Escobar Y, Mendoza Antonio

Escobar y, Mendoza Antonio, a Spanish Jesuit and noted casuist, was born at Valladolid in 1589, and took the vows of the order of Jesuits in 1604. He became very eminent as a preacher, and is said to have preached daily (sometimes twice a day) for fifty years. He was also a prolific writer, leaving more than forty folio volumes of ascetic divinity, sermons, casuistry, etc. His Liber Theologiae Moralis (Lyon, 1646, 7 volumes, 8vo) passed through many (39 in Spain) editions, and was long the favorite text-book of the Jesuits. He also wrote Universae Theologiae Moralis problemata (Lyon, 1652, 2 volumes, fol.): — Universae Theol. Moral. receptiores sententiae, etc. (Lyon, 7 volumes, fol.). Escobar became the butt of Pascal's wit in the Provincial Letters, a fact which will carry his name to the latest posterity. His "liberality" in morals was so excessive that even Rome was compelled to disavow some of his doctrines. His complete works fill 42 volumes. He died July 4, 1669. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biogr. Generale, 16:375; Alegambe, Biblioth. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu (Louvain, 1854).