The Poverty from virtue to hersy, Alfonso de Castro

Abstract

The present paper presents the entry “poverty” that Alfonso de Castro OFM (1495-1558) wrote in his work Adversus omnes hereses (1534). In order to do so, we will place the work in the context in which it was written: The Golden Age and the Lutheran Reform in particular. We will point out the polemical and controversial methodology in which his doctrinal thought develops and we will present the four heresies or errors that he points out, especially the first three, which deal with the abuse in the condemnation of property and possession of goods, the universalism of material poverty as an element of salvation and, in the opposite sense, the condemnation of religious poverty. The last error is that which deals with the goods of the Church. Alfonso de Castro is aware that a good pedagogy and
understanding of the themes avoids doctrinal deviations.