Constantino Ponce de la Fuente

Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, known as Doctor Constantino (San Clemente, province of Cuenca, 1502 - Seville, 1560), Spanish Protestant theologian convicted by the Inquisition who he became chaplain to King Carlos I. His real name is Constantino de la Fuente: the surname Ponce was added by the historian of the Inquisition, Juan Antonio Llorente, when evoking his figure in his Historia criticism of the Inquisition (confusion between Ponce and Fonce, from the Latin, Fontius, source).

Biography

Probably of Hebrew descent, he was born in 1502 in San Clemente, in the diocese of Cuenca. He was trained at the University of Alcalá but carried out his work mainly in Seville, where he arrived in 1533. While serving as preacher at the Cathedral, he was ordained a priest and graduated in Theology. There he produced his work and achieved celebrity. By then Seville had become the main focus of Protestantism in Spain, as some of the main theologians of the city sympathized or identified with Protestantism, such as Juan Gil (Dr. Egidio), Francisco Vargas and Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, In addition to being there the Hieronymite monastery of San Isidoro del Campo, which exuded the same doctrine everywhere, counting among its members Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, the first translator of the complete Bible into Spanish from Hebrew and Greek., and the second reviewer of the same. Another prominent Protestant, Juan Pérez de Pineda, was also working at the Colegio de la Doctrina there.

In 1548, Dr. Constantino became the king's chaplain at the court of Charles I, until 1553. During this time, he traveled as such with Prince Philip through Italy, Germany, Flanders, England and Brussels. Upon returning to Seville, he occupied the Magistral Canonry, vacant after the death of Dr. Egidio, starting in 1557. Shortly after, upon discovering the Lutheran focus in Seville in the summer of the same year, the Inquisition prosecuted him as a Lutheran. Upon being imprisoned, Felipe II, who had heard his sermons during his trip through Germany and Flanders, along with those of Agustín Cazalla, said: "If he is a heretic, he will be a great heretic."

Died shortly after entering prison, he was unable to organize his defense. Shortly before his death, the inquisitors discovered - hidden in the house of one of his friends - his secret library with Protestant books and treatises written by his hand. The inquisitors, who had already attacked his books (censoring and burning them publicly in 1558), attacked his life. When he finished his process, they dug up his mortal remains and burned him, with other members of the Sevillian Protestant community, after the Auto de Fe of December 22, 1560.

Work

From his Latin verses, when he was a student in Alcalá, to the manuscripts seized by the Inquisition, after his arrest, he wrote a good number of works that were included in the Index of prohibited books in 1559: Confession of a sinner, Sum of Christian Doctrine (1543), Exposition of the First Psalm of David or Beatus vir (1546), Christian Catechism (1547) and Christian Doctrine (1548). All these works have come down to us, both in their editions from the XVI century (first in Seville and then in Antwerp) and in those of Luis de Usoz y Río and others more recently. The work Confession of a sinner was also published anonymously in Seville (1547).

Indicative bibliography

• Bataillon, Marcel, Erasmus and Spain, FCE, Mexico, 1995
• Boeglin, Michel, Réforme et dissidence religieuse en Castille au temps de Charles Quint: l'affaire Constantino de la Fuente (1505?-1559), Honoré Champion, Paris.
• Boeglin, Michel, "Salts and commentary to the Psalm in the Fifth in Castile. Between converse heritage and evangelical sensitivity: Beatus Vir (1546) of Dr. Constantine", Cahiers d’Études des Cultures Ibériques et Latino-américaines (Cecil), ISSN 2428-7245,leer online
• Jones, William Burwell, Constantine Ponce de la Fuente. The problem of the protestant influence in sixteenth century Spain, 1965, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Vanderbilt University, Michigan, 2 vol.
• Menéndez Pelayo, Marcelino, History of the Spanish heterodox, vol. V, Madrid, Lib. de Victoriano Suárez, 1928.
• Nieto, José Carlos, The Renaissance and the other Spain. Socio-spiritual cultural vision, Geneva, Droz, 1997.
• Ponce of the Source, Constantine, Amount of Christian doctrine. Sermon of Our Lord on the Mount. Christian catechism. Confession of a sinner, L. Usoz y Río (ed.), Madrid, 1863.