Born: 14 August 1595, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 30 September 1612, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 05 June 1621, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Final Vows: 18 October 1628. Irish College Salamanca, Spain
Died: 08 August 1646, Irish College, Salamanca, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Alias Sherlog
1614-1622 At Valladolid Age 18 Studying Theology, proficiency above mediocrity
1617 In CAST Age 18 Soc 4
1625 At Compostella Age 28 Soc 13. More than ordinary ability for preaching. He is confessor and Preacher
1626 In Spain
1633-1645 Rector of Irish College Salamanca. Has been Lecturer on Controversial subjects. A man of much learning with a talent for composing commentaries on the Scriptures. Excellent disposition, talent and judgement. Best talent for Government, teaching and commenting on Scriptures. In addition excellent at conducting business with people of the world. Much prudence and learning, firmness in dealing with others. Talent for writing and governing. A Religious spirit.
Left his books to the Irish Jesuit Mission, but especially for the Residence at Waterford.
◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Was of a Waterford family, but it has been seen stated that he was born in Wexford; Writer of commentaries on Holy Writ; Professor of extraordinary virtue and held in great esteem in Spain. (Foley’s Collectanea)
He obtained a high repute both as a Theologian and Administrator, and was Rector at Salamanca and Compostella for twenty years.
1631-1646 Rector of Salamanca (Irish Ecclesiastical Record September 1874). he was also a Professor of Controversy for seven years, and also for a time of Sacred Literature and Theology, wit a great repute for learning. As a result he was chosen as Censor of Doctrine by the Sacred Inquisition. he assiduously applied himself day and night to a study of the ancient Fathers. Weak health prevented him from leaving even more evidence of his learning and erudition.
He was a man of austere life, who subjected his body to severe inflictions in daily disciplines, hair-cloths and other practices; was much given to prayer and devoted to our Blessed Lady, fasting and other mortifications on the vigils of her feasts. Some are of the opinion that he received Divine Illustrations in prayer, and assistance in the rapid composition of his writings.
A Catalogue of Irish Jesuits for 1617 ((Irish Ecclesiastical Record August 1874) states his age at that time to be 18, and four years in Society.
He is identical with a Fr “Paul Shirley” noticed in “Records SJ” Vol V p 475, in a note citing Dodd’s “Church History”, who mistranslates the name given by Southwell as Sherlogus into Shirley.
Southwell in “Biblio Script SJ” makes an interesting note about him : he was of a family of clan of Waterford (Menapiensis); born on the vigil of the Assumption 1595, of devoted Catholic parents; was admitted to the Society on the day before the Kalends of October 1612 at the Irish College Salamanca
(In pencil) Wrote a sketch of William Bathe
(cf de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ” for his writings) (cf Archivum Hibernicum Vol VI pp 157-74 for a biography)
◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Walter and Bela (Beatrice) née Leonard. Brother of Patrick
He had spent three months at Irish College Salamanca before Ent 30 Septmber 1612 Villagarcía
He completed his Noviceship at Medina del Campo
1614-1617 After First Vows he was sent to St Ambrose, Valladolid for Philosophy.
1617-1621 he then was sent for Theology first at Valladolid and then to finish at Compostela where he was Ordained 05 June 1621, and graduated with a “Grand Act”
1621-1622 He was then sent to Valladolid to teach
1622-1624 He taught at Monterey and Pamplona
1624/25-1628 Rector of Irish College Santiago after the death of William White
1629-1646 Rector of Irish College Salamanca 01 May 1629, succeeding Thomas Briones. For most of his active life in the Society he was occupied with administration but this did not prevent him from engaging in the deeper study of theology, particularly in Holy Scripture. (His published works are listed in Somervogel) For the historian, however, the 'autobiographia' written in 1643 is of most interest. He died in Office at Salamanca 08 August 1646
Like his brother Patrick, Paul also volunteered for service on the Irish Mission
◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Sherlock (Sherlog), Paul
by Deirdre Bryan
Sherlock (Sherlog), Paul (1595–1646), Jesuit priest and theologian, was born in August 1595 at or near Waterford city, reputedly the son of Walter Sherlock and his wife Beatrice Leonard. He was a descendant of James Sherlock of Gracedieu who, in 1494, was granted extensive lands in Co. Waterford by Henry VII in reward for his family's loyalty to the Tudor monarchy. The Sherlocks, who served frequently as mayors of Waterford city between 1492 and 1642, were one of the foremost catholic mercantile and landowning families of east Waterford.
As a young boy Sherlock attained a proficiency in Latin under the tutelage of a catholic schoolmaster in Waterford. Like many of his contemporaries, he left Ireland for Spain, aged 16, to study at the Jesuit-run Irish College at Salamanca. He landed in Bilbao in May 1612 and reached Salamanca at the beginning of July. Together with Thomas Vitus (Wyse), a fellow-student from Waterford, he was admitted to the Society of Jesus at Salamanca on 30 September 1612. He spent the first two years of his novitiate at Villagarcia and Medina del Campo before travelling to Santiago de Compostela in 1614. Over the next seven years he studied philosophy and theology at the Jesuit college at Valladolid and at Santiago, where in 1621 he was ordained. In 1624 he succeeded Thomas White (qv), who had died in 1622, as rector of the Irish college at Compostela; four years later he was appointed rector of the Irish college at Salamanca, where he remained until his death in 1646.
A highly educated man, Sherlock taught scholastic theology and divinity both at Salamanca and Compostella. He published many theological works which earned him considerable praise from scholars in Spain and France. His most important work was a combination of ecclesiastical history and devotional commentary based on the text of the Song of Solomon; it was published in three folio volumes: Anteloquia ethica et historica in Canticum Canticorum (Lyons, 1634), Commentarium in duo priora capita Cantici Canticorum (Lyons, 1637), and Commentarium in reliqua captia Cantici Canticorum (Lyons, 1640), all three volumes being reprinted in Venice in 1641. He dedicated the work to Fernando de Vera, bishop of Cuzco, whose financial generosity, combined with the earnings accrued through publication, were sufficient to enable Sherlock to found a library at the Irish college at Salamanca. Two other works, written under the pseudonym of Paulus Leonardus, were also published: Responsio ad expostulationes recentium quorundam theologorum contra scientiam mediam (Lyons, 1644) and Antiquitatum Hebraicarum Dioptra (Lyons, 1651).
In April 1642 and again in February 1643, Robert Nugent, superior of the Jesuits in Ireland, wrote to the general of the order, Viteilleshi, requesting the return to Ireland of Sherlock and another Irish Jesuit, Luke Wadding (a professor at Salamanca and cousin of the Franciscan Luke Wadding (qv) (1588–1657)), declaring both priests to be ‘absolutely necessary to this mission’ (Grogan, 94). Neither priest returned.
Sherlock's religious practices of flagellation, wearing hair shirts, and fasting eventually eroded his health. It was believed by some that he received direct communication from heaven while praying and writing. He died 9 August 1646 at the Irish college, aged 50 years, and was buried in Salamanca.
After his death the Jesuits claimed that the library he founded at the Irish college was the property of their society and not the university. Four Irish students of the college took proceedings in the court of the chancellor of the university, successfully recovering the books acquired by Sherlock. In 1919 a six-foot brass plaque was erected in Waterford's catholic cathedral commemorating a unique group of priests, native to the diocese, who were eminent in the church both at home and abroad. Paul Sherlock is among those commemorated.
J. Ware, The writers of Ireland (1764), 120–21; DNB; Anon. [attributed to Mother Mary Berchmans / Margaret Mary Sherlock], ‘Distinguished Waterford families: Sherlock’, Journal of the Waterford and South East Ireland Archaeological Society, ix (1906), 120–28, 171–5, x (1907), 42–4, 171–83; Amalio Huarte (ed.), ‘El. P. Paulo Sherlock: una autobiografia inédita’, Archiv. Hib., vi (1917), 156–74; P. Power, Waterford saints and scholars (1920); K. Kelly, ‘Father Paul Sherlock S.J.’, Decies: Journal of the Old Waterford Society, i (1976); William Nolan and Thomas P. Power (ed.), Waterford: history and society (1992), 189, 218; Patrick Grogan, ‘The Sherlocks of Waterford’, Decies: Journal of the Old Waterford Society, lvi (2000), 81–94; ODNB
◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Paul Sherlock 1593-1646
Paul Sherlock of Waterford entered the Society at the age of 17 at Salamanca. As a Theologian he gained a great reputation, and was equally successful at government. For twenty years he was Rector of the Irish Colleges at Salamanca and Santiago.
He had very weak health, nevertheless he led a very austere life, and subjected his body to severe inflictions in daily disciplines, hair cloths and other penances. He himself says in a diary meant for publication :
“Here in Santiago I determined to wrote on the Canticles of Solomon, and to that end I have studied indefatigably, desiring in this way to imitate the Fathers of the Church. I did without a great part of my sleep at night. I continued in Salamanca for two or three years with greater rigour, for the cold nights of that place were especially mortifying. In 1629 I began to prepare the first volume of the work on the Canticles of Solomon for the press. To this end I received great strength from a vision of St Brendan the Irish Abbot”.
He died on August 9th 1646 at the age of 51, with a great reputation for holiness.
◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
SHERLOCK, PAUL, was born at Waterford, on the 14th of August 1595. Well grounded in Classical literature, he entered himself in the Irish College at Salamanca, in 1612, and on the 30th of September the same year enlisted under the banner of St. Ignatius. As a Theologian he attained to the highest reputation; for his ability in governing he was equally distinguished; and for the long period of 20 years, during which he was Rector at Salamanca and Compostella, he secured the esteem and attachment of his Brethren and Subjects. Application was made to the General of the Order on various occasions by F. Robert Nugent, the Superior of the Irish Mission, that his services might he confined to his native country; but, under the circumstances, it was judged expedient to continue F. Sherlock in Spain, and at Salamanca he terminated his useful career on the 9th of August, 1646. Gifted with talents of the first Order, and indefatigable in labor, he would have left numerous evidences of his genius and erudition, if his constitution had been stronger, or his life more extended; still we had from his pen,
- “Antiloquia in Canticum Canticorum”. 3 vols. fol. Lyons, 1633, 1637, 1640, under the borrowed name of Leonardus Hibernicus.
- “Vindiciae Scientiae Media”. 4to, Lyons. 1644.
- A posthumous work, “De Hebraeorum Republica”. Fol. Lyons, 1651
*I believe the Family of Sherlock or Schyrlock came from Chester, with the Bagots. - From Devonshire emigrated the Cogans, and Fitz-Stephens.
