Alfonso Salmeron

Alfonso (Alphonsus) Salmerón, SJ (8 September 1515 – 13 February 1585) was a Spanish biblical scholar, a Catholic priest, and one of the first Jesuits.

On 22 April 1541, he pronounced his solemn vows in St. Paul's-Outside-the-Walls basilica as a professed member of the newly established Society of Jesus.

For two years Salmeron preached in Rome; his exposition of the Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians thrice a week in the church of the Society effected much good (1545).

Salmeron gave statements on issues including justification, Holy Eucharist, penance, purgatory, indulgences, the Sacrifice of the Mass, matrimony and the origin of episcopal jurisdiction.

On 4 October 1549, Salmeron and his companions, Claude Le Jay and Peter Canisius, took their doctorate at the University of Bologna, so that they might, at the urgent invitation of William IV of Bavaria, accept chairs in Ingolstadt.

He was soon (February, 1551) sent down to Naples to inaugurate the Society's first college there, but after a few months was summoned by Ignatius to go back to the Council of Trent as theologian to pope Julius III.

The Gospel volumes are entitled, Alfonsi Salmeronis Toletani, e Societate Jusu Theologi, Commentarii in Evangelicam Historiam et in Acta Apostolorum, in duodecim tomos distributi (Madrid, 1598–1601).

In old age, he gathered his notes together, revised them, and left his volumes ready for posthumous publication by Bartholomew Pérez de Nueros.

Hartmann Grisar (Jacobi Lainez Disputationes Tridentinae, I, 53) thinks that the commentary on Acts is the work of Perez; Braunsberger (Canisii epist., III, 448) and the editors of Monumenta Historica S. J.