VALENCIA (Valentinus, Valentianus), GREGORY of. - Jesuit, one of the most distinguished theologians of Germany in the early post-Tridentine period, b. at Medina del Campo (Castile) in March 1545, d. at Naples on 25 April 1603.
Admitted to the Order in 1565, he went to Germany as soon as he was ordained priest, to occupy the chair of dogmatic theology, first at the University of Dillingen (1573-75), then at that of Ingolstadt (1575-92). After six years free from teaching to devote himself to the publication of his works, he was called to Rome in 1598 as professor of dogma and prefect of studies at the Roman College; in 1602 he took part, by order of the General Claudio Acquaviva, in the Congregations *de Auxiliis*, where he proved himself a staunch defender of Molina (q.v.) and earned from Clement VIII the title of “doctor doctorum.” He did not long survive this new strain, however, and was sent to Naples at the end of 1602 to recover his health, dying there a few months later.
The principal merit of V. lies in his scholarly defence of the faith by word and writing. Among his works: *De rebus fidei hoc tempore controversis* (Lyons 1591; Paris 1610), a collection of 34 monographs already published separately and revised, with 13 further unpublished ones added. He treats especially the cult of the saints, of relics, of the altar Sacrament and of the Sacrifice of the Mass. The work may be compared with the *Controversiae* of St Robert Bellarmine; yet it contains passages and thrusts too virulent against Protestants. His most important writings, however, which give him true pre-eminence, are two: *Analysis fidei catholicae* (Ingolstadt 1585), a methodical treatment in which two principles predominate: only in the Roman Church is the faith found with infallible certainty, and only union with it ensures eternal salvation—assertions that coincide almost verbatim with those of Vatican Council I on papal infallibility; and the *Commentarii theologici* (4 vols., Ingolstadt 1591-97; issued in various editions: 12 in twenty years), a systematic theology that also embraces philosophy and follows the order of questions in St Thomas’s *Summa*; yet within each question it deals with many other topics more consonant with the times and offers a richer array of explanations. The work soon imposed itself by the acuteness of its observations, its wide learning, its order and clarity; yet it still suffers too much from the weakness of old scholasticism, not probing the thought of the Fathers by taking account of their complete works, and sometimes displaying an elementary critical sense when faced with ancient traditions that do not stand up. He also defends, before Molina, a particular theory of his own concerning human freedom and divine concurrence, appealing to an “active determination” of the will under the stimulus of prevenient grace; this theory, called “Valencianism,” was followed down to our own day by other eminent Jesuit theologians.
In the economic question, then only in its infancy, he was among the first to defend, against determined opponents, the legitimacy of a certain interest on loaned capital, and his opinion eventually prevailed. In the question of witches, however, a burning issue of the time and almost a mania, he did not rise to the occasion; in an opinion of 1590 addressed to Duke William V of Bavaria and in his *Commentarii* (III, Ingolstadt 1595, pp. 2002-10) he adopted the exaggerated and cruel ideas of his age, obsessed by witchcraft, and neither distinguished nor helped to distinguish the few truly guilty persons from the hundreds of innocents whom he should rather have saved.
To V.’s credit, however, must be set the fact that he formed in Germany an elite band of professors of theology and philosophy, insisting that they attend not only to doctrine but to the nobility of form, and awakening a critical sense and a return to ancient sources.
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