MEDINA, MIGUEL. - Franciscan theologian, b. at Belalcazar (Cordova) in 1489, d. at Toledo on 1 May 1578. He studied and then taught Sacred Scripture at the University of Alcalá. In 1562 he was sent by Philip II to the Council of Trent, where he defended the doctrine of indulgences and ecclesiastical celibacy, and where he began, at the behest of the cardinal legates, the confutation of the Centuries of Magdeburg. In 1571 he was elected, in Rome, definitor general of the Order.
He carried on a long controversy with Dominic Soto, O. P., who with the Annotationes (Salamanca 1554) had censured the doctrine of the Franciscan Giovanni Wild (Ferus), writing the Apolageticum locorum quorumdam J. Peri (Alcalá 1558). Soto replied and M. rejoined, attempting a general rehabilitation of Wild. Summoned before the Inquisition of Toledo, he was imprisoned for the entire duration of his long trial (1572-78). Already gravely ill, he was taken back to the Convent of S. Juan de los Reyes, where he died. After his death he was rehabilitated by the Holy Office, and his Apolageticum, like the works of Wild, were removed from the Index in the revision of 1900.
Of his works four touch on subjects treated at the Council of Trent: Christianae pardensis sive de recto in Deum fide libri septem (Venice 1564); Disputatio de indulgentiis adversus nostrae tempestatis haereticos (ibid. 1564); Explanationes in quartum Symboli apostolici articolum (ibid. 1564); De sacrorum hominum continentia (ibid. 1559). He also wrote in the vernacular, in a clear and elegant style: Tractado de la christiana y verdadera humildad and the Exercicio de la verdadera y christiana humildad (Toledo 1570).
Bibliography5 works
Gaudenzio Melani