VALLA, vdl'ld, LAURENTIUS (LORENZO): Italian humanist and critic; b. at Rome 1405; d. there Aug. 1, 1457. His father was a conaistorial advocate in Rome, and an uncle provided Lorenzo with a humanistic training before he turned to theology. He was consecrated as priest in 1431. , His first writing, De voluptate ac de vero botw, was not printed until 1483. Meanwhile there appeared Quteetiones dinlecticte; De libero arbitrio; and De elegantiis Latini sermonis, a declaration of war against the usual didactics and Latinity of his time. In 1435 or 1436, Valla entered the service of King Alfonso V. of Aragon; and while under his patronage he composed, about 1440, the celebrated Declamatio de fslso creditca et ementita Corcstantini donations, which showed the so-called "Donation of Constantine" (q.v.) to be a forgery. By 1442, when he accompanied Alfonso to Naples, rumors were already abroad that his views were in opposition to the Church. But the king still protected him against the Inquisition, so that the judicial proceedings against him were suspended (of. Valla's Opera, pp. 195, 356). At Naples Valla composed Collatio Novi Testsmereti, though this was not published until sixty years later (ed. Erasmus, Anreotationes in N. T., Paris, 1505), being " the first fruit of the newly awakened philological studies in behalf of exegesis" (cf. Mancini, Vita, pp. 238 sqq.).

An attempt of Valla's to return to Rome in 1444 miscarried through the fanaticism of the priests, and his Apologia, addressed to Eugehius IV., failed to secure favor. It was not until 1447, under Nicho-

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VAN PELT, JOHN ROBERT: Methodist Episcopal; b. near Todd's Point, Shelby County, Ky., Nov. 10, 1862. He received his education at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Ill. (B.A., 1882; M.A., I885), Boston University (S.T.B.,1887; Ph.D., 1893), Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill., and the University of Halle; he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1887, serving in Illinois till 1891, when he became professor of systematic theology in the Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Col.; in 1901 he returned to the pastorate, and served in Illinois and Pennsylvania till in 1909 he went to his present position of professor of philosophy and Biblical literature in Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Ia. He is a member of the committee for preparing a Sunday-school hymnal for the use of his denomination. His theological position is that of a moderate conservative; he holds to the supreme authority of the Christian revelation in the Bible, but concedes full liberty to the processes of criticism. He has been largely influenced by Kahler in his theological thinking.