The evidence from these su ̄ tras suggests that the rela-
tionship between Maha ̄ya ̄na Buddhism and stupa worship
was very close. Even the Perfection of Wisdom literature,
which emphasized the memorization and copying of su ̄ tras,
did not deny that merit was produced by offerings at stupas.
Rather, it maintained that stupa worship produced less merit
than copying the scriptures. Thus the origins of the Perfec-
tion of Wisdom tradition as well are related to stupa worship.
SEE ALSO Buddhism, Schools of, article on Maha ̄ya ̄na
Philosophical Schools of Buddhism; Nirva ̄n:a; Relics; Tem-
ple, articles on Buddhist Temple Compounds.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For a detailed study of the role of the stupa in the formation of
Maha ̄ya ̄na Buddhism, see my article “The Rise of Maha ̄ya ̄na
Buddhism and Its Relationship to the Worship of Stu ̄ pas,”
Memoirs of the Research Department of the To ̄yo ̄ Bunko 22
(1963): 57–106. André Bareau’s “La construction et le culte
des stupa d’après les Vinayapit:aka,” Bulletin de l’École Fran-
çaise d’Extreme Orient 50 (1962): 229–274, provides a wealth
of detail on Buddhist cultic life at the stupas, as does Prabodh
Chandra Bagchi’s “The Eight Great Caityas and Their Cult,”
Indian Historical Quarterly 17 (1941): 223–235. For the
Maha ̄parinibba ̄na Suttanta, see the translation by T. W.
Rhys-Davids in volume 3 of Dialogues of the Buddha, in “Sa-
cred Books of the Buddhists,” vol. 4 (1921; reprint, London,
1973), pp. 71–191.
HIRAKAWA AKIRA (1987)
Translated from Japanese by Paul Groner
SUÁREZ, FRANCISCO (1548–1617), was a Spanish
Jesuit philosopher, theologian, and jurist. Francisco de
Suárez was born on January 5, 1548, at Granada, where his
father was a wealthy barrister. Destined by his family to an
ecclesiastical career, he prepared for it by studying canon law
at the University of Salamanca. In 1564 he joined the Society
of Jesus. From 1566 to 1570 he was a student of theology
at the same university at a time when it was undergoing a
lively Thomist revival.
In 1571, the year before he was ordained priest, Suárez
was assigned to teach philosophy at Segovia, and over the
next decade he taught both philosophy and theology at vari-
ous Jesuit colleges in Castile, including Valladolid, where he
delivered a set of celebrated lectures on the first part of
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Called to Rome in
1580, he continued the series at the Roman College, where
his subject was the second part and where, it is said, Pope
Gregory XIII was occasionally in attendance. Uncertain
health brought Suárez back to Spain in 1585, to Alcalá, and
here his lectures on the Summa, specifically on the third part,
were concluded. He transferred to Salamanca in 1592, and
in 1597, at the instance of Philip II of Spain (now also king
of Portugal), he went to Coimbra, where he taught until
- He died a year later in Lisbon.
Suárez’s first published work, De deo incarnato, which
grew out of his lectures on the third part of the Summa, ap-
peared in 1590, and his last, De defensione fidei, a tract direct-
ed against the views on the divine right of kings held by
James I of England, in 1613. In between he published eleven
other works, of which the most popular and influential, Dis-
putationes metaphysicae (1597), went through eighteen edi-
tions in the course of the seventeenth century. Ten more
works were published posthumously before 1655, under the
direction of the Portuguese Jesuits. The passage of time did
not lessen interest in Suárez’s writings; editions of his Omnia
opera were published in Venice in 1747 and in Paris in 1856.
Suárez’s thought was expressed always within a scholas-
tic context, and he professed to be a Thomist. Certainly the
work of Thomas Aquinas was basic to his own, but he often
deviated from classical Thomism, a fact stressed particularly
during the Thomist revival of the early twentieth century.
Suárez, for example, did not admit the real distinction be-
tween essence and existence, and his metaphysics was more
a self-contained whole than a mere elaboration of Aristotle.
He viewed philosophy in any case as a basis for theological
research.
In the quarrel between the Jesuits and the Dominicans
over the problem of the relationship between grace and free
will he took no formal part, though during the crisis of the
first decade of the seventeenth century he was active behind
the scenes promoting the more liberal Jesuit position. Simi-
larly, he did much to establish the moral school of probabi-
lism, which was later associated with Jesuit confessional prac-
tice. As a jurist Suárez did much to elaborate the notion of
penal law and the juridical force of custom. He was a power-
ful advocate of the principle of subsidiarity in civil society,
and he insisted that the powers of the state were rooted in
the free consent of the governed. His doctrine of ius gentium,
based upon the precept of universal love that transcends na-
tional or racial divisions, contributed to the development of
international law.
Suárez was probably the greatest of all the Jesuit theolo-
gians, and as such he has had continuing importance within
the intellectual life of the Catholic church. But he was influ-
ential far beyond his own order or his own communion. Spi-
noza, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Vico have all acknowledged
their debt to Suárez. The title given him by Pope Paul V—
Doctor Eximius (“distinguished scholar”)—seems even now
appropriate.BIBLIOGRAPHY
For a good synopsis of Suárez’s teaching, see René Brouillard’s ar-
ticle “Suarez, François,” in Dictionnaire de théologie
catholique (Paris, 1941). A longer study, with biographical
details, is Raoul de Scorraille’s François Suarez de la compag-
nie de Jésus, 2 vols. (Paris, 1912–1913). Two useful special
studies are Francisco Suárez: Addresses in Commemoration of
His Contribution to International Law and Politics, edited by
Herbert Wright (Washington, D.C., 1933), and José Hel-
lín’s La analogía del ser y el conocimento de Dios en Suárez
(Madrid, 1947).
MARVIN R. O’CONNELL (1987)SUÁREZ, FRANCISCO 8799