ACOSTA, JOSÉ DE

Philosopher and theologian; b. Medina del Campo, Spain, September or October 1540; d. Salamanca, Feb. 15, 1600. He took vows in the Society of Jesus Sept. 24, 1570. In 1572 he went to Peru, where he was provincial and rector of the Colegio of Lima. He served as theologian of the Third Provincial Council of Lima (1582–83), and participated in the composition and publishing of the books ordered by the council. In 1586 he went to Mexico, where he remained until his return to Spain in May 1587. He was visitor of the provinces of Aragon and Andalusia, and, in 1592, provost of the Casa Profesa of Valladolid. In connection with the convocation of the Fifth Congregation of the Society of Jesus he was in Rome until 1594, engaged in negotiations that caused him difficulties with Father General Claudio Aquaviva. He spent the rest of his life in Spain. In 1597 he was named rector of the Colegio of Salamanca.

Acosta's writings are many and varied, but the following works brought him fame: De natura novi orbis, De procuranda indorum salute (both published Salamanca 1588), and the Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590; new ed. Mexico City 1962). He translated De natura into Spanish and included it with the Historia as books 1 and 2, so that those two works came to form a single whole.

In the De procuranda Acosta examined the problems of evangelization in America in his day. He discussed the doubts as to the capacity of the Native Americans (book 1), the legality of the employment of force (book 2), the rights and obligations of the civil authority and of the colonists (book 3), the special requisites for being a missionary in America (book 4), the parochial functions of the missions (book 5), and the casuistic difficulty in the administration of the Sacraments to the Native Americans (book 6). This work was the first systematic and complete presentation of the missionary problems provoked by the appearance of a new and unforseeable pagan world in the midst of the inhabited world. It is noteworthy, also, for the practical and balanced solutions proposed by its author, in contrast to the unfair exaggerations of impassioned men such as Fray Bartolomé de las casas and Ginés de Sepulveda. The Historia (including the De natura ) reflects Acosta's scientific concerns, which were never divorced from his missionary interests. A new entity, America, had appeared within the heart of Christendom, and it was necessary to show that, despite its novelty, it did not mean any derogation of the order God had assigned to nature and the course of history. This was the great task Acosta performed in his Historia. The highly varied subjects are grouped in accordance with the scientific view of reality then current, and thus the author placed the American world within the system of the universe (book 1), the sphere of the world (book 2), the concept of matter (book 3), the hierarchy of living beings (book 4), the idea of man as a spiritual being (book 5) and man as a rational being (book 6), and, finally, within the providential system of history (book 7).

Acosta's two great works represent the ideological culmination of the initial period (16th century) of the religious conquest and the philosophical and scientific conquest of the New World, of the great historical and ontological process of its incorporation into Western culture. For this reason, both works occupy unique positions in early American bibliography and have a historical value that is both irreplaceable and permanent.

[e. o'gorman]