DIEGO ÁLVAREZ DE PAZ. — One of the principal spiritual authors of the Society of Jesus. Born in Toledo in 1560, he entered the Jesuits in 1578. While studying theology under Fr. Gabriel Vázquez in Alcalá, he left in 1584 for Peru, where he completed his studies and was ordained priest in 1586. Professor of philosophy, then of theology and Sacred Scripture, he later became rector of the colleges in Quito (1596–1600) and Cuzco (1601–1605), vice-provincial of Tucumán (1605–1607), prefect of studies, and then rector in Lima (1609). At the end of 1616 or early in 1617, he was appointed provincial of Peru, a position he held until his death in Potosí on 17 January 1620. A zealous superior, he promoted the eradication of idolatrous superstitions among the converted Indians. On several occasions, he unsuccessfully urged the colonial authorities to place Lima in a state of defense against English pirates.
Álvarez de Paz owes his fame to three folio volumes published in Lyon by Horace Cardon: *De vita spirituali eiusque perfectione* (1618), *De exterminatione mali et promotione boni* (1613), and *De inquisitione pacis seu studio orationis* (1617) (for partial reprints, cf. Sommervogel and Uriarte-Lecina; for practical use, the reprint by Vives, *Opera omnia*, Paris 1875–76, 6 vols. in 4°). These works form the organic parts of a grand synthetic exposition of spiritual theology (contemporary with *Ejercicio de perfección* by A. Rodríguez, *De virtute et statu religionis* by F. Suárez, and *De la perfección del cristiano en todos sus estados* by P. De la Puente). The first volume deals with the nature and degrees of the spiritual life and evangelical perfection; the second with the practice of perfection, on the one hand through the destruction of sins and vices and the mortification of passions (one of its finest features), and on the other through the acquisition of virtues, especially humility, and the three religious vows. The third volume is entirely devoted to prayer: vocal prayer (divine office) and mental prayer; what precedes, accompanies, and follows prayer; topics for prayer for beginners, those making progress, and the perfect (here Álvarez de Paz includes a series of 249 meditations; noteworthy is his almost continuous use of the method of meditation through colloquies); then, in the last two treatises, affective prayer and perfect contemplation. According to the plan outlined by the author in the preface to the first volume, this third volume was also to treat “de procuranda animarum salute,” but the development given to the subject of prayer did not allow it, and Álvarez de Paz promised to make it the subject of a separate book, which he never found time to write.
Written entirely in Latin (unlike the works of the great Spanish spiritual authors of the period), Álvarez de Paz’s work is distinctly didactic in character (with extensive, and at times somewhat excessive, use of divisions) and, above all, theological; it combines great doctrinal precision with a wealth of biblical and patristic data. Álvarez de Paz is the first theorist of affective prayer, clearly distinguishing between meditation and contemplation (vol. 3, ch. 4). He is the first Jesuit to have treated infused contemplation at length; apart from his manifest personal experience, his sources here are exclusively medieval: St. Thomas Aquinas, the Victorines, etc.; his residence in Peru did not allow him to know or at least to utilize the writings of St. Teresa and other contemporary mystics.