There was at that time in Naples a Spanish gentleman, who having a certain knowledge of evangelical truth and above all of the doctrine of justification, had begun to draw to the new doctrines certain noble-born persons with whom he conversed, refuting the idea of justification by our own deserving, and of the merit of works, and exposing certain superstitions." He adds that the disciples of Valdés "did not cease to frequent the churches, to resort to mass like other people, and to share in the current idolatry." This however gives no idea of his real greatness. Valdés was at once a devout mystic and a born teacher; and having settled in Naples he at once became the leading spirit and the oracle of a wide circle of devout and cultured men and women who submitted themselves wholly to his teaching and guidance.
Born of a noble family at Cuença in new Castile (c. 1500), where his father Ferrando was corregidor, he and his twin-brother Alfonso had been educated for the public service. Both were early drawn into sympathy with the protest against abuses, but whilst Alfonso died an "erasmista," Juan advanced far beyond this. Alfonso entered the service of the Emperor, and, though an indifferent Latinist, gradually rose to be first secretary. In this capacity he was responsible for several imperial letters which urged the necessity of reform in no gentle terms. But these are not our only index to his opinions. He was a close friend of Erasmus and a student of his writings; and after the Sack of Rome in 1527 he put forth a Dialogue between Lactancio, an imperial courtier, and a certain archdeacon, in which he vindicates the Emperor, and declares the catastrophe to be a judgment upon the sins of the Papacy. Lactancio allows that Luther had fallen into many heresies, but very pertinently says that if they had remedied the things of which he justly complained, instead of excommunicating him, he would never have so lapsed. He calls for a speedy Reformation, that it may be proclaimed to the end of the world how "Jesus Christ built the Church, and the Emperor Charles V restored it." Alfonso follows in the footsteps of Erasmus; and the reader of the Colloqula will find little that is new here, unless it be that Alfonso is, as a contemporary said, more Erasmian than Erasmus himself. He was at once attacked, but found many defenders; and Charles himself declared that though he had not read the book, Valdés was a good Christian, who would not write heresies. Accordingly, he was not molested, and ended his life in the Emperor's service early in October, 1532.
Little is known of Juan's early life, excepting that he was for ten years about the Court, apparently under his brother. Towards the end of this period, and just after the Diàlogo de Lactancio was finished, Juan produced a similar work, the Dialogo de Mercurio y Caron, in which Mercury and Charon are made to confer with the souls of the departed as to their religious life and the affairs of the world they have just left. It really consists of two distinct dialogues differing in style and substance,
