Alonso de Espina ( – after 1464) was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as a ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

. He was the author of ''Fortalitium Fidei'', a treatise on arguments to be used to oppose detractors of Catholicism.

Biography

Thought by many to be a convert from

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

, Alonso de Espina was for many years superior of the House of Studies of the

Friars Minor The Order of Friars Minor (also called the Franciscans, the Franciscan Order, or the Seraphic Order; postnominal abbreviation OFM) is a mendicant Catholic religious order, founded in 1209 by Francis of Assisi. The order adheres to the teachin ...

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...

, Spain. Recent scholarship suggests that Alonso was not a converted Jew (''

converso A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants. To safeguard the Old Christian po ...

'').

Fortalitium

He was a man of

great learning The ''Great Learning'' or ''Daxue'' was one of the "Four Books" in Confucianism attributed to one of Confucius' disciples, Zengzi. The ''Great Learning'' had come from a chapter in the ''Book of Rites'' which formed one of the Five Classics. I ...

and attained considerable renown as a preacher, but his chief claim to fame is being the author of ''Fortalitium Fidei''. The ''Fortalitium'' was written in 1458, but it was added to by Alonso at different times up to the year 1464. The edition published at Nuremberg in 1485 begins thus: The fact that the Fortalitium appeared

anonymously Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...

gave rise to some difference of opinion as to its authorship. However, most modern scholars

attribute Attribute may refer to: * Attribute (philosophy), an extrinsic property of an object * Attribute (research), a characteristic of an object * Grammatical modifier, in natural languages * Attribute (computing), a specification that defines a prope ...

it to Alfonso de Spina. The Fortalitium Fidei is a

treatise A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions."Treat ...

on various types of arguments to be used by

s and others to oppose detractors of

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. It is divided into five books: the first directed against those who deny the divinity of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

; the second against "

heretics Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

"; the third against the

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s; the fourth, against

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

s; the fifth gives instructions on the battle against the

devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...

. In this last book Alonso dwells at length upon the demons and their hatred of men; the powers they have over men and the diminution of these powers, owing to the victory of Christ on the Cross, the final condition of the

demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...

s, and so on.

Other works

Alonso de Espina published at least three other works: #''Sermones de Nomine Jesu Vigintiduos'', issued about 1454 (which has been erroneously confounded with the Fortalitium by at least one noted Catholic scholar); #''Sermones plures de excellentia nostræ fidei'', preached in 1459; and #A treatise on fortune, dedicated to

John I of Castile John I ( es, Juan I; 24 August 1358 – 9 October 1390) was King of Castile and León from 1379 until 1390. He was the son of Henry II and of his wife Juana Manuel of Castile. Biography His first marriage, to Eleanor of Aragon on 18 June 1375, ...

(1404–1454). In ''The Complete Book of Devils and Demons'' Leonard R. N. Ashley says that Alonso is quoted as stating that the total number of angels who sided with Lucifer's revolt was 133,306,668, a figure, Ashley remarks, so precise that one hardly knows what to say; he adds that the Book of Enoch puts the number at 200.The Complete Book of Devils and Angels, p. 72
/ref>

References

External links

Alfonso de Spina on Sacred Warfare
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Espina, Alphonso de History of the conversos 15th-century Castilian Jews 15th-century Castilian Roman Catholic priests Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Conversos Year of birth unknown University of Salamanca alumni University of Salamanca faculty