PELTEN, THEODORUS. - Jesuit, theologian, b. at Pelta (Overpelt, Belgium), from which he took his name, ca. 1510, d. at Augsburg on 2 May 1584. He was one of the first professors of the Roman College, then taught Greek, Latin and Hebrew at Naples. He was then professor of theology at Ingolstadt, at Munich, then again at Ingolstadt for 12 years (1562-74). His great erudition was much admired, all the more so because he had begun to study late, after having practiced, it seems, the trade of shoemaker. P. was also one of the most effective defenders of Catholic doctrine against the Protestants.
His principal works are polemical. At the University of Ingolstadt, under his direction, the following theses were defended: De maiestate hominis Christi (Ingolstadt 1564); De Extremae Unctionis Sacramento (ibid. 1565); De Baptismo (ibid. 1566); De S.mo Eucharistiae Sacramento (ibid. 1566); Commentatio de indulgentiis ecclesiasticis (ibid. 1566). Up to 1572, in the theses defended under P., all the matters of controversy with the Protestants are treated, as well as other theological matters.
Works by P. himself (composed after his departure from Ingolstadt) are the following: De nostra satisfactione et Purgatorio (Cologne 1576); De originis peccato disceptatio, item de Christi satisfactione et maiestate (ibid. 1576).
He also published important texts and versions, among them S. Ioannis Chrysostomi... in Divi Pauli epistolas (Paris 1596, a work also published in the Bibl. maxima Patrum of Lyons and in other editions of the Sts. Fathers). His exegetical compilations are also noteworthy: In proverbia Salomonis paraphrasis ex scholiis ex ss. Patrum scriptis (Antwerp 1606-1607); Catena Graecorum Patrum in Proverbia Salomonis (ibid. 1614).
Bibliography3 works
Silverio Zedda