VALDES, val-des', JUAN and ALFONSO DE.

Alfonso on the Sack of Rome (§ 1).

Juan's "Mercury and Sharon"; Alfonso (§ 2).

Juan's Relations with Rome, and with Giulia Gonzaga (§ 3).

Later Writings (§ 4).

Theological Views (§ 5).

1. Alfonso on the Sack of Rome.

The Hispano-Italian reformers, Juan and AIfonso de Valdes, were born as twins at Cuenca (84 m. s.e. of Madrid), Castile, about the end of the fifteenth century, Juan dying at Naples in the summer of 1541, and Alfonso at Vienna early in Oct., 1532. Alfonso, in 1520, accompanied the young King Charles to his coronation at Aachen, and then went to Worms, where he witnessed the burning of Luther's writings, which he, unlike the majority, considered but the beginning of the tragedy of the Reformation. A few years later he was imperial secretary to the high chancellor, Mercurino Arborio da Gattinara, and when the Spanish monks raged against Erasmus, Alfonso warmly defended the Basel scholar. In May, 1527, Rome was stormed and sacked by an imperial army, though without imperial sanction, and the pope himself was made prisoner. Alfonso voiced the sentiment of the court in a dialogue on the catastrophe between Lactantius, a cavalier of the emperor, and an archdeacon just come from Rome to Valladolid. Lactantius, through whom Alfonso expresses his own views, declares that the pope, as a disturber of the peace and as faithless to his word, brought the sack of Rome upon himself. He advocates the surrender of the papal temporal power and asserts that, since the exposure of ecclesiastical corruption by Erasmus and the sedition incited by Luther had alike failed to reform the papacy, God had turned to other means of conversion and had found them in the sack of Rome. The archdeacon himself concludes the dialogue with the hope that the emperor would now take the reformation of the Church in hand. The papal nuncio, Count Baldassare Castiglione, and Alfonso's fellow secretary, Juan Aleman, both sought to have this "ultra-Lutheran" document condemned to the flames, but the archiepiscopal grand inquisitor declared that the dialogue contained nothing heretical.

Meanwhile, probably in Dec., 1528, Juan had written his dialogue "Mercury and Sharon," a piece full of biting satire on false Christians. At the same time, Spain is declared more happy than Germany, where Lutheranism had given birth to many other sects. The justice of the punishment of Rome is maintained, and the absolute need of reform is stressed. Both the "Mercury" and the "Lactantius" were printed anonymously, probably in 1529, repeated editions following; modern editions are by Usóz i Rio in Reformistas antiguos españoles,

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vol. iv. (Madrid, 1850), and by E. Böhmer in his Romanische Studien, parts vi., xix. (Halle, 1871-81). In the year of Castiglione's death, Ah. z. Juan's fonso accompanied the emperor to " Mercury Italy and Germany. At Bologna he and attended the coronation of Charles by, ', Sharon "; Clement YIL, and there received Alfonso. papal favors. At this period, while a follower of Erasmus, he by no means understood the attitude of Luther, and his position with regard to the Reformation was that of the politician. He constantly acted as a tactful mediator between the emperor, the papal legate, and Melanchthon, taking care that the emperor should be well informed of Protestant doctrines, but deeming the Augsburg Confession too bitter for its op ponents to accept it. In Oct., 1531, he wrote from Brussels the imperial congratulations to the Swiss Roman Catholics for their victory over the Zwing lians at Kappel. In 1532 he was one of the agents in securing the imperial sanction of the Protestant rights of possession until the next council of the Church on condition of securing their aid against the Turks. Early in October of the same year, how ever, Alfonso died at Vienna. Juan de Valdds remained in Spain when his brother Alfonso left it with the emperor. In 1531 1532, however, he was in and near 3. Juan's Rome, where he was made Cameriere Relations di spade a cappa at the papal court.

with Rome The pope and the emperor at Bologna and with concluded an alliance on Feb. 24, 1533.

Giulia The pope promised to hasten the deci- Gonzaga. sion concerning the marriage of the emperor's aunt with Henry VIII. of England, who had .repudiated her. This decision, rendered Mar. 23, 1534, was in favor of the queen, whom Juan had defended in his "Mercury," and the pope, desiring to prove his amicable intentions, gave Juan a place at his court, though himself as sailed in Valdds's dialogue. Juan's duties were merely nominal, but he remained at Rome until the pope's death (Sept. 25, 1534), when he went in the service of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga to Naples, where he passed the remainder of his life. There, in the latter part of 1534, he wrote, at the earnest request of friends, his one non-religious work,.the Dialogo de la lengua (Madrid, 1737; latest ed., E. B�hmer, in Romanische Studien, vi. 339-420). At Naples Juan de Valdea became the spiritual guide of one of the most distinguished and beautiful women in Italy, Giulia Gonzaga, widow of Vespa siano Colonna,, duke of Trajetto. Equally distressed by personal sorrow and by spiritual unrest, she poured out her heart to Juan one day in Lent, 1536, when he was escorting her home from a sermon by Bernardino Ochino (q.v.). For her consolation he wrote the Alfabeto christiano (Eng. transl. with the same title, by B. B. Wifi'en, London, 1861), in which he maintained that Christian perfection consists in loving God above all things and one's neighbor as oneself. Such perfection is not the exclusive pos session of monks and none, but is common to all in proportion to their faith and love of God. In 1534 Gi ulia seems to have retired to the Franciscan nunnery of Santa Chiara, though she did not take the vows.

Apparently before the end of 1536 Valdes sent Giulia his translation of the Psalter from the He-

brew, with an introduction addressed 4. Later to her, and probably his exegesis of Writings. the Psalms (El SaZterio troduzido, ed.

E. B�hmer, Bonn, 1880; the commentary on Pa. i.-xli.-all that are known-ed. in Rivis ta cristiicna,, Madrid, 1882-84; Eng. transl. by J. Betts, London, 1894). In the following year he sent her his commentary on Romans and First Corinthians (Geneva, 155fi-57; Madrid, 1856- [Reformistas antiguos espafioles, x .-xi.]; Eng. transl., London, 1883). He likewise translated and explained the remaining Pauline epistles, except Hebrews, but all traces of these writings have, been lost. From the epistles Valdds turned to te Gospels, and in 1540 he seems to have completed his El Evccngelio segun San Mateo, which he sent Giulia together with a general introduction (Madrid,. 1880; Eng. transl., London, 1882). Concerning his further work on the Gospels nothing is known. In addition to his exegetical activity, Juan de Valdds wrote more briefly on a variety of individual problems of religion,. his Considerazioni (110 in number, published in Italian translation at Basel in 1550; ed. E. B�hmer Halle, 1860; Eng transl., .The Hundred and Ten Considerationsof . . . J. Valdesso, Oxford, 1638; thirty-nine were edited in the original Spanish by E. B�hmer, in his'7'rataditos de Juan de Valdes, Bonn, 1880). This latter work also contains all the minor Spanish writings of Valdes: seven letters (collections of at least thirty letters and of thirtythree responses to questions are known to have existed, though only one response, in Italian, has survived), and his De la Penitenczd cristiana, de la fe crdstiana, y del bdarar crlst%ano. In addition to the response already noted,' there is extant, in Italian only, the Modo che.si dee tenere ne Z'insegxare a predicare il prLneapio dells religione cristiana (Rome, 1545; `ed. E. B�hmer in his Sul Princlpio dells dottrina christiana: . cinque trattatelli, Halle, 1870; reprinted, Rome, 1872), -this collection also containing, besides the Italian version of the De la Penitencia, the Delta giustifacazione, Delta medesima giustificazione, Cho la vita eteriia b dono de Dio per Gesu Cristo, and Se al cristidno .conviene dulrltare ch'egli sea in grazaa di Dio (Eng, transl., fn The Spanish Reformers. Three Opuseules, London, 1882), Seventeen Opuscules, the introductions to the Psalms, Romans, I Corinthians, and the Gospels, the seven didactic letters, "consideration" cix., and the five "tractates."

The basal principles of the Gospel were summarized from the Bible by Valdds in his Instrucion cr^istroana pare los nirT.os (ed. E. Böhmer, Bonn, 1883).

Children should know, he there main

5. Theological Views.

tams, that God is their Father through human birth and Christian regeneration, and that Christ, in whom the sins of all.the world were punished, is the Lord who redeems them from sin, death, and hell. After his ascension Christ sent the Holy Ghost, through whom God began to fulfil what he had promised Abraham. The union of all those who receive the Gospel and are baptized in the name of the Trinity is the Church, sad the characteristic of the Chris-

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tian is love. The Christian life should be constant prayer (though only for what is promised in the Bible), fasting, and feasting-a Christian Sabbath; and only those will be saved who have so accepted the Gospel that it becomes efficacious in their lives and who have taken refuge in baptism as Noah did in the ark. In his doctrine of the Trinity VaidFs is perfectly orthodox, also holding that Christ is the Son of God through generation, while the Christian is the son of God through regeneration. Of confession he speaks at length in the Alfabeto, declaring that the sinner receives forgiveness not because he confesses, but because he believes in Christ. In commenting on I Cor. xi. Valdes sharply assailed the abuses then existing in the celebration of the mass, yet in the Alfabeto he maintained that the utmost spiritual benefit should be gained from the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and advocated the hearing of mesa whenever possible. He professed the greatest faith in the Scriptures and in their divine inspiration, yet looked beyond the letter to the spirit from which the letter proceeded, finding his faith freed from the letter by the very inconsistencies in certain details which it seemed to him to have. In his treatise on penance, faith, and life, Juan set forth his views on preaching and on church discipline. Those of evil life and those who adhere to vain ceremonies and superstitious observances should be excommunicated after three warnings. Then there would be a Church very like that of apostolic times and almost a pattern of eternal life. He abstained from all criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. There was, however, at the time a strong tendency toward Evangelical principles in Italy. A general council was in prospect, and among the adherents of Valdes were papal theologians, bishops, and archbishops, while his personal circle included Vermigli, Ochiho, and Carnesecchi (qq.v.). It was not till a number of years later that his books were forbidden.

(K. Benrath.)

Bibliography: E. Boehmer affixed Cenni biografici sui Jratelli . Valdes to the ed. of the Constderazrooni of Halle, 1860, added a sketch also to the Germ. transl. of the same, ib. 1870, appearing in English as the Lives of Spanish Reformers, London, 1874. A Life is also prefixed to the Eng, transl. of the Commentary on Romans, London, 1883. Further works on the subject are B. Wiffen, Life and Writings of Juan de Valdes, London, 1869; E. Stern, Aljonae et Juan de Valdes, Strasburg, 1889; W. Moller, in TSlf, 1888, 1871; M. Carrasoo, A. et J. de Valdes, Geneva, 1880; W. Schlatter, Die Brader A, and J. de Valdes, Basel, 1901; J. Heep, Juan do Valdes, seine Religion,. sein Warden, seine Bedeutnrtg, Leipsic, 1909.