Cipriano de Valera

Cipriano de Valera
Cipriano de Valera, La Biblia del Siglo de Oro
Born	1531 Nertobriga, Fregenal de la Sierra, Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain
Died	c.1602 (aged 71)
Nationality	Spanish
Alma mater	University of Seville
Occupation	Theologian
Notable work	Reina-Valera Bible
Signature

Cipriano de Valera (1531–1602) was a Spanish Protestant Reformer and refugee who edited the first major revision of Reina's Spanish Bible, which has become known as the Reina-Valera version. Valera also edited an edition of Calvin's Institutes in Spanish, as well as writing and editing several other works.

Biography

Early Life & Conversion

Valera was born at Fregenal de la Sierra about 100 kilometres north of Seville. He was a student for about six years at the University of Seville studying Dialectics and Philosophy, where he was influenced by the sermons of Giles of Viterbo amongst others. After graduation, Valera became a monk in the Order of the Hieronymites and lived at the Monastery of San Isidoro. Owing to the influence of the Reformation in nearby Seville, Valera and most of the other monks at San Isidoro accepted reformist teaching with twenty-two of the forty monks in the monastery being accused of heresy. In spite of the dangers, twelve of them fled to Geneva, including Casiodoro de Reina and Antonio del Corro as well as Valera himself. Of those that remained, forty were burned to death in autos-da-fé by 1562; Valera himself was burned in effigy.

Geneva & England

Valera first went to Geneva, before travelling to England upon the accession of Elizabeth I in 1559. In that same year, Valera was made Professor of Theology at the University of Cambridge and became a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. During this time, Valera also served as minister of Church of St Mary Axe, which housed a congregation of Spanish Protestant refugees, as well as frequently travelling to Amsterdam to support the Reformation there.

Death

The year of Valera's death is unknown, with the publication of the Reina-Valera Bible in 1602 being the last known date in his life.

Writings

In 1559, Valera assisted with the writing of the 'Spanish Confession of London' along with Reina and others, which sought to stress the theological orthodoxy of the Spanish and Italian Protestant communities in London, in response to the writings of Michael Servetus and Sebastian Castellio on the Trinity. Later in his life, in 1597, Valera translated Calvin's Institutes.

Most famously, however, Valera amended Reina's translation of the Bible into the Spanish vernacular and travelled to Leiden in 1602 with a printer to present the first copy to Maurice of Nassau and the States General of the Netherlands, from where it was published.

In response to these various works, Valera was listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum and called "el hereje español" ("the Spanish heretic") par excellence.

Personal Life

Portrait of Judith de Valera. c. 1590. Oil painting. 23,5 x 19,5 cm, approx. Geffrye Museum, London

In 1564, Valera married an Englishwoman, with whom he had one daughter, Judith, who married Thomas Kingsmill, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, and had issue.

See also

• Bible translations

Bibliography

• Hauben, Paul J. (1967). Antonio Del Corro, Cassiodoro De Reina, Cypriano De Valera. Geneva: Droz.
• Hutton, L. J. (1958). "A Spanish Heretic: Cipriano de Valera". Church History. Vol. 27. pp. 23–31.
• Kinder, A. Gordon (1988). "Religious Literature as an Offensive Weapon: Cipriano de Valera's Part in England's War With Spain". The Sixteenth Century Journal. 14 (2): 223–235.
• Menéndez Pelayo, Marcelino (1956). Historia de los heterodoxos españoles (in Spanish). Vol. IV. Madrid: La Editorial Católica. pp. 323–329. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Works by Cipriano de Valera at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Cipriano de Valera at the Internet Archive
• Text of the Reina–Valera (1602)