BARONIUS, JUSTUS. - Protestant convert, b. at Xanten (Silesia) ca. 1570; the year and place of his death remain unknown. Educated in a rigid Calvinism, but shaken by the disagreements among the various sects and by the bitterness employed in the struggle against the Roman Church, he devoted himself to reading the Catholic Bible and the commentaries of the Fathers, especially of St. Augustine and St. Cyprian, and became persuaded that the Church of Rome had in no way departed in doctrine from the early Church: the specious objection most in vogue in the 17th century, raised by Protestants against Catholics. Having come to Rome to examine the questions in depth, he was well received by Clement VIII and above all by Cardinal C. Baronio, whose works ended by confirming him in the truth. Thus, having returned to his homeland, he wrote of his imminent conversion to the same Pope, who replied to him (17 Jan. 1601) encouraging him to take the great step. The conversion took place in 1601; and from then on he also began to call himself Giusto Baronio, in gratitude to the cardinal. Of his later life almost nothing is known; it is only recalled that he took a degree in theology at the University of Siena, in jurisprudence at that of Perugia, then returned to Germany to study at the University of Heidelberg. Having later withdrawn to Mainz, he devoted himself to the conversion of his former coreligionists.
He wrote: Justi Calvini Veterocastrensis pro sacrosanta catholica Romana Ecclesia, proque sua ad eam transmigrazione Apologia (Mainz 1601; 2nd ed. Heidelberg 1756); De latitudine Ecclesiae Dei et moderata coercitione haereticorum (ibid. 1601); Epistolarum Catholicorum liber unus (ibid. 1601; 2nd ed. Mainz 1756); Praescriptionum adversus haereticos perpetuarum ex ss. orthodoxis, patissimum Patribus Tract. IV (ibid. 1602; 2nd ed. ibid. 1756).
Bibliography2 works
Celestino Testore