Abstract

The Jesuit theologian, Francisco Suarez, is know as the «father of modern scientific Mariology» because of the innovations he brought to the Scholastic treatment of the Virgin Mary. Commenting on the third part of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, at the Roman College in 1584-85, he developed 24 questions under the title De Deipara et Christo ut eius Filio, material which to this day has remained unpublished. In the present essay, the author discusses the role of Mary in the life and works of Suarez, revealing his faith in the Immaculate Conception and at the same time the need to establish in the Virgin the human debt or necessary participation in Original Sin. Then he deals with Suarez's 24 questions, material conserved in the archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University. In these questions, he insists, we find the first systematic treatise on Mary, a work which demonstrates a logical and unitary division, clearly different from the chronological order of Thomas's Summa. Suárez divides his work into three parts: the dignity of the Mother of God, her perfection in body and soul, and the veneration due to her