HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Diego Laynez, S.J. (1512 – 19 January 1565; first name sometimes translated James, Jacob; surname also spelled Laines, Lainez, Laínez) was a Spanish
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
priest and
theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...
, a
New Christian New Christian (; ; ; ; ; ) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction referring to the population of former Jews, Jewish and Muslims, Muslim Conversion to Christianity, converts to Christianity in the Spanish Empire, Spanish and Po ...
(of converted Jewish descent), and the second Superior General of the Society of Jesus after the founder
Ignatius of Loyola Ignatius of Loyola ( ; ; ; ; born Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola; – 31 July 1556), venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Basque Spaniard Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the S ...
. He was born in Almazán and died in
Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
.


Early life

Diego Laynez was born in Almazán in Castile. He graduated from the
University of Alcalá The University of Alcalá () is a public university located in Alcalá de Henares, a city 35 km (22 miles) northeast of Madrid in Spain and also the third-largest city of the region. It was founded in 1293 as a ''Studium Generale'' for t ...
, and then continued his studies in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, where he came under the influence of
Ignatius of Loyola Ignatius of Loyola ( ; ; ; ; born Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola; – 31 July 1556), venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Basque Spaniard Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the S ...
. He was one of the seven men who, with Ignatius, formed the original group of ''Friends in the Lord'', later the
Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...
, taking, in the
Montmartre Montmartre ( , , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement of Paris, 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Rive Droite, Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its a ...
church, the vows of personal poverty and chastity in the footsteps of Christ, and committing themselves to going to
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
. Because of unfavourable circumstances (no ship going to the
Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...
) the pilgrimage to Jerusalem fell through, and Laynez with Ignatius of Loyola and the other ''Friends in the Lord'' (by then they were ten) offered their services to the Pope. After the Order had been definitely established in 1540, Laynez, among other missions, visited
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. Laynez was a papal theologian during each of the three periods of the
Council of Trent The Council of Trent (), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most ...
. At one point he was also professor of scholastic theology at '' La Sapienza''.


Involvement with the Council of Trent


First Period

Pope Paul III Pope Paul III (; ; born Alessandro Farnese; 29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death, in November 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era follo ...
sent Laynez to Trent to act as the Pope's theologian at the
Ecumenical Council An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote are ...
. Laynez arrived at Trent on 18 May 1546, five months after the Council opened, with Alfonso Salmeron. Before long, Laynez was recognized as exceptional – one of the first practical consequences was that he was allowed to preach in Trent when not on Council business, whereas the general rule forbade preaching by conciliar theologians. Another exception was the three-hour time limit accorded to Laynez in the council debates, while the standard allotment was an hour. Laynez's famous speech on imputed and inherent justification ( Girolamo Seripando's “double justice” theory) on 26 October 1546 was subsequently written out and incorporated into the ''Acta'' of the Council under the title "Disputatio de justitia imputata". By the time Laynez spoke, 37 theologians had spoken on the issue, and 28 had rejected ''duplex justitia''. In his three-hour-long speech, which was widely regarded as the most thorough on the topic, Laynez gave 12 reasons that the proposed “double justice” must be rejected by the Church, including its relatively recent origin and its implied denial of merit. His arguments were consistent with the Council's 13 January 1547 Decree on Justification, which taught in Chapter 16, “we must believe that nothing further is wanting to those justified to prevent them from being considered to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life and to have truly merited eternal life.” Laynez did not participate directly in the several months of discussions between his speech and the issuing of the Decree because immediately after his speech on justification, Cardinal Del Monte assigned him – along with Salmeron – to prepare a list of Protestant errors regarding the sacraments, as well as a summary of the relevant Church documents and patristic writings on sacraments. The first part of this research was presented to the council on 17 January 1547 by Cardinal Cervini under the headings of “sacraments in general,” “baptism” and “confirmation.” This research set the terms of debate, which was somewhat less contentious than that concerning justification. The seventh session of the Council promulgated its canons on sacraments in general, baptism and confirmation on 3 March 1547. Laynez moved with the council to Bologna after the seventh session, where he continued his preparatory work on the sacraments of the Eucharist and penance. He grew frustrated with the slow pace of the work done in Bologna, and left in June 1547. He spent the time between the first and second period of the Council contributing to the reform of prostitutes, convents and dioceses, preaching in Florence, Venice and then in Sicily. From there, he accompanied John de Vaga's fleet on a successful raid of Tripoli, which had been a base for Muslim pirates; he was still in Africa on 5 October 1550 when he was called to Rome.


Second Period

By 22 November 1550, Laynez arrived in Rome to prepare for the second period of the Council of Trent, which eventually opened on 1 May 1551. He attended to a number of projects on his way from Rome to Trent, finally arriving on 27 July, almost three months after the opening, but in plenty of time to contribute, on 8 September, his arguments on the Eucharist leading up to the important 13th session, on 11 October, at which the Decree on the Sacrament of the Eucharist was promulgated. Immediately after his speech, he began the preliminary work for the council's consideration of penance and extreme unction, which he, with Salmeron, presented on 20 October. Laynez often fell ill during this period, but after a period of convalescence he was able to speak on 7 December for three hours on the Mass as sacrifice. The council was suspended for the second time in April 1552, and Laynez went to Bassano to recover his health and then to Padua. Before leaving Trent, however, he met with Melchior Cano, the influential Spanish Dominican, who was embarrassed by his countryman's threadbare cassock and was suspicious of the new religious order. The meeting did not go at all well. When Ignatius of Loyola died in 1556 Diego Laynez acted as Vicar General of the Society. Because of an internal crisis and difficult relations with
Pope Paul IV Pope Paul IV (; ; 28 June 1476 – 18 August 1559), born Gian Pietro Carafa, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 May 1555 to his death, in August 1559. While serving as papal nuncio in Spain, he developed ...
, the Society's
General Congregation The General Congregation is an assembly of the Jesuit representatives from all parts of the world, and serves as the highest authority in the Society of Jesus. A General Congregation (GC) is always summoned on the death or resignation of the adm ...
was delayed by two years. When it was finally convened and opened on 2 July 1558, Laynez was elected at the first ballot and became the second Superior-General of the Society of Jesus.


Third Period

In 1560 Diego Laynez, now the Jesuit General, was instrumental in arguing that the council should continue to its close, against Ferdinand I, who wished to see a new Council opened and the prior decrees of the Council of Trent forgotten.
Pope Pius IV Pope Pius IV (; 31 March 1499 – 9 December 1565), born Giovanni Angelo Medici, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 December 1559 to his death, in December 1565. Born in Milan, his family considered itself a b ...
subsequently ordered the council to meet again in the carefully worded ''Ad ecclesiae regimen'' of 29 November 1560; the council was eventually opened on 18 January 1562. Upon Laynez's arrival at Trent in August 1562, he defended the practice of distributing Communion under only one species. Among Laynez's other speeches during the third period of the council are (1) against the Gallican theory that general councils are superior to the Pope, against bishops who wanted to extend episcopal authority at the expense of that of the Pope, in which he argued that the power of the bishop was received through the mediation of the pope and not directly from God (20 October 1562), and (2) a speech in which he committed a rare theological error – he doubted the ability of the Church to invalidate clandestine marriages (23 August 1563), a position rejected by the 24th Session of the Council in Chapter 1 of its Decree on the Reformation of Marriage. On the death of
Pope Paul IV Pope Paul IV (; ; 28 June 1476 – 18 August 1559), born Gian Pietro Carafa, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 May 1555 to his death, in August 1559. While serving as papal nuncio in Spain, he developed ...
, many
cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...
s wished to elect Laynez
pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...
, but he fled from them in order to avoid this fate.


Death and legacy

Laynez died in Rome on 19 January 1565. He was buried in the Roman church of the ''Madonna Della Strada'', soon rebuilt into the
Church of the Gesù The Church of the Gesù (, ), officially named (), is a church located at Piazza del Gesù in the Pigna (rione of Rome), Pigna ''Rioni of Rome, rione'' of Rome, Italy. It is the mother church of the Society of Jesus (best known as Jesuits). Wi ...
. His remains were repatriated to
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
in 1667 and kept in the Jesuit college church there, now the Colegiata de San Isidro. On 31 July 1916 they were transferred to the Church of the Sacred Heart and Saint Francis Borgia on Calle de la Flor Baja. That church was comprehensively destroyed by arson in 1931. Ashes identified as those of Laynez's relics were identified in the ruins and re-interred in the new Jesuit Maldonado church on Calle de Serrano. He was instrumental in cementing the central role of
education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
in the identity of the Jesuit Order:


Writings

*LAYNEZ, Diego, ''Lainii Monumenta: Epistolae et Acta'' (8 vol.), IHSI, Madrid, 1912–17. *His ''Disputationes Tridentinae'' were published in 2 volumes in 1886.


References

*Müller, Hermann, ''Les Origines de la Compagnie de Jesus: Ignace et Lainez'', 1898. *Fichter, Joseph H., ''James Laynez, Jesuit'', St Louis (USA), B.Herder and Co., 1946, pp. 299. *Scaduto, Mario, ''L'Epoca di G.Lainez'' (2 vol.), Roma, 1964 and 1974. *Maxcey, Carl, “Double Justice, Diego Laynez, and the Council of Trent,” ''Church History'', Vol. 48, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 269–278 *


External links


Lainez photo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lainez, James 1512 births 1565 deaths People from the Province of Soria Superiors General of the Society of Jesus University of Paris alumni 16th-century Spanish Jesuits Participants in the Council of Trent Academic staff of the Sapienza University of Rome Spanish people of Jewish descent 16th-century Spanish Roman Catholic theologians