Bernat Oliver

His theological writings, infused with learning, touch on the Jews, the Bible and the decretals, but he is mainly remembered as the most important exponent of Augustinian mysticism in Spain through his Excitatorium mentis ad Deum.

Born in the late 13th century to a prominent family in Valencia, Oliver's parents obtained for him an education in grammar and Latin.

[a] He was promoted to definitor and then, on 7 October 1329, superior of the province of Aragon, according to the contemporary Augustinian historian Jordan of Quedlinburg.

[1] Oliver first began to work for the Aragonese crown in the early 1330s, when he served as King Alfonso IV's envoy to Pope John XXII.

In September 1340, Oliver visited the cathedral of Jaca to establish regulations for its governance and afterwards convoked a diocesan synod at Huesca.

At the synod, he raised the issue of the archdeaconry of the valley of Onsella, which belonged to Huesca but was in the possession of the diocese of Pamplona.

He returned to Avignon in 1343, but Pope Clement VI sent him back on a diplomatic mission to Peter IV with Cardinal Bernard d'Albi.

In 1345, Peter IV asked the pope to make Oliver a cardinal as a reward for his peacemaking efforts between Aragon and Majorca, but to no avail.

In July, he dealt with some controversies regarding the practice of apostolic poverty at the Franciscan convent in Vilafranca del Penedès.

On 13 April 1346, he named procurators, Antoni de Colell and Domènec Martínez, to undertake his ad limina visitation.

It contains rigorous arguments, syllogistic reasoning and citations of the Bible, Aristotle, Josephus, Origen, Isidore of Seville and Maimonides.

His most famous work, written at an unknown date and location, is Excitatorium mentis ad Deum[e] in the tradition of Christian mysticism.