Luis del Alcázar, SJ (1554 – 1613) was a Spanish Jesuit theologian and a major figure in the development of Christian eschatology. He was known for popularizing the preterist perspective.
Life He was the eldest son of Melchor del Alcázar, a jurist, and nephew of the poet Baltasar del Alcázar, and was born in Seville. He studied at Seville, Cordova and Salamanca, entered the Society of Jesus in 1568, and became a priest in 1578. Alcázar was a friend of the Jesuit Juan de Pineda (1552–1637) (also a pupil of Jerome de Prado), and the Dominican Agustin Salucio; he died in Rome.Robert A. Maryks, The Jesuit Order as a synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of Jewish ancestry and purity-of-blood laws in the early Society of Jesus (2010), p. 155 note 133; Google Books. Klaus Reinhardt, Bibelkommentare spanischer Autoren (1500-1700): Autoren M-Z (1999), p. 193; Google Books.
Works
He is known for his Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi (1614) published after his death, putting forward what would later be called a preterist view of Biblical prophecy, in commentary on the Book of Revelation; his work is regarded as the first major application of the method of interpretation of prophecy by reading in terms of the author's contemporary concerns. His view was that everything in the Apocalypse, apart from the three final chapters, referred to events that had already come to pass when John of Patmos was writing. He attacked Joachim of Fiore, in particular, for millenarianism. The book's illustrations were after Juan de Jáuregui y Aguilar, who produced a series of 24 designs on the Apocalypse. PDF He suggested that 2 Esdras was later than Revelation, and borrowed from it.
A further work was In eas Veteris Testamenti partes quas respicit Apocalypsis (1631).Google Books.
Influence Alcázar's method was for the Book of Revelation, and was shortly taken up by Hugo Grotius.Google Books John Donne cites him in a sermon.archive.org Henry Hammond was an exception, among English Protestants, in following Alcázar's interpretation. Alcázar, with Johann Heinrich Heidegger, is referenced in Tristram Shandy as "Lewis de Acasar".René Bösch, Labyrinth of Digressions: Tristram Shandy as perceived and influenced by Sterne's early imitators (2007); p. 139; Google Books.
He was a friend of Francisco Pacheco, and had an influence on the iconography of the Immaculate Conception: the horns of the crescent moon in Pacheco's codification pointed away from the sun, as Alcázar and Galileo argued.Eileen Reeves, Painting the Heavens: Art and Science in the Age of Galileo (1999), p. 184; Google Books.
Notes
External links WorldCat page CERL page Dictionary article Luis del Alcázar in the Historical Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University