THE NW SCHAFF-HERZOG
vol. iv. (Madrid, 1850), and by E. Bohmer in his Komanische Studien, parts vi., xix. (Halle, 1871-81). In the year of Castiglione’s death, Al- 2. Juan’s fonso accompanied the emperor to “Mercury Italy and Germany. At Bologna he and attended the coronation of Charles by Sharon”; Clement VII., 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 opponents to accept it. In Oct., 1531, he wrote from Brussels the imperial congratulations to the Swiss Roman Catholics for their victory over the Zwinglians 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, however, Alfonso died at Vienna. Juan de Valdés 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 spada e 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 assailed in Valdés’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. Bohmer, in Romanische Studien, vi. 339-420). At Naples Juan de Valdés became the spiritual guide of one of the most distinguished and beautiful women in Italy, Giulia Gonzaga, widow of Vespasiano 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. Wiffen, 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 possession of monks and nuns, but is common to all in proportion to their faith and love of God. In 1534 Giulia seems to have retired to the Franciscan nunnery of Santa Chiara, though she did not take the vows.
Apparently before the end of 1536 Valdés sent Giulia his translation of the Psalter from the Hebrew, with an introduction addressed
4. Later to her, and probably his exegesis of
Writings. the Psalms (Hl Salterio traduzido, ed. E. Béhmer, Bonn, 1880; the commentary on Ps. i—xli.—all that are known—ed. in Rivista cristiana, 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, 1556-57; 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 Valdés turned to the Gospels, and in 1540 he seems to have completed his Hl Evangelio 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 Valdés wrote more briefly on a variety of individual problems of religion, his Consideraziont (110 in number, published in Italian translation at Basel in 1550; ed. E. Bohmer Halle, 1860; Eng transl., The Hundred and Ten Considerations of . . . J. Valdesso, Oxford, 1638; thirty-nine were edited in the original Spanish by E. Bohmer, in his Trataditos de Juan de Valdés, Bonn, 1880). This latter work also contains all the minor Spanish writings of Valdés: 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 Penitencia cristiana, de la fe cristiana, y del bivir cristiano. In addition to the response already noted, there is extant, in Italian only, the Modo che si dee tenere ne l'insegnare e predicare il principio della religione cristiana (Rome, 1545; ed. E. Bohmer in his Sul Principio della dottrina christiana: cinque trattatelli, Halle, 1870; reprinted, Rome, 1872), this collection also containing, besides the Italian version of the De la Penitencia, the Della giustificazione, Della medesima giustuficazione, Che la vita eterna é dono de Dio per Gesu Cristo, and Se al cristiano conviene dubitare ch’ egli sia wn grazia di Dio (Eng. transl., in The Spanish Reformers. Three Opuscules, 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 Valdés in his Instrucion cristiana para los nifios (ed. E. Bohmer, Bonn, 1883).
Children should know, he there main-
5. Theolog- tains, that God is their Father through ical Views. human birth and Christian regenera-
tion, 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, and the characteristic of the Chris-