Benet Perera: the Epistemological Question at the Heart of Early Jesuit Philosophy

Chapter 11 Benet Perera: the Epistemological Question at the Heart of Early Jesuit Philosophy

Marco Lamanna

1 Introduction

When the Jesuit Jerónimo Doménech (1516–92) first encountered Benet Perera (1535–1610) in 1553, it must have been immediately clear to him that the young man had great intellectual gifts. The meeting between the two took place in Valencia, probably at the Society’s St. Paul College (Colegio San Pablo), and it was as a result of this encounter with Doménech that Perera resolved to devote his entire life to Christ and to the Roman Church, entering the Society of Jesus. Perera was born in 1535 in Rusafa (or Ruzafa), a neighborhood of Valencia, Spain. His name seems to have been finally recognized in its Catalan form of Benet Perera after circulating for centuries in at least three other forms (Beni- to Pereyra, Bento Pereira, Benedetto Pererio) and in the Latin of Benedictus Pererius. In November 1553, Perera moved to the Roman College (Collegio Ro- mano), which Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556) had personally founded just two years earlier. The first complete course of philosophy, which lasted for a period of three years and was initiated at the Roman College on November 6, 1553, was com- posed of teaching in logic, physics, and metaphysics. A day earlier (November 5), the young student, Perera, gave a public exposition of some questions on rhetoric under the chairmanship of Fulvio Cardulo (1526–91), revealing his “eminent qualities” and for which he received “applause.”1 After Perera’s studies came to an end in 1557, he was given the role of teaching philosophy at the Roman College.2 He began teaching advanced classes in 1558, when he was twenty-three years old, with a course in physics. Between 1559 and 1561, Perera also taught metaphysics. The first complete three-year

1 See Ricardo García Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione della Compagnia di Gesù (Rome: Apud Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954), 29. 2 “M. Benedetto [Perera] leggerà la mattina meza hora de lettione et mezze de exercitii, hor ripetere hor comporre, hor variare. Dopo pranzo leggerà meza ora della Georgica [by Virgil], cominciando da 19 e mezza.” See Monumenta paedagogica Societatis Iesu penitus retractata multisque textibus aucta, vol. 2, 1557–1572, ed. László Lukács (Rome: ihsi, 1974), 423.

The Epistemological Question at the Heart 271 cycle of philosophy was assigned to him in 1561, with courses in logic, physics, and metaphysics; he held this role until 1567. The lessons given at the Roman College were an intellectual laboratory for Perera, one that he used to revise and improve his philosophy. In the lectures, he often drew upon authors whose doctrines had been condemned by the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–17) (mainly Alexander of Aphrodisias [fl. second to third centuries ce) and Averroes [1126–98]), which prescribed to Catholic professors the confutation of the theses on the mortality of the human soul (Alexandrism) and the unity of the intellect (Averroism). During his lessons, Perera affirmed a criterion of truth, whereby truth was not reducible to the philosophy of one sole author, according to the famous maxim amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas (Socrates is a friend, Plato also, but the greater friend is truth).3 According to Perera, traces of truth could be found in every author and every philosophical work, even those by pagans and Muslims. As a result of this position, Perera faced accusations of Averroism from Diego de Ledesma (1519–75) and Achille Gagliardi (1537–1607), the former a prefect of studies and the latter a professor of philosophy at the Roman College.4 More- over, the two Canisius brothers (Peter [1521–97] and Theoderic [c.1532–1606]) had denounced Perera to the Society’s superior general, Francisco de Borja (in office 1565–72), because of the spread of Averroism among the students who had returned to the German colleges after attending Perera’s lessons in Rome: among these students were Adam Higgins (1563–1612) and Antonius Balduinus (1533–85).5 The diatribe between Ledesma and Perera, which began in 1564, was of par- ticular philosophical significance. It covered diverse subjects—the contents of philosophical teachings, teaching methods, and, in general, faith in the ability of human reason to discern truth from falsehood. Ledesma aimed to formu- late a uniform doctrine that could be taught in the Roman College, whereas

3 Ibid., 2:no. 85, 671. On the long and intricate history of this philosophical maxim before and after Perera, see Henry Guerlac, “Amicus Plato and Other Friends,” Journal of the History of Ideas 39 (1978): 627–33. More recently, Marco Duichin, “Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas,” Bollettino della Società Filosofica Italiana 182 (2004): 33–46. 4 Studies have examined Ledesma’s criticism of Perera in depth: Cristiano Casalini, “Pererio ‘cattivo maestro’: Su un cold case nella storia della pedagogia gesuitica,” Quaderni di Noctua 2 (2014): 59–110. Christoph Sander, “The War of the Roses: The Debate between Diego de Ledes- ma and Benet Perera about the Philosophy Course at the Jesuit College in Rome,” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 14 (2014): 39–50. 5 In this regard, see Ulrich G. Leinsle, “Der Widerstand gegen Perera und seine Physik in der oberdeutschen Jesuitenprovinz,” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 14 (2014): 51–68.