Cipriano de Valera

Cipriano de Valera (Fregenal de la Sierra, Kingdom of Seville, 1531/2-London?, not before 1602), listed in the Index librorum Prohibitorum (Madrid, 1667, p 229) as "the Spanish heretic" par excellence, was an ex-cloistered Hieronymite monk, convert to Protestantism and humanist, author of the so-called Biblia del Cántaro (1602), considered the first corrected edition. from the Bible of the Bear by Cassiodoro de Reina (Montemolín, Badajoz, c. 1520-Frankfurt am Main, Holy Roman Empire, 1594) from 1569, known to this day as the Bible Reina-Valera.

In moments of political or religious instability, Oxford offered his hospitality to eminent Spanish scholars as Cipriano de Valeraauthor of the precious Bible Castellana which, modernized, is still published [...]

Words of His Majesty King Juan Carlos I to the academic community by being researched doctor "honoris causa" in civil law by the University of Oxford. United Kingdom (Oxford), 24 April 1986.

Biographical information

Púlpito del Patio de los Naranjos de la Catedral de Sevilla. An inscription recalls that "in this place they preached Saint Vincent Ferrer, Saint Francis of Borja, Blessed John of Avila," etc.

Nothing specific is known about his life until he studied per sex annos Dialectic and Philosophy at the University of Seville –“while Arias Montano was studying it”–, “he heard from very willingly the doctrine of the good preachers of Seville such as Dr. Egidio and Constantino Ponce de la Fuente", he entered the Order of Observant Jerónimos, a fact that must have occurred immediately after his graduation, or he arrived at the monastery of San Isidoro del Campo, very close to the ruins of ancient Itálica, in the current municipality of Santiponce.

As for his possible date of birth, it can be deduced that this must have occurred in 1531 or 32, as can be seen from the Exhortation to the Christian reader that heads his revision of the Reina Bible, published in 1602:

I was 50 years old and began this work: and in this year of 1602 in which it has plazido à my God take it out to Ia luz, I am 70 years old (it is this in which the raças desfallecen, Ia memoria se entorpece and the eyes are dark). So I've spent 20 years on it.

Regarding his «surname», it should be noted that the Hieronymites had the custom of including the place of birth as the second component of the religious name of the professed, which, in the absence of documentary data, would originally relate it to the current archaeological remains of "Valera la Vieja" (Nertobriga), located in the municipality of Fregenal de la Sierra (Badajoz).

From San Isidoro to Geneva

Shortly before, he had been prior to San Isidoro García Arias, one of the disciples of Egidio. Queen would praise him for having introduced "the light of true religion" in the monastery.

As Bataillon affirms, «Spain is shown to us in Seville [...] agitated by a preaching that could not be implicitly called Protestant, which clearly derives from Erasmian Enlightenment and which, between 1535 and 1555, adhered to justification by the faith without deducing from it fatal conclusions for Catholic dogmas".

The Andalusian capital thus becomes a hive of small groups (Valera himself quantifies them at around eight hundred), where interest in the reform movement (neither Gonsalvio nor Valera speak of "Lutherans") is strongly installed.

Doctor Iua.erez de pia memoria year of 1556 printed the new Testament, and an Iulian Ηernandez moved by the zelo de hazer bien à his nation led very many destos Testaments, and distributed them in Seville year of 1557.

Cipriano de Valera. Call to the Christian reader to read the Holy Scripture. 1602.

But perhaps none as well known or well documented as that of San Isidoro, where no less than 22 of its forty members are accused of heresy.

Among the monks, suspicion grows that the Inquisition is closely monitoring their activities. Despite the risk, the decision is made to go to Geneva (at that time, shelter and impregnable bastion of the evangelical faith) through various routes.

Faced with such expectations, during the summer of 1557, twelve monks fled the monastery: the prior Francisco Farías, the vicar Juan de Molina, the attorney Pedro Pablo, the prior of the Jerónimo convent of Écija or the friars Antonio del Corro, Hernando of Lion, Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera himself. Of those who did not manage to escape, some forty were burned in the autos-da-fe of 1559 (September 24), 1560 (December 22) and 1562 (April 16); others were convicted "in absentia".

England

Geneva. Wall of the Reformers. From left to right, Guillaume Farel, Juan Calvino, Teodoro de Beza and John Knox.

Already in Geneva (where he stayed for a short time), he got to know the members of the group of Spanish refugees, some of whom had been there since September 1556 (on October 1, 1558, he was admitted along with seven other compatriots as an "inhabitant" of the city), among whom the aforementioned Juan Pérez de Pineda stands out, as well as Juan Calvino, whom he will translate Institution of the Christian religion (1597), or Teodoro de Beza, with whom he studied Theology at the Calvinist Academy in Lausanne.

But it will be in England where he resides from his arrival –immediately after the coronation of Elizabeth I on January 15, 1559 (January 5, 1559^jul.)– until at least 1602, the queen herself named him Professor of Theology at Magdalene College, Cambridge (February 9, 1559-February 21, 1567), he married "an English lady" (possibly in 1563), frequented the temple of St. Mary Axe, joins the University of Oxford on February 21, 1565 as Master of Arts, is appointed tutor of Νichοlas Walsh or comes and goes, continually, to Αmsterdam.

In these years he also participated in the writing of the so-called Spanish Confession of London, dated January 4, 1559 and presented by Reina as proof of the strict orthodoxy of the Spanish and Italian Protestant communities based in England, suspected of discordant opinions on the Trinity after the writings of Miguel Servetus and Sebastián Castellion.

Leiden

Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt. Portrait of Mauritius of Nassau,
c. 1613-1620. Oil on board, 221,5 x 146 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Once the Bible was finished, Valera and the printer Lorenzo Jacobi moved from Αmsterdam to Leiden in order to present some copies to Mauricio de Nassau and the States General of the Netherlands. Jacobo Arminio gives them a letter of recommendation for Juan Vittenbogaert, a Protestant theologian in the city. He says like this:

There pass Cypriano de Valera and Lorenzo Jacobi to present Mr. Count and the General States some copies of the Spanish Bible that have finished printing. There is among them some dissension, which you will make, since the two of you put into your hands; it is a matter of little time and so, with ease, you will put them in peace, and more than both are friends, that up here with great agreement and conspiring to the same end, have promoted that work, and are determined not to lose this friendship, because the world has. You will seek all that is on your side, that Valera re-establishes England with his wife, provided with a good help of coastline. I've done for him here what I could. And to the truth, he is obliged to spend the short time remaining with the least discomfort possible. Àmsterdam and November 1602.

“In 1602, Valera was seventy years old, according to what he himself says in the Exhortation cited. […] It is true that since the year 1602 we have completely lost sight of him».

Last years and death

It is not entirely certain that Valera returned to England after his stay in the Netherlands, although it is most likely, nor, above all, the exact date of his death.

Among the papers of Benjamin B. Wiffen (1794-1867), a self-annotated copy of Jan Drusius's Ecelesiasticus Graece ad exempla Romanum was found, strongly emphasizing that he did so.

On the cover of the aforementioned book, the English rector of the Gymnasium in Amsterdam Matthew Slade (1569-1628) writes:

Spectatae pietatis et eruditionis seni, reverendo in Xto fratri D. Cypriano Valeiiano amoris aeternum duraturi pignus, Amsteldamo Batavae In Angiiam redenti hunc lìbrum LM. D. D. Matthaeus Sladus frh. f. prydaino-saxo ab Austroperotto Durovngum anno MDCII ad XIIII Kalend. Oct.

It is also known that he was in Middelburg on November 20, 1602, as can be seen from this brief handwritten dedication:

[...] pio ac docto uveni Samueli Radermachero in signum ac tesseram amicitiae hoc scripsit Cyprianus de Valera.

[...]

Midelburgi 20. Novembris anno 1602.

A probable notation in the Athenae Cantabrigenses relates him still alive in 1606. Other authors place the dubious date of his death in 1602, 1622 or even 1625.

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  Nertobriga on a map of the Baetica 17th century.

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  «The city of Seville is one of the most civil, populous, rich, ancient, fruitful, and more sumptuous buildings that today exist in Spain: [...]»

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  «La ville de Genève auec fa situation». 1552.

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  «Part of Ralph Agas's map of Oxford». 1578.

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  «Amstelredam by Pieter Bast». 1597.

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  "Ontsettinge der Stad Leyden". 1574.

Descendants

Name	Conyuge	Comments	Portrait
Judith de Valera	Thomas Kingsmill (c. 1567-1613)	I contracted second nipcias with Edward Prescott.
Ann Kingsmill (m. 12 October 1673)	Giles Cοys
Sarah Cοys	William Oglethorpe
Anna Oglethorpe	Nathaniel Vincent
Mary Vincent	John Ford
Judith Ford	Thomas Fenn
Nathaniel Fenn	Sarah Stevenson
Joseph Fenn (1790-1878)	Sarah Finch (1795-c. 1870)	They contracted marriage in 1817 and had nine children.

Works

Institution of the Christian religion. After the publication of the original in Latin in 1536 and the translation into French of Calvin himself in 1541, Valera published the work in Spanish in 1597.

"I planted, Apollos prayed, "God has given growth." 1 Co.3.6.

• Instituciοn de la religiοn christiana; composed in four books, and divided into capitulοs by Iuan Calvin. And now again traduzida in Spanish romance, by Cypriano de Valera. «In the house of Ricardo del Campo». 1597.
• Reformed Catholic. Or a declaration that shows quanto that we can conform to the Roman Church, such a qual is today, at various points of the Religion; and at what points we must never agree, but forever turn away from it. Notice to the afficions to the Roman Church, which shows the Roman Religion to be against the Catholic Rudiments and foundations of Cathecism. Composed by Guillermo Perquino, Bachelor of Sancta Theology and transferred in Romance Castellano by Guillermo Massan, Gentil-Man and its printed coast. «In the house of Ricardo del Campo». 1599.
• Two treatises, the first is of the Pope and his authority, collegiate to his life and dotrina, the second is of the missa: the one and the other collected from what the ancient doctors and councils, and the sacred scripture teach: iten, an enxambre of the false miracles with which the Miria of the Visitation, Priora de la Anunciada de Lisboa was deceived to very many,. «London. Second ed. augmented by the same author». 1599.
• BIBLIA. What is it, SACROS BOOKS OF THE VIEY AND NEW TESTAMENT. Second Ediciοn. «In Amfterdam, In Cafa de Lorenço Iacobi». 1602.

Resta now realize what has moved us to do this second edition. Casiodore of Queen moved from a chalk to advance the glory of God and to make a marked service to his nation, in seeing himself in the land of freedom to speak and to deal with the things of God, he began to give himself to the translation of the Bible, which he translated and thus the year of 1569 he printed two thousand and six hundred copies, which by the mercy of God have spread over many regions, in such a way that they are almost not bought today. So that, therefore, our Spanish nation would not lack such a great treasure, as is the Bible in its tongue, we have taken the penalty of reading it and rereading it once and many times, and we have enriched it with new notes, and even sometimes we have altered with mature counsel and deliberation, and not trusting ourselves (for our conscience testifies to us how small our flow is) we have conferred it with different tongues. As for the rest, the version, according to my judgment, is excellent, and so we have followed it as soon as we could, word by word. [...]
We have also taken away everything added from the seventy interpreters or the Vulgate. which is not found in the Hebrew text, which mainly occurs in the Proverbs of Solomon. This I say so that if anyone confides this version with which they call Vulgate, and will not find in this all that of that, it is not maraville, because our attempt is not to transfer what men have added to the Word of God, but what God has revealed in His Sanctations. We have also taken away the apocryphal books from the canonical books; for it is not well done to confirm the truth with the uncertain, the Word of God with that of men. In the canonical books we have added some notes, for text statement, which will be found in another letter than the notes of the first translator.

• The New Testament: which is the evangelicοs and apostolic escrypts revised and conferred with the Greek text by Cypriano de Valera. «In Àmsterdam at Henrico Lorençi's house». 1625.
• Treaty to confirm in the Christian faith the captives of Berberry composed of Zipriano d. Valera i for it published the a. 1594. «In the house of Pedro Shorto». Notice to those of the Roman church on jubilee composed of the same, i published the a. 1600. 1854.

Bible Queen-Valera

There are, among others, revisions of 1861 (printed in London by W. Clowes and Sons), 1862 and 1863 (Print of the University of Oxford), 1909, 1960, 2009 (published by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Last Day Saints)...

• Bible Queen-Valera 1862, in digital format.

The Bible of the Golden Age

It was presented by the National Library and the Biblical Society of Spain on June 16, 2009:

• Moraleja Ortega, Ricardo; et al. (2009). The Bible of the Golden Age. Madrid: Sociedad Bíblica de España. ISBN 978-84-8083-203-8.

Acknowledgments

• Calle «CIPRIANO VALERA», Seville 37°23′33.2′N 5°55′20.9′′O / 37.392556, -5.922472.