Comitoli, Paolo
COMITOLI, PAOLO
Jesuit moral theologian and exegete; b. Perugia, 1544; d. there, Feb. 18, 1626. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1559 and took part in the papal commission charged with producing a new edition of the Septuagint in 1587. He was a staunch defender of papal authority in the controversy occasioned by Paul V's interdict of 1606 against the Venetian doge and senate. But so captious were some of his arguments in the Trattato apologetico, which he wrote on the subject (Venice 1606), that Bellarmine had to intervene to clarify his position. Comitoli was an opponent of probabilism. Among his other works were Catena in Job (Venice 1587), Responsa moralia (Lyons 1609), and Doctrina contractuum (Lyons 1615).
Bibliography: p. bernard, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al. (Paris 1903–50) 3.1:388. c. sommervogel et al., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels-Paris 1890–1932) 2:1342–43.
[l. b. o'neil]