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Gonzalez, Tirso

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Gonzalez (Gonzalo) de Berceo, Juan

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a Spanish Roman Catholic theologian of the 17th century. Having entered the order of Jesuits, he became professor at the University of Salamanca, and was elected general of his order about 1685. He opposed the doctrine of probabilism (q.v.), which was upheld by the casuists of the order, and affirmed that it originated not among the Jesuits, but among the Augustinians, one of whom, Michael Salonius (1592), was its author. According to Gonzalez, it was only in the year after it was promulgated by Salonius that I was adopted by the Jesuit Valentia, and developed in 1698 by Vasquez. While admitting that the doctrine was held by the majority of the Jesuits, he pointed at Fernand Rebello, Paolo Comitelo, and Andrea Le Blanc (Candidus Philoletes), who had opposed it in their writings. Yet Gonzalez did not consider it obligatory for all the members of his order to adopt his views: he permitted each one to follow his opinions and his interest. The work he wrote on the subject encountered so much opposition that it remained twenty-five years in MS. before being printed, and afterwards appears to have found but few partisans among the Jesuits. Father Oliva, director of the Index, greatly opposed the book, notwithstanding the approbation given to it by pope Innocent IX. The first edition bore the title Fundamentum Theologiae moralis, id est tractatus theologicus de recto uso opinionum probabillum (Dillingen, 1689; Naples, Rome, Lyon's, Antwerp, 1694, 4to). The text of the latter editions has been altered in several passages, and the earlier ones have been destroyed. Gonzalez wrote also De Infallibilitate Romani Pontificis in definiendis fidei et morum controversiis extra concilium generale (Rome, 1689, 4to; printed by order of Innocent IX, and suppressed by Alexander VIII): — Manuductio ad conversionem Mahometanorum (Dillingen, 1680, 4to): — Veritas Religionis catholicae demonstrata (Lille, 1696, 12mo). See Dupin, Bibli. des Auteurs eccles. du 17me sicle (part 4); Jour. des Savants (1695, 1698); Richard et Giraud, Bibl. sacree; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 21:252.