplative tendency, declaring himself nonetheless ready for whatever task might be entrusted to him. Summoned to Rome in 1607 by Paul V, T. was appointed superior of the Congo mission, together with Fr. Diego dell'Incarrazione, but he was unable to depart and remained in Rome. In order to prepare the missionaries of a planned Carmelite Congregation of St. Paul, Fr. T. wrote the Stimulus Missionum (Rome 1610), a preparatory work for a great manual of missionary science, for which T. in the following years collected material in the Roman archives and libraries and in conversations with converted schismatics and heretics. This plan was interrupted because in 1610, by order of Paul V, T. went to France and Flanders to found Carmelite convents there according to the Teresian reform, of which he was provincial until 1617, when he returned to Rome. In 1613 De procuranda salute omnium gentium was published at Antwerp, and in the same year a plain reprint appeared under the changed title Thesaurus Sapientiae divinae in gentium omnium salute procuranda. In book III of his Manual of missiology, T. develops the plan of a Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, for the central direction of every missionary activity of the Church; T. studied in depth the Cartapacio of Fr. Pietro della Madre di Dio, which contains a Modus propagandi fidem catholicam presented together with a petition of the bishop of Tournai, Jean Vendville (v.), in 1589 to Sixtus V.

T. of J. is famous for his works of spiritual theology, especially for the Sumo y compendio de los grados de oración (Rome 1610), Tratado de la oración mental (ibid. 1610), Practica de la viva fe (Brussels 1613), Methodus examinandi ac discernendi spiritualem animae profectum (ibid. 1620), Divinae orationis... methodus, natura et gradus (Antwerp 1623), De contemplatione divina (ibid. 1620), several times published and translated. With doctrinal depth and great erudition, T. was the first of the Carmelite spiritual school to study the whole range of mystical problems in the light of scholastic theology. He is also famous as a popularizer of acquired contemplation (v. IV, 443), which he was the first to treat systematically both in the De contemplatione divina (book I, supp. 1-3, 5) and in the De contemplatione acquisita, which remained unpublished until recently (Milan 1922). The majority of his writings was collected in the Opera omnia in 2 vols. (Cologne, 1684). Other works that were to form vol. III remain in manuscript in the general archive of the O.C.D. in Rome.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: Martialis a S. I. B., Bibliotheca Scriptorum Carm. Disc., Bordeaux 1730, pp. 409-19; Anastasius a S. P., in Joseph a Sp. Saneto, Cursus Theolog. mystico-scolasticae, I, Bruges 1924, pp. 298-303; José de J. C., P. P. T. de J., escritor mistico, in Eph. Carmel., 3 (1949), pp. 225-49, 305-49, and 4 (1950), pp. 149-206, with a critical list of all the writings of T., a biographical profile and a doctrinal synthesis. On his missionary activity: S. Salaville, La «Somma del Missionario» dei carm. T. di G., in Il pensiero missionario, 5 (1933), pp. 225-47; above all Tommaso di Gesù (Pammolli), Il P. T. di G. e la sua attività mission., Rome 1936, with a list of sources and documentation. On mystical doctrine, especially on the question of acquired contemplation: Crisogono de J. S., La escuela mistica carmelitana, Avila 1930, pp. 152-162; Gabriele di S. M. M., La contemplaç. acquisita, Florence 1938, pp. 142-46; id., Carmes Déchoussis, in DSp, II, coll. 174 ff., 183 ff.; id., Thomas de Jésus et la contemplation acquise, in Rev. d'ascét. et de myst., 25 (1949), pp. 3-17, which should be consulted, as regards the direct source of T. of J., together with the important study of Simeon de la S. F., «La primera parte del camino espiritual de oración y contemplación» obra inédita y fundamental del P. Thomas de Jesús, in El Monte Carmelo, 60 (1952), pp. 3-36, 145-72.

Valentino di Maria-Nicola Kowalski

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Thomas of Jesus (de Andrada)

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