RIBERA, FRANCISCO de. — Exegete, born in Villacastín (Segovia) in 1537, died in Salamanca in 1591. Already a priest and doctor of theology, he became a Jesuit in 1570; he was subsequently a missionary and for 16 years professor of Sacred Scripture at Salamanca.
Having been a student and later writer at the Colegio de Arzobispo in Salamanca, and even rector of the University, he thought of withdrawing from the world as a hermit, in order to be free for sacred study, in imitation of St. Jerome, whom he greatly admired. After entering the Order, he gave examples of exquisite humility, obedience, and zeal for souls. During his teaching of Sacred Scripture, he sought the solution to difficulties not only in his vast erudition (especially patristic), in the sagacity of his hermeneutical principles (he was almost the only one at the time to defend the single literal sense), but also in prayer, accompanied by fasts and penances. His harsh adversary, Fray Luis de León, censured in him the scant esteem in which he perhaps held medieval Jewish exegesis. St. Teresa (v.) of Avila, who had a special vision on this subject and made him her confessor, was an admirer of his exegesis. R. received her with veneration, called her “his mother,” and became her first biographer. However, ACQUAVIVA, GIULIO (v.) did not permit the publication of this biography until after a lengthy correspondence, since the Society of Jesus was then passing through a difficult period in Spain.
Works: In librum XII prophetarum commentarii sensum... historicum moralem et persaepe etiam allegoricum complectentes (Salamanca 1587, etc.); In librum XII proph. commentarii selecti historici (there 1598); La vida de la madre Teresa de Jesús (there 1590, etc.; many versions); In ... Apoc. commentarii cum 5 indicibus, together with De templo et de iis quae ad templum pertinent ll. 5 (there 1591; De Templo alone: Lyon 1592); In Ep. ad Hebraeus commentarii (Salamanca 1598); In Ev. sec. Johannem commentarii (Lyon 1623). He also left manuscript commentaries, in the University Library of Salamanca, on Is., Ps., Apoc., the Epistles of St. Paul, and the 12 prophets.