Juan de Mariana: biography of this Jesuit and intellectual of the Golden Age.

A summary of the life of Juan de Mariana, one of the most influential Spanish intellectuals.

Among the many personalities that represent the splendor of Spain in the 16th century, Juan de Mariana is one of them.

We will review the most important moments in the life of this author through a biography of Juan de Mariana. biography of Juan de MarianaIn this way, we will be aware of the importance of his legacy and the height of his critical thinking, which even caused him problems with the ecclesiastical establishment, as we will see later on.

Brief biography of Juan de Mariana

Juan de Mariana was born in the town of Talavera de la Reina, Toledo, in 1536.. From his very birth, he had a certain stigma, since his father, Juan Martínez de Mariana, was a religious official, known as dean. For that reason, his relationship with Bernardina Rodríguez, was not decorous under the morality of that time.

Early years and youth

After spending all his childhood in Talavera de la Reina and receiving his education in that municipality, he reached the necessary age to continue his higher studies. To do so, he decided to go to Alcalá de Henares, where he was able to study the arts and he was able to study arts and theology at Alcalá de Henares..

This was the turning point in his life, since this place allowed him to immerse himself fully in the humanist environment that reigned there. Not only that, but on the same day he registered for university studies, Juan de Mariana also became a member of the Society of Jesus, that is, a Jesuit. One of his most famous companions was Luis de Molina, who would become another of the personalities of the time.

Both were under the orders of Francisco de Borja, who would later be sanctified by the Church. The formation in this religious order made Juan de Mariana move, first to Simancas, in Valladolid, and later to Rome, where he finished his education. In fact, in the years to come, he himself would be a professor at this Jesuit school.

After his stay in Rome, he continued to move to other Italian localities, such as Loreto and Palermo, where he transmitted the teachings of the Jesuits.where he transmitted the teachings of the Society of Jesus. In 1569, Juan de Mariana undertook a new trip, this time to the French capital, Paris, to obtain his doctorate in theology.

In Paris he spent five years teaching at the Sorbonne University. But he also witnessed dramatic events, such as the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, an episode of the French Wars of Religion, in which a multitude of Huguenot faithful were murdered. In 1574, Juan de Mariana left the prestigious Parisian institution to return to Spain.

Return to Spain

Back to his homeland, Juan de Mariana returned to teaching, in this case in one of the Jesuit colleges, located precisely in Toledo.. It was during this period that he wrote some of his main works. The renown that his training and experience had brought him earned him the Church entrusted him with important tasks, such as the supervision of religious texts in order to issue a judgment about their appropriateness or inappropriateness.

These tasks were delicate, as they required a deep study to reach a valid conclusion, and for this extensive knowledge of theology was needed, precisely as Juan de Mariana had. He supervised, for example, the Biblia regia or Polyglot of Antwerp, or the Manual for the Administration of the Sacraments.

He was also entrusted with other tasks, such as the creation of the "Índice expurgatorio", or rewriting works that already existed, such as the "Actas de los concilios diocesanos de Toledo", in 1582. But Juan de Mariana was also interested in publishing his own creations. One of his great projects was nothing less than a thirty-volume collection on the history of Spain..

These books were published in Latin as Historiae de rebus Hispaniae Libri XXXand later in Spanish as "Historia general de España". In fact, it did not cover history up to his own time, since it closed with the death of Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic. The reason was nothing less than not to deal with more recent issues, whose point of view would have been controversial for certain estates.

Conflicts with the Church and power

Throughout his career, Juan de Mariana had several disagreements with the civil authorities.. Among them, two were especially serious. We will know them in depth.

One of them had its origin in the publication of a work entitled De rege et regis institutione (On the king and the royal institution). This book was a mandate of García Loaysa, preceptor of none other than King Philip III of Spain.

The French authorities, however, were not satisfied with the publication of this volume, since Henry IV of France had been assassinated, and they considered that among the ideas that the book of Juan de Mariana emanated, one could intuit a certain legitimacy to that regicide, or rather, tyrannicide. The decision of the French parliament was to burn all copies of the work.

Juan de Mariana had written this book with the intention of criticizing Machiavellianism. The Jesuit, in this work, describes how a king should act and makes it clear that, before morality and before the State itself, he should be considered as any other citizen, so he would have the same obligations as the king.and therefore he would have the same obligations as any other person.

He speaks of prudence as the maximum rule that every king should follow. He even dares to talk about taxes and how the monarch should ensure that they are not excessive so that workers can continue to produce without being hindered by the state. In short, he would be anticipating some of the principles that would later be taken up by economic liberalism.

Juan de Mariana's intention with this work was to to warn of the risks of an excess of power of the State's leaders, as well as of the possibility that the State wouldThe book was banned in France, as we have already mentioned above, for this reason.

We have said that there were two major conflicts that Juan de Mariana experienced with the powers that be as a result of his works. The second of these arose from the publication of the volume De monetae mutationewhich belongs to a larger collection entitled Tractatus septem. One of the topics dealt with in the book in question is inflation.

More specifically, the fact that caused Juan de Mariana a serious problem was the descriptions he made about certain strategies carried out by some leaders to modify the value of the currency, with the objective of being able to face certain expenses of the State, but having as an immediate consequence inflation, that is to say, the loss of value of the currency.

King Philip III considered that this volume was a veiled allusion to some Spanish ministers, so he ordered him to be arrested and imprisoned.. Juan de Mariana was imprisoned for almost a year and a half for this matter.

Although these were the two major conflicts that the author faced because of his writings, they were not the only ones. His own religious order, the Society of Jesus, was also the subject of one of his books, Discurso de las cosas de la Compañía. As a result of this volume, the Jesuit high command became enemies of Juan de Mariana.

Last years

Settled in Toledo since his return to Spain, although he spent some time in Madrid due to his imprisonment ordered by Philip III in 1607, Juan de Mariana spent the rest of his life in that Castilian province.

He lived to be 87 years old, never ceasing to publish new works even at such an advanced age.. The last volume he wrote was "Escolios al Antiguo y Nuevo Testamento".

Finally, Juan de Mariana died in 1624, in the same province where he was born.

Juan de Mariana Institute

The ideas of Juan de Mariana are still valid today. So much so that, in 2005, a think tank was founded that bears his name, the Juan de Mariana Institute. This institution advocates totally liberal economic policies, like those that could be glimpsed in some of the works of this author, several centuries ago.

Renowned economists have collaborated with the Juan de Mariana Institute, such as Jesús Huerta de Soto or Juan Ramón Rallo, great exponents of economic liberalism in Spain.

Bibliographical references:

• De Mariana, J. (1880). Del rey y de la institución real. La Selecta.
• De Paso, J.I.G. (1999). The monetary economy of Father Juan de Mariana.
• De Soto, J.H. (2013). Juan de Mariana and the Spanish scholastics. Dendra Médica. Journal of Humanities.
• Merle, A. (2014). Juan de Mariana's De rege (1599) and the question of tyrannicide: a discourse of rupture? Criticón.