ALFONSO di ZAMORA. — Converted rabbi, born at Zamora in 1474, baptized in 1506, died in 1531. He was the first professor of Hebrew at the University of Salamanca. For 15 years he worked on the Complutensian Polyglot, Cardinal Ximenes having entrusted him with the correction of the Hebrew text and the Latin translation of the Targum.
He prepared the entire sixth volume of the Polyglot (1515), containing a Hebrew-Aramaic vocabulary and a Hebrew grammar. He subsequently published, again in Latin, a new Hebrew grammar with a lexicon (Alcalá 1526), adding to it a Catalogus iudicum, regum et sacerdotum atque prophetarum Veteris Legis and an Epistola
auctoris ad infideles Hebraeos urbis Romae (in which he demonstrates the coming of the Messiah). El Escorial preserves manuscripts by A. in Castilian: Libro de la Sabiduría de Dios (against the Jews), a third Hebrew grammar, and the translation of Kimchi’s commentary on the first 59 Psalms.
ALFONSO MARIA de' LIGUORI, saint, doctor of the Church.
SUMMARY:
1. Biography
2. His work
3. Literary activity
4. The moralist
5. The dogmatic theologian
6. The teacher of asceticism
7. The reception of the works of s. A.7. BIOGRAPHY
Born at Marianella, near Naples, on 27 September 1696, to don Giuseppe de' Liguori, captain of the royal galleys, and donna Anna Cavalieri, of the marquises of Avenia; died at Pagani on 1 August 1787. Having completed at home his courses in literature and science, in which music and the arts also played their part, in 1708 he enrolled at the University of Naples, after having been examined in rhetoric by G. B. Vico. There he studied civil and canon law, graduating in law on 21 January 1713, with a dispensation of approximately four years from the required age. He completed his precocious education under the guidance of Perrone and Jovene, celebrated jurists, while at the same time attending the circle of the president of the High Council, Domenico Caravita, a kind of evening academy where historians and philosophers of law such as Costantino Grimaldi, Gaetano Argento, and Pietro Giannone gathered, the principal architects of Neapolitan jurisdictionalism.In 1715 he joined the pious association of the Doctors, directed by the Fathers of the Oratory, edifying young and old magistrates by his conduct. In the same year he began to practice law and, as appears from the Catalogo delle sentenze, he was always successful in his defenses. Because of his rare abilities, in 1718 he was elected judge of the royal Portulano of Naples and in 1722 ambassador of the new viceroy, Cardinal Altan. The following year, the duke of Gravina entrusted him with a very important case against the grand duke of Tuscany. Despite his rigorous diligence, sharpened by the exceptional nature of the dispute concerning feudal matters, the brilliant lawyer suffered a bitter defeat because of a clause that had not been duly taken into consideration. He believed that his reputation had been annihilated and his future destroyed; and, reviving an intention from his early youth, as indicated in his unpublished Diario, after several months he decided to assume the ecclesiastical habit. Having overcome his father’s opposition and offered the Madonna in the Church of the Mercede his sword as a Knight of the Sedile of Portanova, he renounced his right of primogeniture and undertook the study of theology with the highly learned Monsignor Giulio Torni, regularly taking part in dogmatic and moral discussions at the homes of Monsignor Guerriero and the Lazarist fathers.
On 21 December 1726, having been ordained a priest, he immediately began his ministry among the common people of the poorest districts, paying no heed to the prejudices of the patriciate from which he descended. With the assistance also of laymen, he established, principally for street boys (lazzaroni), the “Evening Chapels,” which became a school of civic and moral re-education. As a member of the Apostolic Missions, he went to the towns around Vesuvius, the Apennines, and Apulia, announcing the eternal truths to the popular masses with simplicity. From that moment onward, concern for the salvation of the most abandoned souls acted in him as the predominant force.
A series of providential encounters, including those with the venerable Sister M. CROSTAROSA, PIETRO (v.) and Monsignor
JURAMENTI
PROFESSIONIS FIDEI
curam Animarum habentibus, & locis Regularium,
ac Militiarum predictendis, obferoanda.
GO Alphonso Maria de' Liguri. S. Agnès
Gallagher
firma fide credo, & proficeo omnia, & singula,
que continentur in Symbolo fidei, quo sancta
itomans Ecclesia utitur, videlicet; Credo in-
unum DEUM. Patrem omnipotentem facto-
(phot. Curia 3ra, pp. Redentoristi, Rome)