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Leonard de Leys (Lessius), 1554-1623.
16th C. Belgian scholastic associated with the Salamanca School.
Lenaert Leys or Leonard de Leys (better known as Lessius) was a Belgian Jesuit scholar, student of Jesuit polemicist Robert Bellarmine and subsequently professor of theology at the Catholic University of Louvain. A prolific writer and pioneering natural philosopher, Lessius eschewed the Scholastic method of argumentation from authority, and deployed common sense and practical experience in his writings.
During the 1580s, Lessius made a name for himself by entering into the fray over the conciliation of the doctrines of divine grace and human free will, against his Louvain colleague Baius (founding spirit of the Jansenists). Lessius took up a theological position similar to that later more clearly articulated by his contemporary Luis de Molina, and secured the condemnation of Baius's doctrines as crypto-Calvinist heresy. But Lessius soon found himself accused of the Pelagian heresy (overemphasizing human free will at the cost of divine grace). Lessius was exonerated in 1588, the same year Molina's own thesis came out and the same strife run was through once more.
Lessius principal claim to fame is his De justitia et jure (1605), a wide-ranging treatise touching on political and economic matters, that is similar in title and content, to that of Luis Molina. Like Molina and the Salamanca School, Lessius discards much of what passed for Scholastic economic doctrines, notably the just price theory, in favor a 'natural value' doctrine based on the free interchange in markets. Lessius however was more deeply informed of economic matters than his Spanish counterparts - no accident, as Lessius resided near Antwerp, which had been, through much of the16th C., the paramount commercial and financial center of Europe. Lessius took a deep interest in the economic life of Antwerp and worked his observations, particularly on finance and insurance, into his writings. As a result, Lessius treatise was became highly popular among merchants and princes interested in economic affairs.
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