Leonardus Lessius ( nl, Lenaert Leys; 1 October 1554, in Brecht – 15 January 1623, in

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

) was a Flemish moral theologian from the

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

order.

Life

At the age of thirteen the young Leonard won the Brecht scholarship to the University of Leuven. This university is the main place he will be identified with for the next fifty years. In 1567 he matriculated in an arts department called Le Porc (Porcus alit doctos), during the final oral exam he was merited the title of primus. He joined the Jesuits in 1572, and after theological studies in Rome under Francisco Suarez and Robert Bellarmine, he became professor of theology at the University of Leuven. In his early teaching years, he was involved in the predestination theological debate that was raging in Leuven in 1587–88 (against

Baianism Baianism is a term applied to the school of thought of Catholic theologian Michael Baius (1513-1589). Its foremost apologists, Baius among them, largely claimed this school and its teachings to be a return to a sort of Augustinianism, against the ...

). Despite significant persecution and censorship that he receive as a result, Lessius supported the view of free will and predestination developed by Luis de Molina, which was seen by many theologians at the time as too little conservative position. In 1615 Pope

Paul V Pope Paul V ( la, Paulus V; it, Paolo V) (17 September 1550 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 16 May 1605 to his death in January 1621. In 1611, he honored ...

thanked him personally for the services rendered to the Catholic Church.

Work

Lessius is now best known for his treatise ''De iustitia et iure'' (''On Justice and Law'') (1605), a commentary on the ''Secunda secundae'' of Aquinas's Summa Theologica, that went through more than 20 editions in the 17th century alone. It is probably the first in-depth moral theological approach to economic and

financial Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

questions. Lessius went to

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, then a world business centre in rapid expansion, to study how banking and commerce were functioning. His experience gave weight to his ethical solutions to moral cases dealing with business and finance. He has been praised by modern historians of economics for the subtlety of its understanding of business matters involving interest. For example, Lessius clearly states the dependence of the price of an insurance contract on the risk of the event insured against. Among other things he gave guidelines for a new "just price" approach, accepting the fact that what was proposed by Thomas Aquinas was no longer workable in the 16th century. His work ''On the Providence of the Deity, and the Immortality of the Soul, Against Atheists and Politicians'', containing design arguments for the existence of God, was translated into English in 1631 under the title ''Rawleigh his Ghost''. From 1610 on, and already in poor health, he turned towards writing ascetical and theological books that had also much success.

Tomb

Lessius is buried in St. Michael Church, the historic Jesuit church in Leuven. His simple tomb is located in the

baptistry In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal ...

, just to the north of the apse. Previously, he was interred at the nearby Jesuit college.

Works

*''De Iustitia et Iure'', Lovania, 1605. The first full English translation of the sections in this work on sales, legal securities, and insurance was recently published by Christian's Library Press as ''On Sales, Securities, and Insurance'' (2016).Leonardus Lessius,
On Sales, Securities, and Insurance
'. CLP Academic, 2016. *''De Bono Statu eorum qui vovent...'', Colonia, 1615. *''De perfectionibus moribusque divinis'', Amberes, 1620.

Notes

References

*Decock, Wim, Lessius and the Breakdown of the Scholastic Paradigm, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 31 (2009), 57-78. *Franklin, James, ''The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). *Gordon, B.T., ''Economic Analysis Before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius'' (Macmillan, 1975). *Van Houdt, T. and Decock, W., ''Leonardus Lessius: traditie en vernieuwing'' (Antwerpen, Lessius Hogeschool, 2005) * Lessius, Leonardus,
On Sales, Securities, and Insurance
'. CLP Academic, 2016.

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lessius, Leonardus 1554 births 1623 deaths Jesuits of the Spanish Netherlands 17th-century Latin-language writers Flemish Jesuits Roman Catholic theologians of the Spanish Netherlands Catholic casuists People from Brecht, Belgium Sapienza University of Rome alumni Academic staff of the Old University of Leuven Old University of Leuven alumni Catholic philosophers Jesuit theologians Jesuit philosophers