Disputationes de Controversiis
Disputationes (full title: Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae Fidei adversus hujus temporis Haereticos - Disputations on the Controversies of the Christian Faith against the Heretics of this Time), also referred to as De Controversiis or the Controversiae, is a work on dogmatics in three volumes by Robert Bellarmine.
Title page of the first volume, 1586 | |
| Author | Robert Bellarmine |
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| Country | Ingolstadt, Duchy of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire |
| Language | Latin |
| Separation of church and state in the history of the Catholic Church |
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The Disputationes has been described as "the definitive defence of papal power". After its publication, Bellarmine's Disputationes was regarded as the Catholic Church's foremost defence of its doctrine, and especially the papal power.
It was written while Bellarmine was lecturing at the Roman College, and was first published at Ingolstadt in three volumes (1586, 1588, 1593). This work was the earliest attempt to systematize the various controversies of the time, and made an immense impression throughout Europe, the strength of its arguments against Protestantism so acutely felt in Germany and England that special chairs were founded in order to provide replies to it. Thomas Hobbes, Theodore Beza, Conrad Vorstius and John Rainolds were among those who wrote counter-arguments against the work.
"The complete edition, reviewed and corrected by the author, which became the standard for all further editions, appeared in Venice in 1596."