VEGA, ANDREAS DE

Franciscan Observantine theologian; b. Segovia, Spain, 1498; d. Salamanca, Sept. 1549. He studied and taught at the University of Salamanca, and at the age of 40 became a Franciscan Observantine. He was sent by the emperor Charles V to the Council of Trent as theologian to Cardinal Pacheco, and was present at the first seven sessions of the council. Vega took a conspicuous part in the preliminary discussions on the canon of the Scriptures, and the decree promulgated in the fourth session adopted his opinion. He was also a leading participant in the preliminary discussions on the dogma of justification, and in these he engaged in debate with Domingo de soto. Vega wrote a defense of Catholic teaching on justification, De iustificatione, gratia, fide, operibus et meritis (Venice 1546), that antedated the decree of the council by one year. After the promulgation of the council's decree, he wrote in its defense Tridentini decreti de iustificatione expositio et defensio libris XV distincta (Venice 1548), the last two books of which were in refutation of Calvin's Antidotum in acta Synodi Tridentinae. Vega's two works on justification were regarded so highly by Peter canisius that he had them printed together in one volume (Cologne 1572). Except for the posthumous Commentaria in psalmos (Alcalá de Henares, 1599), Vega's other writings have not been edited.

Bibliography: s. horn, Glaube und Rechtfertigung nack dem Konzilstheologen Andreas de Vega (Paderborn 1972), bibliography, 293–302. h. recla, Andreae Vega, OFM, Doctrina do Justificatione et Concilium Tridentinum (Madrid 1966).

[p. k. meagher]