Thursday, July 3, 2025

It is the 3rd of July 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Today I have a story from a time period you might be familiar with, but it’s a figure I’m willing to bet you’ve never heard about.

Oh sure, here at 1517 (at 1517.org) we are a pro-reformation group and tell the stories of reformers and reformations from Germany to England and Scotland, to France and the New World… but today we remember a forgotten character and a very popular book once ascribed to him and what we might stories we might hear when the worlds of the Renaissance and Reformation come crashing together. 

His name was Aonio Paleario, and he was born in Central Italy right around 1500. There was no “Italy” in the later and modern sense, but rather city states like the Florence of the Medici and the formerly warring Milan and Venice, as well as the Papal State. Young Aonio was baptized “Antonio” according to one source, and either removed the T to make it sound more Italian, or, later, pious stories were that he didn’t feel worthy to have a T, shaped like a cross, in his name.

Despite being orphaned early, he was afforded an education, and by 1520, he was in Rome in the circles of Pope Leo X. The young and pious Paleario (As the story goes) was first offended by the lavish lifestyles and immorality of many at Rome. With the sacking of Rome in 1527, he was said to be fully disillusioned and had already fallen in amongst the so-called “spirituali”. As you might expect, so close to Rome, full-fledged Reform movements-or at least public ones-couldn’t expect to last. And so we find covert salons and meetings with people of various tolerance for reform. Names like Bernard Ochino, the Spaniard Juan de Valdez, and Peter Martyr Vermigli are the standard names.

But what about our man- Antonio, without a T? He would take his training in the humanistic studies and begin teaching. He published a 1536 poem on the immortality of the Soul and was considered somewhere between Erasmus and Luther. That is, for many in the early Reformation, it was not a binary “protestant or Catholic,” but rather there were shades of reform, and often in Italy, where a full-scale attack on the Catholic Church would likely be crushed, the reformers were on a spectrum.

In the early 1540s, there was a rumor around the Italian city states of a book, like the smuggled works of Luther and others, but of local vintage- an anonymous book with the title we can translate as “The Benefit of Christ’s Death”.  In 1543, in Venice, this book was published, instantly translated into other languages, and tens of thousands of copies were sold (this would make it one of the best-selling books of its day). The rumor was that Aonio was the author and the Roman Inquisition set its sights on him. He was able to defend and deflect, but like those other Italian spirituali, he would have to be on the move- he ended up teaching in Milan when the Inquisitor there picked up charges against him in 1566. In the wake of the Council of Trent, there was now a first-of-its-kind definable Catholic Orthodoxy, and Aonio Paleario would be condemned to death and executed on this, the 3rd of July in 1570.

But then there is the rest of the story.

First, this curious book, the Benefit of Christ’s Death, which quoted Reformers and argued for a justification apart from works, was believed to have been so thoroughly suppressed by the inquisition that no copies were left. That is, until 1855, when a 300-year-old copy was discovered, and interest in the book and Aonio Paleario was rekindled. There are whole books written about Aonio and his authorship of the book. Until 1881, when Pope Leo (the last one) opened the Vatican archives for scholarly use, we have a confession from one Carnessechi that Don Benedetto and the poet Flaminio authored the book. Subsequent research has all but confirmed this, and Paleario wasn’t the one behind the mysterious book. But he was a key figure, teaching Biblical languages and making arguments that got him in trouble- arguing against what he believed was tradition trumping Scripture and the misuses of Authority by church leaders- this would have likely been enough, especially by the 1560s to come under suspicion and indictment- which Aonio Paleario was-  to his death on this day in 1570.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and James 2 a passage perhaps less controversial than it can sometimes sound:

21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 3rd of July 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by ChrisOpher… or maybe just Opher… Gillespie following our boy Aonio.

The show is written and read by a man reminding you that “Christopher” is from the Greek khristophoros- which means “Christ Bearer”- originally associated with a saint who was a giant who helped people get across rivers… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.