Nicolás de Arnaya (1558–1623): Disciple of Luis de la Puente (1554–1624)

• In Event: Jesuit Devotional Literature

Abstract

The Spanish Jesuit, Nicolás de Arnaya, arrived as a missionary in Veracruz on 10 September 1584. He served as master of novices in Tepotzotlán from 1605 to 1610. He later gathered the lectures he imparted in the fulfillment of this role and published them in Seville in three volumes in 1617 and 1618. His lectures made evident the influence that the ascetic teacher Luis de la Puente had on his spirituality. In fact, a year earlier Arnaya’s abridgment of de la Puente’s Meditaciones de los mysterios de nuestra santa fe (1605) appeared in print in Valencia. The presentation offers a close examination of Arnaya’s Conferencias espirituales (1617–18). It will demonstrate the ways in which Arnaya employed de la Puente’s notion of the heroic spiritual life. Moreover, like de la Puente, Arnaya advocated the integration of the active and contemplative life into a third option, the compounded or mixed life.

Author

• Rady Roldan-Figueroa, Boston University