This book explores how the great sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century Jesuits read the secunda pars of the Summa theologiae. Their interpretation of Aquinas’s moral theology is shaped in part by their historical context, including the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the European discovery of the "New World," as well as new trade routes with Asia. The essays in this volume explore a wide variety of topics, including the natural desire to see God, infused moral virtues, freedom of conscience, faith and justification, doctrinal development, just war, slavery, the virtue of religion, Eucharistic sacrifice, sexual ethics, the theology of vocation, and natural law. The essays engage the thought of Francisco Suárez, Gabriel Vázquez, Luis de Molina, Francisco de Toledo, and various others. The underlying argument of the book is that this erudite, deeply Catholic and broadly Thomistic approach to ethics should be retrieved, given its Christian seriousness. Guided by divine revelation as taught in Scripture and Tradition, moral theologians in the Jesuit tradition ground themselves in Aquinas and in a rich understanding of natural law, universal moral norms, and the virtues, as well as in appreciation for spiritual interiority, conscience, and discernment.

Though the relationship between Jesuits and Dominicans has historically been marked by theological controversy, Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, shows remarkable affinity for the Thomistic tradition, the tradition advanced above all by the Dominican order. When writing the Jesuit Constitutions, in fact, Ignatius made Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae the primary textbook for Jesuit theological formation. The contributions to this volume—originating from Jesuits, Dominicans, and lay scholars alike—explore different aspects of the complex yet illuminating relationship between Ignatius and Thomas. The themes range from the general relationship between the early Jesuits and scholastic theology to the attempts by Francisco de Toledo, the first Jesuit cardinal, to apply Thomistic reasoning to the religious and legal status of Jewish converts to Christianity. Other contributions compare Ignatius and Thomas on topics of significant interest for dogmatic, sacramental, and spiritual theology: spiritual experience, the ordering of the passions, the use of the imagination, prudence and discernment of spirits, frequent communion, Mariology, the “hierarchical church,” and the limits of obedience. Students of Ignatius of Loyola, Thomas Aquinas, second scholasticism, Christian-Jewish relations, and spiritual theology in general will find this volume an invaluable contribution.