BAEZA, DIEGO de. - Spanish Jesuit, b. at Ponferrada (León) in 1582; he entered the novitiate at Salamanca in 1600, taught philosophy at Valencia and Valladolid, and later achieved great success as a preacher. He d. at Valladolid in 1647.
He left two volumes of sermons: Sermones en todas las fiestas de Nuestra Señora, tres en cada una (Valladolid 1642); Sermones funerales... (ibid. 1645). But he is celebrated for two massive works: Commentaria moralia in Evangelicum historiam, 4 vols., folio (ibid. 1623-30), with more than ten reprints at Lyons, Venice, Paris, and Cologne; Commentaria allegorica de Christo figurato in Veteri Testamento, 4 vols. (Valladolid 1632-40), complete ed. at Lyons 1636-53, 7 vols., folio, reprinted at Paris and Venice.
These works, especially the first, are a disordered but exceedingly rich mine of material for preaching, with extensive indexes « ad usum concionatorum »; they were therefore much plundered.