BELLECIUS, LUDWIG. - Ascetic and theological writer, born at Freiburg in Breisgau on 15 February 1704, a Jesuit from 1719, died at Augsburg on 21 April 1757. For several years he taught philosophy and theology; then he was sent to Brazil, where he taught theology at Pará for four years and worked as a missionary in the Marañon region. Returning to Europe before 1750, he resumed his theological lectures at Freiburg; in 1752 he was instructor to the fathers of the third probation and later minister of the college at Augsburg.
He owes his fame to his writings, often reprinted and translated (cf. Sommervogel): *Christianus pie morens* (2 vols., Freiburg in Br. 1749); *Virtutis solida praecipua impedimenta, subsidia, incitamenta* (3 vols., Regensburg 1755), a methodical manual intended chiefly for young religious. His *Medulla ascesis sive Exercitia S. P. Ignatii de Loyola* (Augsburg 1757), a vigorous commentary in the form of an eight-day course of spiritual exercises, was later taken up by various authors in different forms; Fr. A. Bresciani produced an Italian edition (Turin 1842), reprinted by Marietti (ibid. 1915; 1926: 23rd thousand).