Sixtus of Siena (or Sixtus Senensis) (1520–1569) was a

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""T ...

who converted to

Roman 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 ...

, and became a Roman Catholic

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Biography

He began his career as a Franciscan preacher, speaking throughout Italy. Though he was convicted to die in Rome for the crime of

heresy 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 relig ...

or recidivism, he was saved by a Dominican inquisitor, the future

Pope Pius V Pope Pius V ( it, Pio V; 17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1566 to his death in May 1572. He is v ...

, who repealed the condemnation when Sixtus recanted and pledged to transfer to the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of ...

instead. He is considered one of the two most outstanding Dominican scholars of his generation. He had as a master

Lancelotto Politi Lancelotto Politi (religious name Ambrosius Catharinus, 1483–1553) was an Italian Dominican canon lawyer, theologian and bishop. Historians and theologians generally have regarded Catharinus as a brilliant eccentric. He was frequently accu ...

, some of whose writings he later publicly criticised. Sixtus apparently destroyed all his remaining manuscripts and writings before his death. Sixtus coined the term ''

deuterocanonical The deuterocanonical books (from the Greek meaning "belonging to the second canon") are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East to be ...

'' to describe certain books of the Catholic

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

that had not been accepted as

canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical examp ...

by Jews and Protestants but which appeared in the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

, and the definer for the Roman Catholics of the terms ''

protocanonical The protocanonical books are those books of the Old Testament that are also included in the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and that came to be considered canonical during the formational period of orthodox Christianity. The Old Testament is entirely ...

'' and the ancient term ''

apocrypha Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

l''.

His work ''Bibliotheca sancta ex præcipuis Catholicæ Ecclesiæ auctoribus collecta''"Sacred library collected from the precepts of the authorities of the Catholic Church". (Venice 1566) treats the sacred writers and their works, the best manner of translating and explaining Holy Writ, and gives a copious list of Biblical

interpreters Interpreting is a translational activity in which one produces a first and final target-language output on the basis of a one-time exposure to an expression in a source language. The most common two modes of interpreting are simultaneous interp ...

, in eight books. It was the first of the genre of encyclopedic teaching repertories of

dogma Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...

and Church tradition issued in the wake of the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described a ...

Notes

External links

"Franciscan scholars": Sixtus of Siena
* {{Authority control 1520 births 1569 deaths 16th-century Italian Jews 16th-century Italian Roman Catholic theologians Italian Dominicans People convicted of heresy Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism People from Siena

Biography

Notes

Further reading

External links