ARIAS, FRANCISCO. - Ascetical writer, b. at Siviglia in 1533; having already become a priest and graduated from the University of Alcalà, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1561; d. at Siviglia on 23 May 1605.
At Valenza (1588), under the common title Aprovechamento espiritual, he published a series of rather personal treatises on spiritual progress, distrust of self, prayer (this treatise being especially recommended by St. Francesco di Sales to Filotea), the presence of God, mortification, and the imitation of the Most Blessed Virgin, together with a rosary of 50 mysteries imitated from Blosio. More substantial, but also more diffuse, is his Libro de la Imitación de Cristo Nuestro Señor (3 vols., Siviglia 1591-1602); in the first volume he treats of the goods that we have in Christ, and in the second and third of the virtues of which He is an example to us. These works had many translations and reprints down to the nineteenth century.