Casiodoro de Reina
Who was Casiodoro de Reina?
Spanish theologian and priest
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Casiodoro de Reina (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Casiodoro de Reina was born around 1520 in Montemolín, a small town in Spain's Extremadura region. He became a monk in the Hieronymite order at San Isidoro del Campo monastery near Seville, where he encountered humanist scholarship and reform ideas that were spreading across Europe following Martin Luther's break with Rome. Along with several other monks, Reina embraced Protestant beliefs and fled Spain around 1557 when the Spanish Inquisition began looking into San Isidoro for Lutheran ties.
After leaving Spain, Reina spent decades moving through Protestant Europe as a religious refugee. He lived and preached in Geneva, England, Antwerp, and Frankfurt, among other cities. His time in London was particularly difficult; he was a pastor for Spanish Protestant exiles but faced accusations of heresy and sodomy, which he denied and were never proven. He left England in 1563 to avoid church investigations and continued his unstable life across Europe, always under a cloud of suspicion or controversy.
Despite his unstable situation, Reina dedicated himself to translating the entire Bible into Spanish. Working mostly in solitude and poverty, he used the original Hebrew and Greek texts along with earlier works like the Latin Vulgate and translations by other Protestants. The translation took about twelve years, and in 1569, it was published in Basel, Switzerland. It became known as the Biblia del Oso, or the Bear Bible, named after a woodcut of a bear reaching for a honeycomb on its title page. It was the first full printed version of the Bible in Spanish.
Reina spent his later years mainly in Frankfurt, serving as a minister to the Reformed Protestants there. He formally reconciled with Lutheran church authorities in 1578, finally achieving a more stable religious position after years of uncertainty. He continued writing and engaging in theological discussions until his death on March 15, 1594, in Frankfurt. His Spanish Bible was later revised by Cipriano de Valera in 1602, forming the Reina-Valera version still used today among Spanish-speaking Protestant communities.
Before Fame
We don't know much about Casiodoro de Reina's early childhood or family background. He was born around 1520 in Montemolín, a small town in Extremadura, and later joined the Hieronymite monastery of San Isidoro del Campo near Seville. This monastery had become a hub for humanist learning and secret Protestant thought, which exposed Reina to scholars who studied the Bible in its original languages and questioned Catholic beliefs.
The intellectual excitement of the mid-1500s, fueled by the spread of Luther's ideas and the European Reformation, had a big impact on Reina's life. Spain was one of the most powerful Catholic countries in Europe, but Protestant ideas were secretly circulated, making religious dissent very risky. It was in this intense setting that Reina formed his theological beliefs and pursued his goal of making the scriptures available to Spanish readers in their own language.
Key Achievements
- Produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into the Spanish language, published in Basel in 1569
- Established the textual foundation for the Reina-Valera Bible, which became the standard Protestant Spanish Bible for centuries
- Served as pastor to communities of Spanish Protestant exiles in London and Frankfurt during a period of intense religious persecution
- Drew directly on Hebrew and Greek source texts in producing his translation, reflecting the humanist philological standards of the Reformation era
- Maintained his theological and scholarly work across decades of exile, poverty, and ecclesiastical controversy
Did You Know?
- 01.The Biblia del Oso takes its popular nickname from a woodcut on the title page depicting a bear trying to reach a pot of honey hanging from a tree, a printer's emblem chosen for the Basel publication.
- 02.Reina was accused of sodomy while serving as pastor to Spanish Protestant exiles in London, a charge that forced him to flee England; the accusation was widely believed to have been fabricated by agents of the Spanish Inquisition.
- 03.He spent approximately twelve years completing his Spanish Bible translation, working under conditions of financial hardship and constant geographical displacement.
- 04.Reina's translation was printed in an edition of approximately 2,600 copies in Basel in 1569, a substantial print run for a religious text aimed at a community largely living in exile.
- 05.Although he spent most of his adult life in Protestant northern Europe, Reina never entirely conformed to a single Protestant confession, holding theological positions that caused friction with both Calvinist and Lutheran authorities at various points in his career.