 Francisco Suárez was born in Granada on 5 January 1548, the son of Gaspar Suárez de Toledo and Antonia Vázquez de Utiel. He made a famously slow start. Thus, for example, his application to join the Society of Jesus at the age of sixteen was the only one of fifty to be rejected: his health was weak and his intellect seemed unpromising. After appeal, he was finally admitted to the novitiate, but only as a lowly ranked indiferente—someone whose permanent rank within the Society would be determined at a later date. Even after being admitted, it took some time—and some praying—before Suárez's talent for philosophy and theology began to emerge. Eventually, however, they emerged as fully and undeniably apparent, and he rose to a position of great professional and academic  prominence.[2]