Theological Invention, Censorship, and the Virgin Mary: The Case of Juan Bautista Poza (1588-1659)

In 1626 and 1627 two editions of a fluvial Latin treatise entitled Elucidarium Deiparae appeared. The work defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary by mixing theology and medicine. The author was the Jesuit Juan Bautista Poza, who, thanks to the support of Olivares, had obtained a chair at the Colegio Imperial in Madrid. The text was not well received by some of the Spanish clergy and was soon censored by the Congregation of the Index. At a time when doctrinal debates were not confined to universities and learned circles, the question of the Immaculate Conception was one of the most controversial, especially since the Spanish Crown supported this theological thesis in the hope that it would be approved as dogma by the Apostolic See. Poza not only supported this doctrine, but also attacked the power of the Roman Congregations to censor all the Catholic texts and defended the right to theological invention in a series of pamphlets (the most important of which was Votum Platonis, 1639) that led the Roman Inquisition to persecute him. This chapter aims to reconstruct this affair in order to reflect on censorship and theological invention in Catholicism in the first half of the 17th century.