129413
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
SAINT TERESA OF JESUS
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
SAINT TERESA OF JESUS
TRANSLATED FROM THE CRITICAL EDITION OF
P. SILVERIO DE, SANTA TERESA, CJX
AND EDITED BY
E. ALLISON PEERS
VOLUME I:
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
LIFE
SPIRITUAL RELATIONS
NEW YORK
SHEED &' WARD
1946
BY SHEED AND WARD, ING.
63 FIFTH AVENUE,
NEW YORK
NIHIL OBSTAT
REGINALDXJS PHILLIPS, STJL
CENSOR DEPUTATUS
IMPRIMATUR
E. MORROGH BERNARD
Vic. GEN.
Wcstmonasterii, die i6a Junii, 1944
THE BOOK IS PRODUCED
IN COMPLETE CONFORMITY
WITH THE AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
To THE GRACIOUS MEMORY
OF
P. EDMUND GURDON
Sometime Prior of the Carthusian Monastery
of Miraflores
A MAN OF GOD
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
PAGE
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xiii
PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS xxv
AN OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA xxvii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF ST. TERESA xxxvii
THE LIFE OF THE HOLY MOTHER TERESA OF JESUS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION i
CHAPTER I. Describes how the Lord began to awaken her soul in childhood
to a love of virtue and what a help it is in this respect to have good parents . i o
CHAPTER II. Describes how these virtues were gradually lost and how
important it is in childhood to associate with people of virtue . . 12
CHAPTER III. Describes how good companionship helped to awaken
desires in her and the way in which the Lord began to give her light con-
cenung the delusion under which she had been suffering . . .17
CHAPTER IV. Describes how the Lord helped her to force herself to take
the habit and tells of the numerous infirmities which His Majesty began
to send her ........ ao
CHAPTER V. Continues to tell of the grievous infirmities which she suffered
and of the patience given her by the Lord, and of how He brings good
out of evil, as will be seen from an incident which happened to her in the
place where she went for treatment. ..... 26
CHAPTER VL Describes all that she owed to the Lord for granting her
resignation in such great trials; and how she took the glorious Saint Joseph
for her mediator and advocate; and the great profit that this brought her. 32
CHAPTER VTL Describes how she began to lose the favours which the Lord
had granted her and how evil her life became. Treats of the harm that
comes to convents from laxity in the observance of the rule of enclosure . 37
CHAPTER VIII. Treats of the great benefit which she derived from not
entirely giving up prayer lest she should rum her soul. Describes the
excellence of prayer as a help towards regaining what one has lost. Urges
all to practise it. Says what great gain it brings and- how great a benefit it
is, even for those who may later give it up, to spend some time on a thing
which is so good ....... 48
viu CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX. Describes the means by which the Lord began to awaken PAGE
her soul and to give her hght amid such great darkness, and to strengthen
the virtues in her so that she should not offend Him . . -54
CHAPTER X. Begins to describe the favours which the Loid granted her
in prayer. Explains what part we ourselves can play here, and how im-
portant it is that we should understand the favours which the Lord is
granting us. Asks those to whom she is sending this that the remainder
of what she writes may be kept secret, since she has been commanded to
describe in great detail the favours granted her by the Lord . . 57
CHAPTER XI. Gives the reason why we do not learn to love God perfectly
in a short time. Begins, by means of a comparison, to describe four degrees
of prayer, concerning the first of which something is here said. Trxis is
most profitable for beginners and for those who are receiving no consola-
tions in prayer ....... 62
CHAPTER XII. Continues to describe this first state. Tells how far, with
the help of God, we can advance by ourselves and describes the harm,
that ensues when the spirit attempts to aspire to unusual and super-
natural experiences before they are bestowed upon it by the Lord . . 70
CHAPTER XIII. Continues to describe this first state and gives counsels
for dealing with certain temptations which the devil is sometimes wont
to prepare. This chapter is very profitable . . . .74
CHAPTER XTV. Begins to describe the second degree of prayer, in which
the Lord grants the soul experience of more special consolations. This
description is made in order to explain the supernatural character of these
consolations. It should be most carefully noted . . . .83
CHAPTER XV. Continues speaking of the same subject and gives certain
counsels as to how the soul must behave in this Prayer of Quiet. Tells
how there are many souls who attain to this prayer and few who pass
beyond it. The things touched herein are very necessary and profitable . 88
CHAPTER XVI. Treats of the third degree of prayer and continues to
expound very lofty matters, describing what the soul that reaches this
state is able to do and the effects produced by these great favours of the
Lord. This chapter is well calculated to uplift the spirit in praises to God
and to provide great consolation For those who reach this state . . 96
CHAPTER XVII. Continues the same subject, the exposition of this third
degree of prayer Concludes her exposition of the effects produced by it.
Describes the hindrances caused in this state by the imagination and the
memory . . . . . . . .100
CHAPTER XVIII Treats of the fourth degree of prayer. Begins to describe
in an excellent way the great dignity conferred by the Lord upon the soul
in this state. This chapter is meant for the great encouragement of those
who practise prayer to the end that they may strive to reach this lofty
state, which it is possible to attain on earth, though not through our
merits but by the Lord's goodness. Let it be read with attention, for its
exposition is most subtle and it contains most noteworthy things . .105
CHAPTER XIX.~Continues the same subject. Begins to describe the effects
produced in the soul by this decree of prayer. Exhorts souls earnestly not
to turn back, even if after receiving this favour they should fall, and not
to give up prayer. Describes the harm that will ensue if they do not follow
this counsel. This chapter is to be read very carefully and will be of great
comfort to the weak and to sinners . . . . . 1 1 1
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER XX. Treats of the difference between union and rapture. PAGE
Describes the nature of rapture and says something of the blessing that
comes to the soul which the Lord, of His goodness, brings to it. Describes
the effects which it produces This chapter is particularly admirable . 119
CHAPTER XXI. Continues and ends the account of this last degree of
prayer. Describes the feelings of the soul in this state on its return to life
in the world and the light which the Lord sheds for it on the world's
delusions. Contains good doctrine . . . .130
CHAPTER XXII. Describes how safe a practice it is for contemplatives
not to uplift their spirits to lofty things if they are not so uplifted by the
Lordj and how the path leading to the most exalted contemplation must
be the Humanity of Christ. Tells of an occasion on which she was herself
deceived. This chapter is very profitable . . . .136
CHAPTER XXIII. Resumes the description of the course of her life and
tells how and by what means she began to aim at greater perfection. It
is of advantage for persons who are concerned in the direction of souls
that practise prayer to know how they must conduct themselves in the
early stages. The profit that she herself gamed thereby . 145
CHAPTER XXIV. Continues the subject already begun. Describes how
her soul profited more and more after she began to obey, how little it
availed her to resist the favours of God and how His Majesty went on
giving them to her in increasing measure . . . .152
CHAPTER XXV. Discusses the method and manner in which these locu-
tions bestowed by God on the soul are apprehended without being heard
and also certain kinds of deception which may occur here and the way to
recognize them. This chapter is most profitable for anyone who finds him-
self at this stage of prayer because the exposition is very good and contains
much teaching . ..... 156
CHAPTER XXVI. Continues the same subject. Goes on with the descrip-
tion and explanation of things which befell her and which rid her of her
fears and assured her that it was the good spirit that was speaking to her . 1 66
CHAPTER XXVII. Treats of another way in which the Lord teaches the
soul and in an admirable manner makes His will plain to it without the
use of words. Describes a vision and a great favour, not imaginary, granted
her by the Lord. This chapter should be carefully noted . . .169
CHAPTER XXVIIL Treats of the great favours which the Lord bestowed
upon her, and of His first appearance to her. Describes the nature of an
imaginary vision. Enumerates the important effects and signs which
this produces when it proceeds from God. This chapter is very profitable
and should be carefully noted . . . . . .178
CHAPTER XXIX. Continues the subject already begun and describes
certain great favours which the Lord showed her and the things which
His Majesty said to her to reassure her and give her answers for those who
opposed her ........ 187
CHAPTER XXX.- Takes up the course of her life again and tells how the
I^prd granted her great relief from her trials by bringing her a visit from
the holy man, Fray Peter of Alcantara, of the Order of the glorious Saint
Francis. Discusses the severe temptations and interior trials which she
sometimes suffered . . ... . 194
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXI. Treats of certain outward temptations and representa- PAGE
tions made to her by the devil and of tortures which he caused her.
Discusses likewise several matters which are extremely useful for people
to know if they are walking on the road to perfection . . . 204
CHAPTER XXXII. Tells how the Lord was pleased to cany her in spirit
to a place in heU which she had merited for her sins. Describes a part of
what was shown her there. Begins to tell of the way and means whereby
the convent of Saint Joseph was founded in the place where it now is . 215
CHAPTER XXXIII. Proceeds with the same subject the foundation of
the convent of the glorious Saint Joseph. Tells how she was commanded not
to continue it, how for a time she gave it up, how she suffered various
trials and how in all of them she was comforted by the Lord . . 223
CHAPTER XXXIV. Describes how about this time she had to leave the
place, for a reason which is given, and how her superior ordered her to
go and comfort a great lady who was in sore distress. Begins the descrip-
tion of what happened to her there, of how the Lord granted her the great
favour of being the means whereby His Majesty aroused a great person
to serve Him in real earnest and of how later she obtained help and pro-
tection from Him. This chapter should be carefully noted . . 232
CHAPTER XXXV. Continues the same subject the foundation of this
house of our glorious Father Saint Joseph. Tells how the Lord brought it
about that holy poverty should be observed there and why she left that
lady, and describes several other things that happened to frer , . 241
CHAPTER XXXVI. Continues the subject already begun and describes
the completion of the foundation of this convent of the glorious Saint
Joseph, and the great opposition and numerous persecutions which the
nuns had to endure after taking the habit, and the great trials and tempta-
tions which she suffered, and how the Lord delivered her from everything
victoriously, to His glory and praise ..... 248
CHAPTER XXXVII. Describes the effects produced upon her after the Lord
had granted her any favour. Adds much sound teaching. Says how we
must strive in order to attain one degree more of glory and esteem it highly
and how for no trial must we renounce blessings which are everlasting . 261
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Describes certain great favours which the Lord
bestowed upon her, both in showing her certain heavenly secrets and in
granting her other great visions and revelations which His Majesty was
pleased that she should experience. Speaks of the effects which these
produced upon her and of the great profit which they brought to her soul 267
CHAPTER XXXIX, Continues the same subject and tells of the great
favours which the Lord has shown her. Describes His promises to her on
behalf of persons for whom she might pray to Him, Tells of some out-
standing respects in which His Majesty has granted her this favour . 279
CHAPTER XL. Continues the same subject and tells of the great favours
which the Lord has granted her. From some of these may be obtained
most excellent teaching, and, next to obedience, her principal motive in
writing has been, as she has said, to convey this instruction and to describe
such favours as are for the profit of souls. With this chapter the narrative
of her life which she has written comes to an end. May it ,be to the glory
of the Lord. Amen ....... 290
Letter written by the Saint to Father Garcia de Toledo when sending him her Life. 299
CONTENTS xi
SPIRITUAL RELATIONS ADDRESSED BY SAINT TERESA
OF JESUS TO HER CONFESSORS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION. 301
RELATION L From the Convent of the Incarnation, Avila, in the year 1560. 306
RELATION II* -From the Palace of Dona Luisa de la Cerda, in the year 1562. 314
RELATION III. From Saint Joseph's, Avila, in the year 1563. 316
RELATION IV. From Seville, in the year 1576. 319
RELATION V. From Seville, hi the year 1576. 337
RELATION VI. From Palcncia, in the year 1581. 334
FAVOURS OF GOD: VII to LXVII. 337
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
For some time after completing my translation of the Complete
Works of St. John of the Cross, in the year 1935, 1 had no thought
of preparing a similar edition of the works of that other great
Carmelite, to whom he owed so much, St. Teresa. Even when
the welcome given to the works of el Santo in their new dress
showed what an unexpectedly and encouragingly large public
there now was for this type of literature, it seemed to me that la
Santa was on the whole sufficiently well served by the translations
already in existence. But many readers of St. John of the Cross
were not of this opinion: not all St. Teresa's works, they said,
had been satisfactorily translated; not all of them, even, were
based on an up-to-date Spanish text; and, in any case, there
was ample room for a fresh, modern version of the Complete
Works, made by a single hand, with footnotes of an elucidatory
rather than a piously discursive type an edition, furthermore,
which would facilitate individual study by providing compre-
hensive indices.
As time went on, this point of view was increasingly pressed
upon me, and by a great variety of people. In Spain, a well-
known Academician asked me when a complete St. Teresa was to
appear in English; in the American South-west, a remote com-
munity of Carmelite nuns whom I visited put the same question;
in England, the remark became almost a commonplace. At last
I began to reconsider the position. The only easily accessible
versions of the Life and the Foundations were still, though they
had been several times revised, essentially the versions made by
David Lewis in 1870-1: as regards both language and inter-
pretation they could certainly be greatly bettered. The Stan-
brook Benedictines' translation of the Interior Castle, the Way of
perfection and the Minor Works (in prose and verse) dated from
the beginning of this century and were much superior to Lewis;
yet since these volumes had first appeared P. Silverio de Santa
Teresa had published his comprehensive and critical Spanish
edition of the Complete Works, which would make it possible to
add a good deal, especially in the Way of perfection, to what was
already available. The most recently published translation,
was that made by the Benedictines of Stanbrook of the Letters
(4 vols, 1919-24). This excellent piece of work was unfortunately
completed before P. Silverio's three-volume edition of the
xiv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
Letters appeared, and, though in 1927 its editors brought out an
appendix to their final volume consisting of twenty-two letters
and some fragments to which they had not previously had
access, there is a good deal in P. Silverio's three volumes which
it would be worth while to pass on to the English reader. None
the less, the Letters presented the least urgent part of the
problem.
After full consideration, I decided to undertake an edition of
the Complete Works, publishing them all, in one series, as soon
as might be, with the exception of the Letters, a new edition of
which it seemed better to postpone for the present, since it would
be strange if the recent years of upheaval in Spain did not lead
to fresh discoveries. Accordingly, the work was begun in the
summer of 1939, continued throughout the whole period of the
War and is only now completed.
II
It might be thought that St. Teresa so often colloquial and
matter-of-fact in her language would be a great deal easier
to translate than St. John of the Cross, but the truth is very nearly
the exact opposite. There are certainly passages and phrases
in St. John of the Cross which present the greatest difficulty,
but they are relatively few: for all the sublimity of his teaching,
his expression is, as a rule, crystal-clear, and at every turn the
translator is assisted by his logical and orderly mind and by his
great objectivity. Much of St. Teresa's work, on the other hand,
is autobiographical narrative, and, even in that part of it which is
not, every page bears the indelible impress of her forceful and
vivid personality. In addition to the difficulty of interpreting
that personality by means of a translation there are stylistic
difficulties of a kind presented by few, if any, other Spanish
writers of the first rank. As an appreciation of these two points
will help us to a fuller understanding of the qualities of the work
of St. Teresa, it will be worth our while to consider them in
greater detail.
i. To Spaniards there is no writer whose personality com-
municates itself with greater immediacy and intensity than
does that of St. Teresa and this both because of her almost
complete disregard of the literary conventions and because in
nothing that she wrote could her strong individuality ever be
concealed. No translator could hope to convey that impression
as fully and forcibly as do the original words, but he is not there-
fore exempted from the obligation to convey as much of it as
possible. In an attempt to do this, I have denied to her vigorous
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xv
and pugnacious phrases the superfluous words in which another
age might have clothed them. In such passages as these we can
hear the authentic and virile note of a saint unlike any to be found
in a stained-glass window:
"Rest, indeed!" I would say. "I need no rest; what I need
is crosses." 1
We can make use only of a single cell what do we gain
by its being very large and well built? What, indeed? We
have not to spend all our time looking at the walls. 2
"Oh, the devil, the devil!" we say, when we might be saying
"God! God!" and making the devil tremble. Of course we
might, for we know he cannot move a finger unless the Lord
permits it. Whatever are we thinking of? I am quite sure I
am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the
devil than I am of the devil himself. 3
If Thou wilt (prove me) by means of trials, give me strength
and let them come. 4
In rendering these and similar phrases I have had always in
my mind the Teresa whom I have come to know through close
contact with her over many years. A woman who made her
decisions and then stuck to them regardless of the consequences :
I was well aware that there was ample troubleln store for me,
but, as the thing was now done, I cared very little about that. 5
Who, if she ever thought she was afraid of the Inquisition, would
"go and pay it a visit of (her) own accord." 6 And who counselled
her nuns to be like herself:
Strive like strong men until you die in the attempt, for you
are here for nothing else than to strive. 7
Again, St. Teresa has continual outbursts of sanctified common-
sense, humour and irony. "I just laughed to myself" is a type
of phrase which we continually meet in her work and she has left
us an excellent specimen of her sustained laughter in the "Judg-
ment . . . upon various writings". 8 She particularly disliked
pretentiousness, even in what was good, and castigated it with
*Life, Chap. XJII (Vol. I, p. 76, below).
* Foundations, Chap. XIV (VoL III, p. 66, below).
8 Life, Chap. XXV (VoL I, p. 165, below).
4 Way of perfection, Chap. XXXII (Vol. II, p. 138, below).
5 Life, Chap. XXXVI (Vol. I, p. 253, below).
8 Life, Chap. XXXIII (VoL I, p. 226, below).
7 Way of perfection, Chap. XX (VoL II, p. 86, below).
8 Vol. Ill, pp. 229-31, below.
xvi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
those most effective weapons. Even into that sublime commentary
on the Song of Songs entitled the Conceptions of the LoveofGod, creeps
a delightfully shrewd description of the lady whose self-importance
was so intimately mingled with her devoutness. She, and others
like her,
were saints in their own opinion, but, when I got to know them,
they frightened me more than all the sinners I have ever met. 1
Some of her stories are shot through and through with an allusive
humour which it needs all one's ingenuity to render such are the
accounts of her visit to Duruelo, with Fray Antonio sweeping out
the porch and the depression caused in the business men who
came with her from Medina by all those crosses and skulls 2 ;
her efforts to address a great lady as befitted her rank and how
she "got it wrong"; 3 poor Maria del Sacramento and her attack
of nerves on All Souls' eve in the sparsely furnished convent at
Salamanca 4 ; the group of devout ladies at Villanueva, only one of
whom could read with any ease, who tried to recite their Office
using different versions of the Breviary: "God will have accepted
their intention and labour, but they can have said very little that
was correct. 5 ' 6 No less apt to evade one are innumerable little
natural touches which, in the English, if carelessly rendered,
might easily pass unnoticed :
I was . . . ashamed to go to my confessor ... for fear he
might laugh at me and say: "What a Saint Paul she is, with
her heavenly visions ! Quite a Saint Jerome ! " 6
Blessed be Thou, Lord, Who hast made me so incompetent
and unprofitable! 7
I only wish I could write with both hands, so as not to forget
one thing while I am saying another. 8
From foolish devotions may God deliver us. 9
And in her less frequent ironical passages, such as the description
in the Way of perfection of how the devil invents "laws by which
we (nuns) go up and down in rank, as people do in the world", 10
1 Conceptions of the love of God, Chap. II (Vol. II, p. 375, belowl,
* Foundations, Chap. XIV (Vol. Ill, p. 66, below).
3 Way of perfection, Chap. XXII (Vol. II, p. 94, below).
4 Foundations, Chap. XIX (Vol. Ill, p. 94, below).
6 Foundations, Chap. XXVIII (Vol. Ill, p. 164, below).
*Life 9 Chap XXXVIII (Vol. I, p. 267, below).
''Life, Chap. XIII (Vol. I, p. 82, below).
8 Way of perfection, Chap. XX (Vol. II, p. 88, below).
9 Life, Chap. XIII (Vol. I, p. 80, below).
10 Ibid Chap. XXXVI (Vol. II, p. 156, below).
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xvii
or the animadversions in the Life upon the niceties of worldly
etiquette :
the title "Illustrious " has to be given to a man who formerly
was not even described as "Magnificent". 1
The style here is so sedate that one has to pause for quite a long
time before pressing the button lest the photograph should fail
to catch the twinkle in the eye.
Then there are the thousand touches which reveal the tempera-
mentally great writer who never became, or wanted to become,
a professional one the genius born, not made. This trait in
herself St. Teresa never allows us to forget which is just as well
for the translator who might otherwise conventionalize her.
She is "stupid", "incompetent" and always busy with really
"important" things like her spinning-wheel. She has "no learn-
ing", suffers from "noises" in the head, a bad memory, and a
"rough" and "heavy" style. It is useless for her to write any-
thing on mystical theology, for "I am unable to use the proper
terms". She cannot prevent herself from digressing if she feels
like it: otherwise, her writing "worries" her. 2 "How I do let
myself wander!" begins Chapter XXIII of the Way of per-
fection. 3 As for the dates she quotes "you must always under-
stand (them) to be approximate they are of no great
importance." 4 And she scribbles at breakneck speed and with
tremendous intensity, never revising her work nor even re-
reading it to see what she has said last. 6 All the time the translator
has to remember that he is dealing with this unique kind of
woman it would be nothing short of a tragedy if he turned her
into a writer of text-books.
2. The second type of difficulty which should be referred to
will perhaps be of greater interest to the student than to the
general reader. In her "rough style", she says comfortingly at
the end of Chapter XVI of the Way of perfection, her argument
will be better understood "than in other books which put it more
elegantly." 6 That no doubt was true, and may still be true,
so far as the general trend of the argument is concerned, and
one has constantly to be on one's guard, when there is some
"elegant" word that exactly expresses her meaning, against
*Life, Chap. XXXVII (VoL I, p. 266, below).
3 Such references as these are to be found everywhere. See, for example, VoL
I, p. 86, below. Vol. II, pp. 68, 234, 291, Vol. Ill, pp. xxii, xxiii.
3 In the Escorial manuscript. See VoL II, p. 97 n. 6, below.
* Foundations, Chap. XXV (VoL III, p. 132, below).
5 Way of perfection, Chap. XIX (VoL II, p. 76, below).
8 VoL II, p. 68, below.
xviii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
using it but it certainly does not apply to the exact sense of
particular passages. Even Spaniards familiar with her books
are continually baffled when asked the precise meaning of phrases
which at first sight may seem perfectly simple. Vivid, disjointed,
elliptical, paradoxical and gaily ungrammatical, the nun of
Avila continually confounds the successors of those "learned men"
to whom in her life she turned so often for enlightenment. One often
has frankly to guess at her exact meaning, and half a dozen people
may make half a dozen different guesses, none of which anybody
can pick out as definitely correct.
To illustrate these characteristics of her style, I have, for the
sake of brevity, selected examples in which her meaning is^fairly
evident. When to the difficulty of rendering her words without
paraphrasing them is added that of deciding between several
possible meanings it can be imagined how much the task is
magnified.
In the course of a discussion on melancholy in nuns, in the
seventh chapter of the Foundations, St. Teresa observes that lack
of discipline is often more to blame than temperament:
Digo en algunas, porque he visto, que cuando hay a quien
temer, se van a la mano y pueden.
(Lit: I mean in some, for I have seen that, when there is
whom to fear, they become docile and can.)
This, in English, has to be expanded somewhat as follows:
I know it is so in some; for, when they have been brought
before a person they are afraid of, I have seen them become
docile, so I know that they can. 1
Again, in the Interior Castle (VI, viii), she has been considering
how a person can be sure whether some vision is of Christ or
of a saint:
Aun ya el Senor, cuando habla, mas facil parece; mas el
santo que no habla, sino que parece le pone el Senor alii
por ayuda de aquel alma y por companfa, es mas de
maravilla.
(Lit: Even now the Lord, when He speaks, (it) seems easier;
but the saint who speaks not, but seems to have been placed
there by the Lord for aid to that soul and for company,
is more remarkable.)
1 Vol. Ill, p. 39, below.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE . xix
Which means:
When it is the Lord, and He speaks, it is natural that He
should be easily recognized; but even when it is a saint, and
no words are spoken, the soul is able to feel that the Lord is
sending him to be a help and a companion to it; and this is
(still) more remarkable. 1
Then there are shorter phrases, couched in a staccato, almost
telegraphic style, hard enough to translate without a weakening
of their generally considerable force
Con esto, mal dormir, todo trabajo, todo cruz!
(Lit: With this, bad sleep, all trial, all cross!)
And then, the scant sleep they get : nothing but trials, nothing
but crosses! 2
but quite devastating when the dipt phraseology makes one
doubtful of the meaning. And there are words which St. Teresa
uses in a sense entirely her own, and conjunctions which do not
in the least mean whit they say e.g. "and" for "but" and
vice versa, not to mention the conjunction que, which can stand for
almost any other.
One has also to watch for, and preserve, * the Saint's col-
loquialisms. Even in talking with God, she tells us, she has
a "silly way"
in which I often speak to Him without meaning what I am
saying; for it is love that speaks, and my soul is so far trans-
ported that I take no notice of the distance that separates it
from God. 3
How much more unconventional, then, is she likely to be with her
readers ! Not only in her modes of address, but in the introduction
of everyday, semi-proverbial phrases, some of which are no
longer in use in Spain and might be unintelligible did she not
thoughtfully accompany them with an "as one might put it" or
"as they say". It would not be hard to turn into current English
slang such phrases as :
They see that these things are considered, as one might say,
"all right". 4
1 Vol. II, p. 312, below.
*I4fc Chap. XIII (Vol. I, p. 82, below).
9 Life, Chap. XXXIV (Vol. I, pp. 235-6, bdow),
*#*, Chap. VII (Vol. I, p. 39, below}.
xx TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
(I am) so peevish and ill-tempered that I seem to want to
snap everyone up. 1
We had not so much as a scrap of brushwood to broil a
sardine on. 2
So with her homely and vivid metaphors : the Christian making
progress "at a hen's pace" or even "like hens with their feet
tied"; his adversary the devil "clapping his hands to his head"
in despair of ever vanquishing him; love finding an outlet and
not being "allowed to boil right over like a pot to which fuel
has been applied indiscriminately"; 3 worldly aids to devotion
being of no more use to lean upon than "dry rosemary twigs"
which break at the slightest pressure. 4 All these and there are
hundreds of them enlivening her narratives and illumining
her expositions can be so easily spoiled in translation.
Another stumbling block is repetition, a practice to which
St. Teresa was greatly addicted. Some of her repetitions of words
are merely careless and clumsy as in her constant use of the
word "great" 6 and these I have been content to indicate
rather than reproduce every time they occur. When she repeats
phrases it is generally for emphasis
Oh, what terrible harm, what terrible harm is wrought . . .
when the religious life is not properly observed ! 6
and, except occasionally where our language necessitates another
formula for the conveying of the effect, her phraseology can
as a rule be reproduced as it stands. But often the same word
is repeated in a different sense, sometimes so pointedly that it
produces an obvious play upon the word's two or more mean-
ings. Some of these usages cannot be conveyed in English;
others are best translated freely with the point explained more
fully in a footnote. But whenever possible I have rendered this
characteristic Teresan trait quite literally: if it gives the reader
a slight shock, that is probably what she often intended:
How much more will anyone fear this to whom He has thus
revealed Himself, and given such a consciousness of His
presence as will produce unconsciousness! 7
*Life, Chap. XXX (Vol. I, p 199, below).
* Foundations, Chap. XV (Vol. Ill, p. 74, below).
*Lifi, Chaps. XIII, XXXVII, XXVI, XXIX (Vol. I, pp. 75-6, 284, 166,
191, below).
4 Relations, III (Vol. I, p. 316, below).
8 See, for a typical example, Life, Chap. XXXVIII (Vol. I, p. 270, below).
life, Chap. VII (Vol. I, p. 39, below). '
7 Interior Castle, VI, ix (Vol. II, p 316, below).
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xxi
If I . . . used my unhappiness in order to serve God, it
would serve me as a kind of purgatory. 1
But . . . though my will is not yet free from self-interest,
I give it to Thee freely. For I have proved, by long experience,
how much I gain by leaving it freely in Thy hands. 2
Alas that one cannot do more to give the English reader
the unforgettable effect of intimacy with this woman of the
sixteenth century still living and breathing in the twentieth
as she writes in her own language! The fine shades of meaning
which she creates with her untranslatable idioms, her love for
inventing all kinds of diminutives, her characteristic metatheses
and other forms of popular misspelling, her curious serni-
phonetic transliterations of Latin texts, her long, shambling,
breathless sentences, as common as her short sprightly ones,
which for reasons of clarity one cannot avoid splitting up these
make one feel that, when one has done everything possible, one
has still done nothing. All I can say is that I have done my best.
Those acquainted with the Spanish text may care to have
a few notes on the renderings normally adopted for characteristic
words and phrases. One of the Saint's most frequent exclamations,
/ Vdlgame Diosf, which can express any emotion from playful
exasperation to profound distress, is as a rule translated literally, as
"God help me! " Occasionally where the context will not suffice
to indicate the shade of meaning, it becomes "Oh, God!",
"Dear God!" or even "Dear me!" The polite form of address
Vuestra Merced is translated "Your Honour" (or sometimes
merely "you") when applied to a layman and "Your Reverence"
when used to a priest. The word letrados is rendered literally
"learned men", though the type of learning to which it refers
is invariably theological. The characteristic and rather subtle
uses of the word honra ("honour", "reputation", "good name")
are 'dealt with, as they occur, in foot-notes. Of terms used in
specifically mystical passages, arrobamiento is normally translated
"rapture"; arrebatamiento, "transport"; amortecimiento, "swoon";
elevamiento and levantamiento, "elevation"; embebecimiento, "absorp-
tion"; and hablas, "locutions" (or, rarely, "voices"). Three
words which St. Teresa by no means always distinguishes from
one another are gustos, contentos and regalos, generally translated,
respectively, "consolations,", "sweetness" (in devotion) and
"favours", gustos being more substantial than the evanescent
contentos and often contrasted with them. The verb regalar may
1 Life, Chap. XXXVI (Vol. I, p. 252, below).
* Way of perfection, Chap. XXXII (Vol. II, p. 135, below).
xxii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
run through the gamut "caress", "pamper", "indulge",
"delight", "gladden" and "cheer"; and the singular sub-
stantive regalo varies in the same way. Descanso can mean not
only "rest" but something very much like "happiness", as also
can consuelo ("comfort ") . Espiritu can refer to a person's particular
spiritual condition or to his or her spirituality. Remedio is more
often "help" than "remedy". For convenience' sake, St.
Teresa's usage here being very elastic, I have called all religious
houses for men "monasteries" or "friaries" and those for women
"convents". To the word "soul" the neuter pronoun is applied
unless it seems to be equivalent to "person". Where the Spanish
gender is ambiguous, "she" is used only if St. Teresa appears
to have a woman definitely in mind.
Ill
Some idea of the principles which have guided me in the
planning of this edition will be implicit in what has already
been said. I have aimed at extreme Hteralness, and have seldom
sacrificed this to smoothness and elegance of diction. In an
attempt to present the text in the best and fullest form I have
utilized all the manuscripts reproduced by P. Silverio; and
particular care, as will be seen, has been devoted to the Way of
perfection. The notes, greatly abridged from those of P. Silverio,
whose discursiveness is not limited to his introductions, have been
kept down to a minimum; 1 the index of persons 2 and places,
at the end of the third volume, will be found to supply any
apparent gaps in the historical annotations, while the subject-
index makes cross-references dealing with the subject-matter
unnecessary. One need not remind avowed Teresans, but it
may be worth while pointing out to the general reader, that the
best possible commentary on many of St. Teresa's ascetic and
mystical passages can be found by using a subject-index to the
works of St. John of the Cross. 8 So much autobiographical
material is found in the Life and the Foundations and indeed in
practically all the works that no biographical introduction has
seemed necessary; a brief outline of the main events in St.
Teresa's career, however, supplemented by references to the
works, has been thought worth including.
1 [All the footnotes to the text are P. Silverio's except where they are enclosed in
square brackets, or where the contrary is stated. I have followed P. Silverio in not
numbering the paragraphs of the text, as both he and I thought it advisable to do in
the Complete Works of St. John of the Cross.}
* [English forms of the Spanish names are used only for names of Saints.]
3 Such a subject-index will be found in Vol. Ill, pp. 445-54 of my edition of th
Complete Works.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xxiii
The style and tone adopted in the translation of the different
works varies considerably, just as in the works of St. John of
the Cross even more so, indeed, than there, for the Exclamations
are much farther in this respect from the Foundations than is the
Ascent of Mount Carmel from the Spiritual Canticle. But, except in
the Exclamations and in parts of the Interior Castle and Conceptions,
St. Teresa's style is more pedestrian and colloquial than that of St.
John of the Cross, and this I have indicated by the use of more
"modern" language, without, I hope, entirely destroying the
flavour of a past age. The same remark, mutatis mutandis, applies
to the Poems.
St. Teresa's quotations from the Bible are, often inexact: my
rule has been to give her own words, approximating them as
nearly as possible to the text of the Douai Version 1 but never
allowing her to say in English anything that she does not say in
Spanish. Her mind was so completely immersed in Biblical
phraseology 2 that it is sometimes hard to tell if she is consciously
quoting at all. Where a Scriptural reference is given in a footnote
it is to be understood that I think her to be making a definite
quotation; and in the appropriate index it is these references
only that will be found.
It would have been attractive to have included a very large
proportion of the numerous- documents printed by P. Silverio
in his nine volumes, which throw so many sidelights on St.
Teresa's life and times. But if this translation, like its predecessor,
was to be compressed into three volumes there was only a very
little space to spare, even when the introductions to the individual
works were cut down, as they have been, to a minimum. I have
therefore confined myself to translating a few outstanding docu-
ments, making them as representative as possible. In order that
the pages at my a ^posal for this purpose should be used to the
best advantage, I aave occasionally omitted irrelevant passages
or condensed their verboseness of expression, without, however
(I hope), impairing their spirit.
IV
Chief among my acknowledgments are those to P. Silverio de
Santa Teresa, the excellence of whose work I have had occasion
to test again and again, and to the Benedictines of Stanbrook,
who, holding exclusive copyright for the English translation of
his edition, have most generously permitted me to make full use
1 All footnote references are to this version. Where the numbering of chapters
or verses in the Authorized Version differs from this, as in the Psalms, the variation
has been shown in square brackets.
1 Cf. her reference to the Bible in Ltfi> Chap. XXV (Vol. I, p 161, below).
AN OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA
(Abbreviations: F= Foundations; LC.= Interior Castle; *LLife\
L'L=Letters; R= Relations, Roman numerals after F, I.C., L,
R refer to chapters; Arabic numerals after LL, to the numbers
of the Letters. The numerals in brackets after the name of the
foundations record their chronological sequence.)
I 5 1 5 (March 28). Birth of Teresa de (Cepeda y) Ahumada at
Avila.
1528. Teresa loses her mother.
c. 1531. Enters Augustinian Convent of St. Mary of Grace,
Avila, as a boarder. Stays there for eighteen months (L III) .
1536 (November 2). Enters Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation,
Avila, as a novice (Cf. p. 20, n.2., below. "It is forty years
since this nun took the habit," wrote St. Teresa in 1576:
R IV, p. 319, below).
1537 (November 3). Professed at Convent of the Incarnation.
1538 (Autumn: "before two years had passed": L V). Health
gives way. Goes ("when the winter began") to stay with
her half-sister, Dona Maria de Cepeda de Banientos, at
the village of Castellanos de la Canada. On the way there,
stays at Hortigosa with her uncle, Don Pedro de Cepeda,
who gives her a copy of Osuna's Third Spiritual Alphabet.
1539 (April-July), Undergoes treatment atBecedas.
1539 (August 15). Attack of catalepsy, which leaves her helpless
"for more than eight months " (L VI) .
1540 (about Easter). Returns to Incarnation. An invalid till
late in 1541: "This (illness) I suffered for three years"
(L V). The effects of the paralysis remain till the summer
of 1542 (L VI) and recur intermittently (L VII) till about
1554-
1543 (December 24). Death of her father, Don Alonso Sanchez de
Cepeda.
c. 1555-6- Begins to think she is "sometimes being addressed by
interior voices and to see certain visions and experience
revelations" (R IV).
xxviii THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA
c. 1556-7. Final "conversion" (after "nearly twenty years on
that stormy sea " : L VIII : p. 48, below) . Cf. pp. 2 1, 56 n. i .
First contact with the Society of Jesus ("after almost twenty
years' experience of prayer": L XXIII).
(1557. Visit of St - Francis Borgia to Avila (L XXIV).)
1558. Experiences her first rapture (L XXIV) and perhaps
(L XXVIII) an imaginary vision of Christ (usually dated
January 25 or June 29-30, 1558. But a likelier date is 1560:
see pp. 1 68, 179, 187, 189, below).
Discussions begin about the foundation in Avila of a convent
for Discalced nuns (R IV).
1559. P. Alvarez becomes her confessor. Transverberation of her
heart (L XXIX).
1560. Makes a vow of greater perfection.
1561. P. Caspar de Salazar comes to Avila (April).
House for the first convent of the Reform bought in Avila
(August).
1562-7. At St. Joseph's, Avila ("The most restful years of my
life": FI).
1562
January-July. Stays with Dona Luisa de la Cerda at Toledo.
June. Finishes the first draft of the Life.
July. Brief (dated February) authorizing the foundation of St.
Joseph's received from Rome on the night of her return to
Avila. The Bishop is persuaded by St. Peter of Alcantara to
sanction the foundation.
August 24. Foundation of Convent of St. Joseph, Avila (1)
August (to February 1563). "Commotion" in Avila (L XXXVI).
(After August). Is commanded to write an amplified account of
her life.
1563
(About March). Goes to live at St. Joseph's, Avila.
July 3. Takes some further step (its exact nature not known)
towards herself embracing the Reform.
August 22. Is granted a patent to transfer, with three companions,
from the Incarnation to St. Joseph's.
THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA xxis
1564
August ai. The Nuncio confirms the above-mentioned patent.
1565
(? December). Greater part of the second and final version oi
the Life written.
Completes the Life and sends it, at the end of the year, to
P. Garcia de Toledo (LL 3).
At about this time, begins the Way of perfection.
1566
(About August). Is visited by Fray Alonso Maldonado.
1567
February 1 . Visit to Castile of the Carmelite General, P. Rubeo
(Rossi).
April. The General arrives (April n) at Avila and (April 27)
visits St. Teresa, authorizing her to found further convents
of the Reform, and later (August 14, from Barcelona) two
monasteries.
August 15. Foundation of Convent at Medina del Campo (2).
September-November. Remains at Medina till early November,
During her stay there (? early in September) discusses -with
Antonio de Jesiis and St. John of the Cross the foundation
of the first monastery of the Reform (F III).
In November, goes to Madrid and stays for a fortnight with
Dona Leonor de Mascarenas. Thence goes to Alcala de
Henares, consults P. Banez and stays till February 1568. l
1568
February. Visits Dona Luisa de la Cerda at Toledo.
March (late in). Leaves for Malagon.
April n. Foundation of Convent at Malagon (3)
1 I.e., about six months after Maldonado's visit: cf. final words of F I (Vol. Ill,
p, 4, below).
xxx THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA
May 19. Leaves Malagon for Avila. On the way, stays at
Toledo in Dona Luisa de la Cerda's house, during her
absence : (LL 6) . Visits the Marchioness of Villena at
Escalona (LL 6).
June 2-30. At St. Joseph's, Avila. Rafael Mejia offers her a
house at Duruelo for use as a monastery. She leaves for
Medina and Valladolid, calling at Duruelo on the way.
August 10* Arrives at Valladolid. St. John of the Gross has
accompanied her from Medina to Valladolid and stays
there till September 30 (F XIII; LL 10).
August 15. Foundation of Convent at Valladolid (4).
October. The Valladolid nuns fall ill and go to stay with Dona
Maria de Mendoza, who takes over their house and gives
them a new one.
(November 28. First Mass said at the Discalced monastery,
Duruelo.)
1569
February 3. The Valladolid nuns enter their new house.
February 21. Leaves Valladolid for Medina, Avila, Madrid and
Toledo, revisiting Duruelo on the way (F XIV; cf. LL 13-
15)-
March 24. Arrives at Toledo (LL 19). (The King sends for her,
believing her to be still in Madrid, after she has left for
Toledo.)
May 14. Foundation of Convent at Toledo (5).
May 28. Receives a letter from the Princess of fiboli about a
foundation at Pastrana.
May 30. Leaves Toledo. In Madrid, stays for a week at a
Franciscan convent with Dona Leonor de Mascarenas.
Refuses to found a convent in Madrid (LL 294) .
July 9. Foundation of Convent at Pastrana (6). (A monastery
founded there on July 13.)
July 21. Leaves for Toledo again. Stays there till August 1570.
NOTE. The date of the Exclamations of the Soul to God is probably
1569. Cf. Vol. II, pp. 401, below.
THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA xxxi
1570
(PJuly). Visits Pastrana and (August-October) Avila. On
October 31 arrives at Salamanca.
November i. Foundation of Convent at Salamanca (7).
1571
January 25. Foundation of Convent at Alba de Tormes (8).
Mid-February. Leaves Alba. Goes to stay for some days with
the Count and Countess of Monterrey. On March 29, is
at Salamanca (LL 25) ; in May, by order of the Provincial
of the Observance, P. Alonso Gonzalez, at St. Joseph's; in
June, at Medina del Campo; in mid-July, at Avila.
August-October. Prioress at Medina (LL 27).
October 6. Goes from Medina to Avila.
October 15 (to October 1574). Prioress of Convent of the Incar-
nation, Avila (LL 2gff.).
1572
(Between May and September) . St. John of the Cross becomes
confessor to Convent of the Incarnation, Avila.
1573
June 1 1 . Earliest extant letter (LL 45) written by St. Teresa to
Philip IL
August. Visits the Salamanca Convent for the transference of the
community there in September.
August 24. Begins to write the Foundations (at Salamanca: F VII).
Writes about nine chapters: then stops on account of
a numerous occupations".
1574
January. Leaves Salamanca. Spends some time at Alba de
Tonnes, staying for two days in the house of the Duke and
Duchess of Alba. (I.C., VI, iv: Vol. II, p. 289, below).
Goes on to Medina and Avila.
xxxii THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA
March. Travels to Segovia.
March 19. Foundation of Convent at Segovia (9).
Holy Week : April. Transfers Pastrana nuns to Segovia (F XVII) .
Remains there till September 30 (F XXI; LL 62).
October 6 (about). Returns to St. Joseph's, Avila, as Prioress.
December (to January 1575). Visits Valladolid (LL 66-70).
1575
February. Travels from Avila, via Toledo, Malag6n and Almod6-
var, to Beas.
February 24. Foundation of Convent at Beas (10).
March 10. Agreement for the Caravaca Convent signed (F
XXVII).
Before May 11 (LL 71). First meeting with Gracian (F XXIV,
R XXXIX). Makes vow of obedience to Gracian (R XL,
XLI).
May 18-26. Journey to Seville (Leaves, May 18; at Ecija, May
23: R XL; arrives at Seville, May 26: F XXIV).
May 29. Foundation of Convent at Seville (11).
June 9. New licence for the Caravaca convent granted by Philip
II (F XXVII).
(May-June. Chapter-General of the Order, held at Piacenza,
adopts harsh measures towards the Discalced Reform.)
July 19. Writes from Seville to Philip II (LL 77) on behalf of
the plan for dividing the Order and asking that P. Gracian
be made Provincial of the Discalced.
August. Arrival of her brothers Lorenzo and Pedro from Spanish
America (F XXV, R XL VI, LL 87, P. Silverio, IX, 246.)
(Shortly before Christmas). Receives a written order from the
General to leave Andalusia and to go to reside in a Gastilian
convent. P. Gracian authorizes her to stay at Seville till the
summer (LL 87, 91).
1576
(From June 1576 to June 1580 St. Teresa is mainly at Toledo
and Avila. Strife within the Order holds up the founda-
tions*)
THE LIFE OF ST, TERESA xxxiii
January i. Foundation of Convent at Caravaca (12) during her
stay in Seville (LL 92).
(March. P. Jeronimo Tostado arrives in Spain armed with
powers from P. Rubeo to suppress certain Discalced founda-
tions and to take other measures against the Reform.)
April 5. Agreement for the new house at Seville signed.
(May 12. Provincial Chapter of the Observance, held at La
Moraleja, takes stern measures against the Reform.)
May 28. Ceremony of the inauguration of the new house at
Seville.
June 4. Leaves Seville for Toledo, via Almodovar del Campo
and Malagon. Arrives at Malagon on June 1 1 (LL 95) and
stays for at least a week (LL 96) . Is in Toledo before June
30 (LL 97).
(August 8. P. Gracian meets the Superiors of the Reform at
Almodovar: they refuse to accept the decisions of the
Moraleja Chapter.)
June-November. Continues Foundations.
November 14. Completes Chapter XJCVII of Foundations (See
penultimate paragraph of that chapter) .
1577
June 2. Begins Interior Castle.
(June 1 8. Death of the Nuncio Ormaneto.)
July. Goes from Toledo to Avila to arrange for the transference
of St. Joseph's from the jurisdiction of the Ordinary to that
of the Carmelite Order. Interruption of her work on Interior
Castle (I.C. V, iv).
(August 30, Arrival in Spain of the new Nuncio, Sega.)
September 18. Writes to Philip II on behalf of P. Gracian and
of the Reform (LL 195).
October. Violent scenes at the election of a Prioress at the
Incarnation, Avila. Nuns voting for St. Teresa are excom-
municated. Ana de Toledo chosen (LL 197-8, cf. 205-7).
xxxiv THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA
(November 5. Royal Council opposes the policy of Tostado, who
leaves for Rome.)
November 29. Finishes Interior Castle.
(December 3. St. John of the Gross and a companion are carried
off and imprisoned, at Toledo and La Moraleja respectively,
by the friars of the Observance (LL 204, 219, 246-7).
December 4. 1 St. Teresa complains of this act to Philip II
(LL 204).
December 24. Falls and breaks her left arm.
1578
(Persecution of the Reform continues throughout this year:
LL 237 ff. St. Teresa is in Avila).
(September 4. Death of P. Rubeo at Rome: LL 253).
(October 9. Chapter-General of the Discalced held at
Almodovar.)
(October 16. Sega puts the Discalced under the jurisdiction of
the Observance.)
1579
(April i. Discalced removed from jurisdiction of the Obser-
vance : P. Angel de Salazar becomes their Superior.)
(May.* PP. Juan de Jesiis (Roca) and Diego de la Trinidad
leave for Rome, to attempt to effect the division of the
Order: LL 273, 275.) P. Salazar authorizes St. Teresa to
resume the visitation of her convents.
June 25. Leaves Avila, with B. Ana de San Bartolome, for
Medina (stays 3-4 days), Valladolid (July 3-30), Salamanca
(about 2^ months) and Alba (a week).
July. Sends the Way of perfection to the Archbishop of fivora
(LL 285).
November (early). Returns to Avila,
November. Goes to Toledo (mid-November: LL 291) and
Malagon; arrives at Malagon, November 25; is there when
(December 8) the community moves into its new house
(LL 295). Stays till February 1580.
1 Some authorities believe that, between December u and 17 of this year, St.
Teresa had an interview with Philip II at El Escorial (Gf. P. Silverio, IX, 266).
THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA xxxv
1580
February 13. Leaves Malagon for Villamieva de la Jara (LL
307-83 313)3 arriving there February 21, after making stops
at Toledo and La Roda.
February 2 1 . Foundation of Convent at Villanueva de la Jara
(13).
March 20. Leaves Villanueva de la Jara.
March 26. Arrives at Toledo. On March 31 (LL 314) has a
paralytic stroke. Asks the Archbishop of Toledo for a licence
to make a foundation in Madrid : the request is not granted
(LL 323).
June 7. Though still unwell, leaves for Madrid and Segovia.
Reaches Segovia on June 15. While there, learns of the death
(June 26) of her brother Lorenzo (LL 325-63 342). Goes
(July 6) from Segovia to Avila, to settle his business affairs
(LL 328). At Segovia, revises the Interior Castle in collabora-
tion with P. Gracian and P. Yanguas. (Vol. II, p. 194,
below) .
(June 22. The Discalced Reform is recognized as a separate
province by a Bull of Gregory XIII.)
August (early). Goes on from Avila to Medina del Campo and
(August 8) Valladolid where she is to see the Bishop about
the projected foundation in his diocese. At Valladolid has
a recurrence of the Toledo complaint and becomes danger-
ously ill (LL 336).
December 28. Leaves Valladolid for Palencia (LL 344).
December 29. Foundation of Convent at Palencia (14) (LL
344).
1581
(March 3. Separation of Calced and Discalced Carmelites
becomes operative at Chapter of Alcala de Henares: cf.
LL 350-4. P. Gracian appointed Provincial of the Discalced.)
June 2. Arrives at Soria, after spending the night of May 31
at Burgo de Osma (F XXX).
(June i. The Palencia community moves to its new house.)
xxxvi THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA
June 14. Foundation of Convent at Sona (15). (Cf. F XXX,
Vol. Ill, p. 1 80, n. 3, below.)
August 1 6. Leaves for St. Joseph's, Avila, via Burgo de Osma,
Segovia (August 23-30: LL 376), Villacastin (September 4:
LL 377).
September 5. Arrives at Avila (LL 378).
September 10. Elected Prioress of St. Joseph's, Avila.
January 2. Leaves for Burgos, via Medina del Gampo (January
4-9), Valladolid (staying four days through illness: LL
404) and Palencia (arrives January 16), arriving at Burgos on
January 26.
January 20. Foundation of Convent at Granada (16) in St.
Teresa's absence.
April 19. Foundation of Convent at Burgos (17).
^
(July) Completes Foundations (F XXXI was being written at
"the end of June": Vol. Ill, p. 191, n. 2, below).
July 26. Leaves Burgos for Avila, with B. Ana de San Bartolome
and her niece Teresita. Visits Palencia (in August), Valla-
dolid (again ill: leaves on September 15), Medina del
Campo (September 16) and villages near Penaranda.
Though ill, goes to Alba de Tonnes at the command of
the Provincial, Fray Antonio de Jesiis, to visit the Duchess
of Alba.
September 20. Arrives at Alba de Tonnes.
October 4. Dies at Alba de Tormes.
1614: April 24. Beatified by Paul V.
1617. Spanish Cortes votes her patroness of Spain. The vote not
confirmed.
1622: March 12, Canonized by Gregory XV with SS. Isidro,
Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier.
1726. Benedict XIII institutes the Feast of the Transverberation
of her Heart.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF
ST. TERESA
Nearly four centuries have passed since St. Teresa began to
write, and, both in her own country and abroad, her fame is
still widespread and still growing. Her purely human qualities
and gifts, the saintliness of her life by which they were illumined
and overshadowed, the naturalness and candour of her manner
and style these are some of the reasons why her name is not
only graven upon the enduring marble of history but taken
on the lips of generation after generation with reverence and
love.
She is a mystic and more than a mystic. Her works, it is true,
are well known in the cloister and have served as nourishment
to many who are far advanced on the Way of Perfection, and who,
without her aid, would still be beginners in the life of prayer.
Yet they have also entered the homes of millions living in the
world and have brought consolation, assurance, hope and strength
to souls who, in the technical sense, know nothing of the life of
contemplation. Devoting herself, as she did, with the most
wonderful persistence and tenacity, to the sublimest task given
to man the attempt to guide others toward perfection she
succeeded so well in that task that she is respected everywhere
as an incredibly gifted teacher, who has revealed, more perhaps
than any who came before her, the nature and extent of those
gifts which the Lord has laid up in this life for those who love
Him. In past ages, of course, there had been many writers
kindled with Divine love to whom He had manifested His in-
effable secrets, but for the most part these secrets had gone down
with them to the grave. To St. Teresa it was given to speak to
the world, in her diaphanous, colloquial language and her simple,
unaffected style, of the work of the Holy Spirit in the enamoured
soul, of the interior strife and the continual purgation through
which such a soul must pass in its ascent of Mount Carmel and
of the wonders which await it on the mountain's summit.
So she leads the soul from the most rudimentary stages of the
Purgative Way to the very heights of Union, bringing it into the
innermost mansion of the Interior Castle, where, undisturbed
by the foes that rage without, it can have fruition of union with
the Lord of that Castle and experience a foretaste of the Beatific
Vision of the life to come. But, despite the loftiness and sub-
limity of these themes, she is able to develop them without ever
xxxvii
xxxviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION
losing the most attractive of her qualities as a writer simplicity.
Continually she finds ready to hand apt and graphic comparisons,
intelligible even to the unlearned. No mystical writer before her
day, from the pseudo-Dionysius to Ruysbroeck, nor any who has
written since, has described such high matters in a way so apt,
so natural and to such a large extent within the reach of all. The
publication of her treatises inaugurated for the mystics an epoch
of what may almost be termed popularity. Those who love the
pages of the Gospels, and whose aim in life is to attain the Gospel
ideal of Christian perfection, have found in her works other pages
in which, without any great effort of the intellect, they may learn
much concerning the way. Her practical insistence upon the
virtuous life, her faithfulness to the Evangelical counsels and the
soundness of her doctrine even in the most obscure and recondite
details all these will commend her to them. Many, indeed,
are the fervent lovers of Our Lord who have gone to the school
of love kept by the Foundress of Avila.
As a result, her works are read and re-read by Spaniards to
this day and translated again and again into foreign languages.
Probably no other book by a Spanish author is as widely
known in Spain as the Life or the Interior Castle of St. Teresa, with
the single exception of Cervantes' immortal Don Qyixote. It is
surely amazing that a woman who lived in the sixteenth century,
who never studied in the Schools or pored over tomes of pro-
found learning, still less aspired to any kind or degree of renown,
should have won such a reputation, both among scholars and
among the people. We cannot expect to find the reason for this
in the purely scientific or literary merits of her writings : we must
look for it by going deeper.
Essentially, her popularity has been due to Divine grace, which
first inspired her to lay aside every aim but the quest for God and
then enabled her to attain a degree of purity in her love for Him
which sustained and impelled her. Before everything else it is the
intense fervour of this love which speaks to lovers everywhere, just
as it is the determination and courage of her virile soul which
inspires those who long to be more determined and courageous
than they are. But next to this, it is the purely human quality
of her writings which makes so wide an appeal. Her methods
of exposition are not rigidly logical but neither are the workings
of the human heart. Her books have a gracioso desorden [Herrick's
"sweet disorder"] which the ordinary reader finds attractive,
even illuminating. Her disconnected observations, her revealing
parentheses, her transpositions, ellipses and sudden suspensions
of thought make her, in one sense, easier to read, even if, in
another, they sometimes make her more difficult to interpret.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION xxxix
Even setting aside her lack of technical training as a writer, her
robust and highly individual temperament would have led her
into rebellion against academic mechanism of conventionality
and style in language, had any attempt ever been made to force
these upon her. Where she uses or imitates the phraseology of
Holy Scripture she does so unconsciously. Often she never even
re-read what she wrote; who that is not a professional writer,
but just a man in the street, or a woman in the kitchen, can help
loving her?
Her books were written at the command of her confessors
that is to say, under obedience. It seemed ridiculous to her that
a person so imperfect and devoid of talent as herself and a
woman into the bargain! could possibly write anything that
would edify others. She was much better employed, she herself
thought, at the spinning-wheel, and it irked her to leave such a
profitable occupation as spinning to take up her pen. "For the
love of God," she once exclaimed, when importuned to write,
"let me work at my spinning-wheel and go to choir and perform
the duties of the religious life, like the other sisters. I am not
meant to write: I have neither the health nor the intelligence
for it." 1 The following passage gives as vivid an idea as any of
the spirit in which she wrote :
The authority of persons so learned and serious as my
confessors suffices for the approval of any good thing that I
may say, if the Lord gives me grace to say it, in which case it
will not be mine but His ; for I have no learning, nor have I led a
good life, nor do I get my information from a learned man or
from any other person whatsoever. Only those who have
commanded me to write this know that I am doing so, and
at the moment they are not here. I am almost stealing the
time for writing, and that with great difficulty, for it hinders
me from spinning and I am living in a poor house and have
numerous things to do. 2
But, even had she left no such personal testimony, her writings
would have shown how little she trusted for inspiration to her
reading and how completely devoid she was of any constructional
instinct or sense of literary proportion. Her ideas and sentiments
spring spontaneously to her mind and spirit. Her pen runs freely
sometimes too freely for her mind to keep pace with it. Her
memory, as she frequently confesses, is poor and her few quotations
X jer6mmo Graoan: Lvddano del verdadero espintu, .Chap. V. She did, however,
eventually wnte the book she was asked for: it was the Interior Castle.
*Life, Chap. X [p. 61, below].
xl GENERAL INTRODUCTION
are seldom entirely accurate. But she is, without the slightest
doubt, a born writer; and, when a person belonging to that rare
and fortunate class knows nothing of artifice, casts aside convention,
and writes as the spirit dictates, the result can never be dis-
appointing.
Mysticism, furthermore, is in part an experimental science;
and he who has the profoundest and most continuous, exper-
iences of Divine grace is the best qualified to speak of them. St.
Teresa is remarkable both for the intensity and for the con-
tinuity of her mystical experiences, and she had a quickness of
mind, a readiness of expression and a wealth of imagination
which particularly well fitted her for describing them. Her
descriptions are incomparably more vivid and intelligible than
those of many professed students of mystical theology who have
grown grey in the study of it. This superiority much more than
compensates for any of her stylistic idiosyncrasies which may
scandalize the literary preceptist. Had she not boldly snapped
asunder the bonds of logic and litel-ary rule, she would have
been powerless to take wing and give us those finest of passages
which describe the summit of Mount Carmel. We should have
gained one more methodical writer aspiring to a "golden
mediocrity" but we should have lost work of a sublime beauty
bearing the ineffaceable hall-mark of genius.
But in any case she could never have written impeccable
manuals or methodically ordered "guides" to the ascetic or the
mystical life: her genius resembles the rushing torrent, not the
scientifically constructed canal. She cannot even be said to
separate asceticism from mysticism: the Way of perfection is an
ascetic treatise which mystical ideas are constantly invading;
while the Interior Castle, though fundamentally mystical, does not
hesitate to lay down and develop ascetic principles. Here,
again, she conforms, not so much to what is logical as to what
is natural and human. Any divisions which she makes and
adheres to are those made by nature and observable in life. By
any and every test, she is a writer to be read by the many, by
the people.
If obedience was St. Teresa's primary motive for writing, a
secondary motive was to give an accurate and detailed account
of her spiritual progress, as in the Life, or, as in most of her other
books, to guide her spiritual daughters.
The seventeenth-century Carmelite, Fray Jer6nimo de San
Jose, a historian of the Discalced Reform and author of one
of the earliest biographies of St. John of the Cross, makes the
following enumeration of her writings:
GENERAL INTRODUCTION xli
Our Mother St. Teresa wrote five books and seven opuscules.
The books are : The Book of her Life, The Way of perfection, The
Mansions,' 1 The Foundations and Meditations on the Songs. The
opuscules are: Method for the visitation of her convents, Exclamations,
Spiritual Maxims, Relations of her spirit, Favours granted her by the Lord,
Devout verses which she composed^ Letters to different persons. So that,
between books, opuscules and treatises, the number of books
written by the Saint amounts in all to twelve. 2
*
In addition to these works, several more have been credited
to St. Teresa, though hardly on sufficient evidence. From a
reference in the Foundations to "a tiny little book" in which she
"believed she said something about" melancholy, 8 it has been
inferred that a book of hers on this subject has been lost : the re-
ference, however, might well be to the Way of perfection, which says
a good deal about this, and, though the Way of perfection might
hardly be thought "tiny", she refers to it elsewhere as "little" by
contrast with her considerably larger Life.
Another book, which certainly exists, was thought to be the
work of St. Teresa as long ago as 1630, when it was included by
Baltasar Moreto in an edition of her works published in that year
at Antwerp. The only reason for its inclusion appears to have
been that it was found among some papers which had belonged
to her, and afterwards became the property of Dona Isabel de
Avellaneda, wife of Don Inigo de Cardenas, President of the
Council of Castile. Its title is Seven Meditations on the Paternoster.
It is a pious commentary on the Lord's Prayer, the seven petitions
of which are treated as meditations, each intended to be read on a
different day of the week, under the headings : Father, King,
Spouse, Shepherd, Redeemer, Physician, Judge. The author was
both a learned and a spiritually-minded person, well versed in
Holy Scripture- and with a decided literary bent. The most
superficial examination reveals it to be clearly non-Teresan. Its
style is quite unlike that of the Saint and it bears the marks of a
careful revision entirely foreign to her habits and character.
Her earliest biographers make no mention of it and her Order
has never believed it to be hers. "I consider it quite certain that
the treatise is not by our Holy Mother," says P. Jer6nimo de San
Jose, and gives the fullest reasons for his opinion. 4 "All who read
it carefully," he adds, "and even those who read it without great
care, will think likewise."
1 [This is the title nearly always given in Spanish to the Interior Castle."]
2 Htstond del Carmen Descalzo, Bk. V, Chap. XIII.
* Foundations, Chap. VII (Vol. Ill, p. 36, n.a, below).
4 Quoted in full bv P. Silveno, I, bax.
xlii GENERAL INTRODUCTION
P. Ribera, St. Teresa's first biographer, and a particularly
conscientious one, tells us that, when very young, in collaboration
with her brother Rodrigo, she wrote a book on chivalry. "She
had so excellent a wit, and had so well absorbed the language
and style of chivalry, that in the space of a few months she and
her brother Rodrigo composed a book of adventures and fictions
on that subject, which was such that it attracted a great deal of
comment." 1 This story is confirmed by Gracian in his notes
to Ribera's book and has been frequently repeated and taken as
accurate by later writers. There would be nothing intrinsically
improbable in the idea that a writer with the initiative and
imagination of St. Teresa, who, we know (for she tells us herself
in great detail) 2 , was attracted in her youth by romances of the
Amadis type, should try to produce something of the sort herself
by way of recreation, and we may be sure that, if she did so, the
book in question would be well worth reading. P. Andres de la
Encarnacion, an eighteenth-century editor and critic of St. John
of the Cross, 3 took the suggestion very seriously, and debated
where the book was to be found, and whether or no, supposing
it were found, it ought to be published. 4 For ourselves, we suspect
that, if it was ever written at all, it was soon destroyed by its own
authors, either because of the nature of its contents or for fear
that it would fall into the hands of their father, the austere Don
Alonso, who for such an indiscretion would no doubt have meted
out anything but a reward.
By great good fortune, the originals of nearly all St. Teresa's
principal works have come down to us, together with those of a
fair number of her letters and some account books bearing her
signature. This fortune we owe to the great esteem shown for St.
Teresa and her Reform by King Philip II, who, when collecting
books and manuscripts for the library which he proposed to
establish in his newly built palace-monastery at El Escorial,
asked P. Doria (Fray Nicolds de Jesiis Maria), 6 at that time
Vicar-General of the Discalced Carmelites, if he could obtain
for him any of St. Teresa's autographs. As a result, four of these
are now to be found in the Escorial Library: namely, the Life,
the Way of perfection, the Foundations and the Method for the visitation
of her convents. The autograph of the Interior Castle is preserved in
die Discalced Carmelite convent at Seville, and a second auto-
graph of the Way of perfection, to be referred to later, has long been in
the possession of the convent of the Discalced nuns at Valladolid.
1 Ribera, Bk. I, Chap. V.
*Life, Chap. II (p. 13, below).
3 [St. John of the Cross, I, hv ff, et passim ]
4 B. Nac. MS. 3180, Adiciones E , Nos. 13, 14.
5 [Cf. SSM., II, 155-6]
GENERAL INTRODUCTION xliii
As a considerable number of facsimile reproductions of these
manuscripts have been published, the careful study of the Teresan
writings in their original state has been brought within the reach
of all who are qualified to undertake it.
Needless to say, a great many copies of the Saint's writings
were made very soon after her death, and, needless to say, too,
these copies contained numerous errors. To put an end to this
circulation of defective versions of their Mother Foundress'
works, the Discalced Carmelites took steps towards the prepar-
ation of a complete edition. A beginning had been made with
their publication even in her own lifetime. A great friend of hers,
Don Teutonic de Braganza, Archbishop of fivora, undertook to
bring out an edition of the Maxims and Way of perfection, based
upon a corrected manuscript (still extant) which she herself sent
him, in 1579: this was approved by the ecclesiastical censor in
1580 and published at fivora in 1583. At Salamanca, in 1585,
P. Gracian (Fray Jer6nimo de la Madre de Dios) 1 at that time
Provincial of the Reform, re-published the Way of perfection.,
which no doubt was given precedence over the other works on
account of its practical utility in the training of religious. An
impetus must have been given to these activities by St. John of the
Cross, who, just about this time, wrote as follows in the com-
mentary to his Spiritual Canticle 9 .
But since my intent is but to expound these stanzas briefly,
as I promised in the prologue, these other things must remain
for such as can treat them better than I. And I pass over the
subject likewise because the Blessed Teresa of Jesus, our mother,
left notes admirably written upon these things of the spirit,
the which notes I hope in God will speedily be printed and
brought to light. 2
St. John of the Cross was in fact present at the meeting of the
General Chapter in 1586 which decided to publish the Saint's
complete works. The editorship was entrusted, not to a Car-
melite, but to an Augustinian one of the leading men of letters
in Spain, the Salamancan professor Fray Luis de Leon. The
volume, of over a thousand octavo pages, was published at
Salamanca in 1588, and includes the following works, printed
in the order here given: Book of her life; some of the Relations;
Way of perfection; Maxims; Interior Castle; Exclamations. The
principal omission, it will be observed, is the Foundations: so many
of the people mentioned in it were still living that its publication
was thought to be premature.
1 [S S.M., II, 151-89 ] * [St. John of the Cross, II, 72.!
xliv GENERAL INTRODUCTION
On the whole, as one would expect of an editor who, besides
being himself an author, had had a lifetime of academic exper-
ience, Fray Luis de Le6n acquitted himself remarkably well.
The edition has some omissions and variant readings of such
length or importance that they can hardly have been due to
accident, besides a considerable number of errata, notably in
punctuation and, owing to St. Teresa's often compressed and
elliptical style, a misplaced comma is sometimes enough to alter
the sense of an entire passage. None the less, judged by the stand-
ards of its day, the edition is a distinctly good one.
It was reprinted, at the same press, in the following year,
after which date further editions came quickly. The works,
in a more or less complete state, were published at Saragossa
in 1592; at Madrid, in 1597 and 1615; at Naples, in 1604; at
Brussels, in 1604; at Brussels, in 1610; at Valencia, in 1613 and
1623. The Brussels edition was the first to include the Foundations.
The editio princeps was reprinted at Madrid in 1622 and 1627
and at Saragossa in 1623. -"- n 1 Z> at Antwerp, Baltasar Moreto
published an edition already referred to as including the apocry-
phal Seven Meditations. A single- volume edition, in 1635, an< ^ a
two-volume edition, in 1636, came out in Madrid.
This rapidly increasing circulation of St. Teresa's works,
however, was not altogether welcomed by her Order, for the
printers' errors in each edition were handed down to jthe next,
often with considerable additions, while undue liberties were some-
times taken with the text by editors less conscientious than Fray
Luis de Leon. It was in about 1645 ^ at P- Francisco de Santa
Maria, the historian of the Discalced Reform, obtained permission
from his superiors for a new collation of the printed works and
the autographs, with a view to the preparation of a more reliable
edition than any yet published. The collation was entrusted
to a number of friars and the new edition the second which
may be described as "official" was eventually published in
Madrid in 1661.
We need not follow through the centuries the long tale of
editions of the Saint's works still less enumerate the editions
of individual works which will be referred to later in the intro-
ductions to each. It must suffice, in this brief survey, to remark
on the continuity with which St. Teresa was read even during
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when mysticism
was little in favour, and to mention a few of the editions which
may be considered of outstanding interest.
In the mid-eighteenth century, the Order determined upon
still another "official" edition and entrusted the work of preparing
one to that excellent critic already referred to, P. Andres de la
GENERAL INTRODUCTION xlv
Encarnacion, who enlisted the aid of a competent palaeographer,
a companion worthy of himself, P. Manuel de Santa Maria.
The results of their researches, both on St. Teresa and on St.
John of the Gross, remained in manuscript; and the three
volumes of Memorias historiales, in the National Library of Spain,
at Madrid, are a major source for critical work on the Reformers
of Garmel. As many of the archives which the two Fathers used
are no longer in existence, their work has preserved much that
would otherwise have been irretrievably lost, including part of
the magnificent collection which we have of Teresan letters.
In their work upon the texts, they detected more than seven
hundred errors in the Life of 1627 and twelve hundred in Moreto's
edition of the Foundations. It is a pity that the Order found the
task of publishing a new edition too much for it and was content
to reprint, in 1778, an edition of 1752, adding to it a volume
containing eighty-two previously unpublished letters. In 1793
appeared another edition, which included a further volume of
Letters and eighty-seven fragments, and was the last to be published
by the Order for a hundred and twenty years. Not until 1851,
when the religious persecutions of the early years of the nine-
teenth century were over, was this edition reprinted, and ten
years later came the edition of Don Vicente de la Fuente, which
forms part of the monumental series of Spanish classics known
as the "Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles."
The strides made in Spain, during the last half-century, by
Teresan criticism, and indeed by Spanish criticism in general,
make it possible for Spaniards to look back from a great distance
at the work of La Fuente, both here and in his later six-volume
edition of 1881, and find in it faults of many kinds: innumerable
textual errors, frequent inaccuracies of fact, exaggerations in
judgment and an undue dogmatism of tone. This Aragonese
editor, though learned and devout in a high degree, had the
temperamental bluntness and stubbornness traditionally
associated with Aragon, and from this his work frequently
suffered. None the less, his edition remained unsuperseded for
over half a century until, in fact, in the year of the quater-
centenary of St. Teresa's birth, appeared the first volume of the
definitive Carmelite edition [which we owe to the indefatigable
P. Silverio de Santa Teresa.]
[This edition, consisting of nine volumes (1915-24) of which
the last three comprise the largest collection yet made of the
Saint's letters four hundred and fifty in all concentrated
upon the preparation of as correct as possible a text, using the
autographs, or photostats of them, where previous editors had
relied on copies. The notes to the text, which are not the strongest
xlvi GENERAL INTRODUCTION
point of the edition, are brief and in the main factual, though
occasionally they sin through the discursiveness which P. Silverio
seldom for long avoids. A welcome feature was the inclusion
of many newly discovered letters for, while the sacking of
religious houses during the nineteenth century had led to much
destruction, it had also brought to light a good deal that had
previously been unknown. P. Silverio's appendices contain
numerous hitherto unpublished documents, many of them of
capital importance for an intimate knowledge of St. Teresa's
life.]
[The foregoing notes bear witness of the most practical kind
to the continuous popularity which St. Teresa has enjoyed in
her own country since the time of her death, while, at the end of
the third volume of this edition, will be found a select biblio-
graphy of commentaries, biographies and translations of her
works into foreign languages which will testify to the extent to
which she has been read abroad. In our own country it was
her Life which at first chiefly attracted translators : the Antwerp
translations of the Jesuit William Malone appeared as early
as 1611; twelve years later, Sir Tobias Mathew's version, known
as The Flaming Hart, was published in London, a second edition
appearing at Antwerp in 1642; while the Life and Foundations
were published by Abraham Woodhead in 1669-71, and a third
volume, containing nearly all the remaining works, came out
in 1675. After this nearly two centuries elapsed before the
Saint began to be widely read once more, but since Dalton,
with his new translation of the Life. (1851), led the revival,
interest in her has never ceased. Dalton's Way of perfection and
Interior Castle (1852), Foundations (1853) and small selection of
Letters (1853) were followed by the Life (1870) and Foundations
(1871) in the translation of David Lewis: the Life, still leading
the other works in popularity, went into four editions. The
mantle of Lewis fell upon the shoulders of a Benedictine nun
of Stanbrook Abbey, and the editions of the Benedictines of
Stanbrook, already referred to, and notably their versions of
the Way of perfection and the Interior Castle and their four-volume
edition of the Letters (1919-24), have perhaps done more than
any others to give St. Teresa a place in our spiritual life com-
parable to that which she holds in Spain. Finally we must
not forget the valuable contributions made to our knowledge
of the Saint and her times by the learned Carmelite, Father
Zimmerman, whose revisions of, and introductions to, the Lewis
and Stanbrook translations have so much enhanced their value.
England, it will be seen, is not now behindhand in her apprecia-
GENERAL INTRODUCTION xlvii
tion of a Saint on whom one of her seventeenth-century poets
wrote what is perhaps the finest panegyric in verse upon her in
existence.
O thou undanted daughter of desires!
By all thy dowr of Lights and Fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy larg draughts of intellectual! day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large then they;
By all thy brim-filPd Bowles of feirce desire;
By thy last Morning's draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdome of that finall kisse
That seiz'd thy parting Soul, and seal'd thee his;
By all the heavn's thou hast in him
(Fair sister of the Seraphim!);
By all of Him we have in Thee;
Leave nothing of my Self in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may dy. 1 ]
The translator, who, in the main, has followed P. Silverio
in the order in which he has arranged St. Teresa's worlds, begs
leave to append a note, adapted from P. Silverio, upon the
principles underlying this arrangement.
He begins with the Saint's earliest and fundamental work,
her Life (1562-5), which is followed by a shorter work closely
connected with it in spirit, and hence forming a natural com-
plement to it the Relations. It might be thought that the Life
should rather have been followed by the autobiographical
Foundations, but it must be remembered that the Life is an auto-
biography primarily in the spiritual sense a history of the
manifestations of Divine grace in the writer's soul whereas
the Foundations is mainly a record of practical achievements
and is related as closely with the history of the Order as with
the life of the Saint.
After the Life and the Relations comes the Way of perfection
(c. 1565), written under obedience, as we have seen, for the edifi-
cation of the nuns of the Saint's first foundation St. Joseph's,
Avila and based upon her own meditations on the Lord's
Prayer. Since the Life contained so much intimate detail it was
x ["The Flaming Hart" ("Upon the book and picture of the seraphicall St.
Teresa").]
xlviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION
thought unsuitable for publication until after its author's death,
and the Way of perfection was written, in one sense, to supply
its place. Next conies the Interior Castle (1577), more mature
and more intensely mystical than its two predecessors. These
three works, taken together, may be thought of as a complete
exposition of the ascetic and mystical system of St. Teresa. As
closely connected with the Interior Castle in its nature and spirit
as are the Relations with the Life are the Conceptions of the Love oj
God, and the Exclamations of the Soul to God, the two loveliest of
St. Teresa's opuscules, both of them from beginning to end
aglow with mystical love.
Following these, as standing outside their sphere and (despite
some fine and noble passages) on a lower plane, comes the
Foundations (1573 ff.}, the last of the four major works, and, follow-
ing these, we give the minor works, with the poems appropriately
coming last, as it is in verse that St. Teresa is least noteworthy.
THE LIFE OF THE HOLY MOTHER
TERESA OF JESUS
INTRODUCTION
Like all servants of God to whom He has granted special
Braces, St. Teresa, when led by unfamiliar paths, had continual
nisgivings lest she should be suffering from demoniacal delusions.
These misgivings she frequently revealed to her spiritual
iirectors, keeping nothing back from them but opening her soul
/vith exemplary simplicity and humility, especially when what
he had to tell was to her own disadvantage. Some of her con-
essors, so as the better to form judgments on matters of such
extreme difficulty, ordered her to write an account of the graces
.hat she was receiving from God, more particularly of the graces
riven her in prayer, and to record anything further which might
acilitate the understanding of them.
Such was the origin of this admirable autobiography, which,
or the naturalness with which it is written, for the profundity
md detail of its psychological analysis and for the sublimity
Df the spiritual mysteries which it unfolds, is worthy of a place
beside the Confessions of St. Augustine.
The first part of the book (Chaps. I-X) is autobiographical
n the ordinary sense of the word: it describes the author's
Darentage, early life and education, the interior conflicts which
jhe had to endure before embracing religion, the alternating
ukewarmness and fervour of her life at the Convent of the
Incarnation, in Avila, and finally the crisis which ended in her
resolve to seek perfection and walk in the way of prayer. There
then follows a parenthetical section (Chaps. XI-XXVII) 1 which
describes the contemplative life under the figure of the Four
Waters, each of which corresponds to one stage of spiritual
progress. Only at the end of these seventeen chapters does St.
Teresa return to her own life, in order to describe (Chaps.
XXVIII-XL) the surpassing favours which the Lord granted
tier and the spiritual trials in which she was so greatly helped by
the Franciscan St. Peter of Alcantara. 2 Into this part of the
book is introduced her account of the foundation of the first
1 [More properly this section may be considered as ending with Chap. XXII.
* I will now return to the place where I left off the description of my life," says St.
Teresa at the beginning of Chap. XXIII ; but she interpolates a further generalization
on locutions, so the narrative is not quite continuous ]
*[S-S.Af., II, 99-120.]
2 LIFE
convent of the Reform, St. Joseph's, Avila. The Life closes
with a moving enumeration of the new favours which she is
receiving from God and of the effects produced by them in her
soul. Into the whole of this narrative are intercalated discreet
counsels for confessors, tender colloquies with God, shrewd
maxims for souls desirous of attaining perfection and ardent
apostrophes to all Christian people.
This is St. Teresa's most important treatise. Without it neither
the Way of perfection nor the Interior Castle could be properly
understood : she herself refers to it on several occasions as her
"big book" (libro grande}. Only the superficial student, however,
is content for long to think of these three works as separate.
So closely united are they, so essentially complementary to each
other, that it is easier to regard them as three parts of one great
whole.
Exactly when the Life was written it is by no means easy to
determine. P. Domingo Banez, in a deposition made at Sala-
manca, asserts that "she had written this book when I first
came into contact with her ,and she wrote it with the leave of
her previous confessors. . . . Afterwards she added to it and
recast it ", 1 This first draft, of which no copy is known, though
most of it, no doubt, was incorporated in the definitive version,
was apparently concluded while she was staying with Dona
Luisa de la Cerda at Toledo 2 [where she would, of course, have
had much more leisure for writing than in the ordinary way].
At any rate, the note appended to the letter at the end of the
book describes it as having been finished in June I56s, 3 and we
know that she went to Toledo in January 1562 and stayed there
for six months. 4
At the end of 1562 [or possibly early in 1563, when the founda-
tion of St. Joseph's had been completed, the resulting "com-
motion" had ceased and her mind was once more at rest], the
Saint began to rewrite the book, and, just as she had been ordered
to write the first draft by P. ibanez, so, it appears, we owe
the new version to the insistence of his fellow-Dominican P.
Garcia de Toledo. The evidence for this [so far as it can be
taken as referring to the Life as a whole] comes from St. Teresa
herself, for in the preface to her Foundations she writes as follows :
In the year 1562, when I was in the Convent of Saint Joseph,
at Avila, which had been founded in that very year, I was
commanded by the Dominican Father Fray Garcia de Toledo,
1 Git. La Fuente* Escntos de Santa Teresa, Madnd, 1861, II, 377.
2 Gf p. 23 2 3 below.
3 Gf p. 300, below.
4 Cf. p. 341, below. * '
INTRODUCTION 3
who at that time was my confessor, to write an account of
the foundation of that convent, and also of many other things,
as anyone who reads the book, if it is ever published, will
see. 1
Further encouragement, according to Gracian, 2 came from the
Inquisitor Francisco Soto, whom she met at Avila, from "other
confessors who had given her the same command" and from "the
requests of many of her friends". For greater clarity, the new
version was divided into forty chapters.
The work must have proceeded very slowly, for there are
a number of indications that it was not finished until the very
end of 1565. The following, in the approximate order in which
they occur, are the most reliable of these 3 :
1. "The twenty-eight years which have gone by since I
began prayer" (Chap. VIII: p. 49).
2. "The twenty-eight years and more that have gone by
since I became (a nun)" (Chap. XXXVI: p. 252).
3. "The twenty-seven years during which I have been
practising prayer" (Chap. X: p. 62).
4. "It is now, I believe, some five, or perhaps six, years
since the Lord granted me this prayer [the Third Water]
in abundance" (Chap. XVI: p. 96).
5. Her first contact with the Society of Jesus took place
"after almost twenty years' experience of prayer" (Chap.
XXIII: p. 150).
6. "I am not yet fifty" (Chap. XXXVII: p. 266).
7. Mention of the death of P. Ibafiez (Chap. XXXVIII:
p. 272. Cf. Chap. XXXIV, p. 238).
8. Mention of the receipt of a Brief from Rome which was
dated July 17, 1565 (Chap. XXXIX: p. 285).
The first five of these references enable us to postulate and
confirm an approximate date; the last three confirm, this further
and help us to fix it more exactly.
1-5. What St /Teresa means by "beginning prayer" is evident
from No. 5. Despite the unflattering account which she gives
of the state of her soul during her first years as a nun, she clearly
takes the date of her profession as roughly the beginning of her
life of prayer. Since we know that her relations with the Society
1 [Vol. Ill, p. xxi, below. The command was given her in 1562 but the actual
writing may not have been begun nil later.]
2 Lucidono, etc., Part I, Chap. III.
3 [Only Nos. 7 and 8 are 'given by P. Silveno and the discussion of them all is the
translator's.]
4 LIFE
of Jesus began about 1557, this puts the earlier date at 1537,
and Nos. i, 3 then prove that Chapters VIII and X were being
written in 1564-5. The fact that the date of Chapter X is appar-
ently a year earlier than that of Chapter VIII may mean that the
earlier chapter was revised a second time after the later one had
been written, or more likely, as the Saint revised her work
but little, it may merely be a reminder to us that her figures can-
not be implicitly relied upon.
No. 2 supplies a check "on these calculations. If by "becoming
a nun" she means "making her profession", Chapter XXXVI
was also being written in 1565 j 1 if she means entering the convent,
the date is 1564. In any case, the foregoing calculations seem
definitely to put out of court the critics who attempt to date her
profession 1535, or even earlier, as also does the reference in
Chapter VIII to the "nearly twenty years on that stormy sea"
which she spent before the intensification of her spiritual life,
which we can date with fair accuracy at 1556-7.
The evidence so far considered suggests that whatever delays
occurred during the writing of the definitive Life took place
during the years 1562-4, and that from the end of 1564 onwards
the pace of composition was greatly accelerated.
No. 6 proves that, if the Saint knew her own age (cf. p. 266,
below), Chapter XXXVII was being written before March 28,
1565, the day on which she was fifty. This is a little earlier than
we should have expected and it is interesting that the evidence
as to Chapter XXXVI may also point to a date slightly in advance
of that suggested by other testimony. Can these two chapters
be earlier than some which precede them?
No. 7 means that Chapter XXXVIII was written after
February 2, 1565. If very soon after, this and the preceding
chapter may well have been written consecutively.
No. 8 not only proves that Chapter XXXIX could not have
been written before the late summer of 1565 (and there is nothing
in the text to suggest that it was written immediately on receipt
of the Brief) but indicates that, if this Brief took five months in
getting from Rome to Avila as its predecessor did (p. 248, n.i,
below}, it was probably written as late as December, or even
early in the next year. 2
1 But perhaps late in that year: note the "and more", which does not occur in the
earlier passage.
a [Tworeferences in Chap. XXIX, briefly discussed in footnotes to pp. 1 87, 1 89, below,
seem to support the theory of a later rather than an earlier date within the limits
we have laid down. If we assume the first imaginary vision to have occurred in
1560 (p. xxvm) they indicate that Chap XXIX was written either in the late summer,
or at the very end, of 1565. Of the references given in the text above, No 6 provides
the only strong evidence against the supposition that the latter part of the book was not
written till later in 1565 and not finished until early in 1566 1
% INTRODUCTION 5
Our general conclusions, then, will be that, though St. Teresa
was commanded to write the Life in the latter part of 1562,
she did comparatively little of it for some two years, and then
worked more rapidly and intensively, writing most it during
1565 and finishing it only at the very end of that year or early
in 1566.]
Having written the book, she endeavoured to submit it, as
Soto had recommended her to do, to the scrutiny of the famous
preacher and confessor Juan de Avila, 1 but was not immediately
successful. A letter appended to the autograph manuscript of
the Life tells us that the book had no sooner been completed
("I had not finished reading through what I had written")
than the recipient of the letter 2 asked for it; whereupon the
author begged him to make any emendations in it which he
thought weU and before sending it to P. Avila to have it copied.
As at this time P. Banez, one of the Saint's two confessors, was
professor of theology at the Dominican College of St. Thomas
in Avila, it is not improbable that the two Fathers examined the
manuscript together, which would no doubt mean a delay in
sending it on as its author had asked.
Her wish was apparently in part prompted by the fame of
the great Apostle of Andalusia as a discerner of spirits and in
part due to the recommendation of the Inquisitor Francisco
Soto. That before sending him the book she had written to him
asking him to give her his opinion on it we deduce from one of
his own letters dated April 2 (probably 1568)3 which is still
extant, and in which he says :
I want you to set your mind at rest with regard to the
examination of that matter (negocio), for, if such persons as
these have seen it, you have done everything that is incumbent
upon you. I really do not believe that I could point out
anything which these Fathers have not pointed out already. 3
But neither this assurance nor the approval given to the book
by the two Dominican theologians could entirely satisfy its
author; she therefore had recourse to her good friend Dona
Luisa de la Cerda, whom Juan de Avila also knew and esteemed
i[SSM. 9 II, 123-48.]
2 Yepes asserts that this was P. Garcia de Toledo, a statement confirmed by docu-
ments preserved in the Dominican College at Avila. P. Andres de la Encarnacion
(Memorias kistoriales, N, No. 27) shares the view. P. Gracian, however (Lucidano,
Part I, Chap. Ill), believes that the recipient was Francisco de Salcedo, M. Daza has
also been suggested.
8 [My translation. Another version will be found in Letters (St.), I, 41. (The heading
there is incorrect, for Juan de Avila had not seen the manuscript when he wrote) ]
6 LIFE
highly. In May 1568 Dona Luisa apparently had the manuscript
in her possession, for St. Teresa writes begging her to send
it to him: "I cannot understand/' she says, "why Your
Ladyship did not send it at once." 1 Nine days later, she is
desperate :
I believe it is the devil who is preventing Master Avila from
seeing this thing (negocio] of mine. I should be sorry if he were
to die first: that would be a great calamity. I beseech Your
Ladyship, as you are so near, to send it him, sealed, by one
of your own messengers. 2
By June 23 it would appear that P. Avila has it, or is about to
have it, as she asks Dona Luisa to see that it is sent back to her as
quickly as possible, together with his written opinion on it. It
was actually returned to her, with "a long letter" 3 containing
only minor criticisms, in September. Still she was not satisfied,
and the next to read it were PP. Martin Gutierrez and Jeronimo
Ripalda, two priests of the Society of Jesus, the latter of whom
urged her to write the history of her later foundations. 4 It was
then read by Fray Bartolome de Medina, a Dominican who at
one time had been highly critical of the Saint but was converted
into one of her strongest supporters.
And these were only the beginnings of the book's travels.
Not merely religious, but secular clergy and lay-folk, wanted
to see it or to show it to others; and soon a number of copies
were in circulation, much to the disquiet both of the author
and of P. Bafiez, who feared that not all its readers might be as
prudent as these first. Banez, at one point, reproached St. Teresa
for sending the book about too freely "although", he adds
in his own account of the affair, "I realize that the fault was
not hers". 5
Some trouble did in fact occur with that imperious and self-
willed lady, Dona Maria de Mendoza, Princess of boli, whose
character will be revealed more clearly in the Saint's narrative
of her own foundations. 6 Hearing of the book, about the summer
of 1569, the Princess insisted upon its being lent her, and its
author, though at first demurring to her importunity, had
eventually to yield. The Princess promised her that the manu-
script should be read only by herself and her husband, but,
1 Letters, 5. Cf. Letters (St ), I, 18.
* Letters, 6. Cf. Letters (St.), I, 23-4.
3 Letters, 11 Cf Letters (St.), I, 39
4 Cf Vol. Ill, p. xxii, below.
6 Cit P. Stlveno, I, cxxiu.
8 Foundations, Chap. XVII (VoL III, pp 79-85, below).
INTRODUCTION 7
whether by accident or by design, it got into the hands of the
entire household, and soon its contents began to be widely
known and its most intimate revelations to be scoffed at or
denounced as fraud or delusion.
About the chronology of what happened next there is some
disagreement, but the sequence of the facts is fairly clear. After
the Princess's husband died, she herself took the Discalced
habit and caused a great commotion, as a result of which the
Pastrana foundation, of which she had been the patroness, was
moved to Segovia. 1 It is believed that St. Teresa's opposition
to her conduct led the Princess to denounce the Life to the
Inquisition: in any case, it was so denounced, and P. Banez,
fearful for the result, made a few small emendations in the
manuscript and then himself laid it before the Inquisitors.
These events probably all took place in the years 1574-5. Another
Dominican was charged with its official examination and his
judgment f was wholly in its favour, but the Inquisitors retained
the manuscript and Gracian advised Teresa to allow them to do
so. When eventually application was made to them for it, they
at once returned it and allowed it to be copied further and
circulated among the communities of the Reform.
As we have said, the autograph of the Life is now in the Library
of El Escorial. On the second folio is the inscription (not by the
author) : "Life of the Mother Teresa of Jesus, written by her own
hand." The manuscript has no punctuation and few divisions
into paragraphs but the writing is vigorous, clear and legible
and there are hardly more than a dozen erasures. Some of these
are the author's; some are by P. Banez; and some by a third
person perhaps P. Avila [though P. Silverio is inclined to think
not]. At the end of the manuscript is an autograph aprobacwn
by P. Banez, dated July 7, 1575.
P. Gracian had a number of copies made of the Life, but
nearly all these have been lost. One of the oldest copies known,
which is kept at El Escorial, was made by the Saint's niece
Teresa, daughter of her brother Lorenzo, from the manuscript
already referred to as having been held by the Inquisition.
Another, preserved in the Discalced Carmelite convent at Sala-
manca, is dated June 26, 1585 and was apparently made by a
nun of the Reform' were the autograph not still in existence,
it would be of the first importance. In the same convent there
was 'formerly a copy of the editio princeps of St. Teresa's works,
in which the pages containing the Life have some marginal notes
in the handwriting of P. Gracian, referring principally to the
i Cf. Vol. Ill, p. 85, below.
8 LIFE
identity of persons mentioned in the text. Since in some places
he could have gained his information only from St. Teresa's
own lips, these notes are of great value. The whereabouts of
this book is now unknown, but, as the marginal notes were
copied by P. Andres de la Encarnaci6n, this is of little moment.
Some of these sources will be referred to in footnotes in the pages
which follow.
THE- LIFE OF THE HOLY MOTHER TERESA OF JESUS
AND SOME OF THE FAVOURS GRANTED" TO HER BY GOD, DESCRIBED
BY HERSELF AT THE COMMAND OF HER CONFESSOR, TO WHOM SHE
SUBMITS AND ADDRESSES IT AS FOLLOWS. 1
As I have been commanded and given full liberty to write
about my way of prayer and the favours which the Lord has
granted me, I wish I had also been allowed to describe clearly
and in full detail my grave sins and wicked life. To do this would
be a great comfort to me; but it has been willed otherwise in
fact, I have been subjected to severe restrictions in the matter.
So, for the love of the Lord, I beg anyone who reads this account
of my life to bear in mind how wicked it has been so much so
that, among all the saints who have been converted to God,
I can find none whose life affords me any comfort. For I realize
that, once the Lord had called them, they never offended Him
again. I, however, became worse; and not only so, but I seem to
have studied how to resist the favours which His Majesty granted
me. I knew that I had the obligation to serve Him better, but
realized that, of myself, I could not pay the least part of what I
owed Him.
May He Who waited so long for me be blessed for ever. I
beseech Him with my whole heart to give me grace to 'write this
account of my life, according to my confessors' command, with
complete clarity and truthfulness. The Lord Himself, I know,
has long wished it to be written but I have not presumed to
write it. May it be to His glory and praise; and may it lead my
confessors to know me better, so that they may help my weakness
and I may be enabled to render the Lord some part of the service
which I owe Him. May He be praised by all things for ever.
Amen.
1 This title is from the editio p*inceps.
[CHAP.
CHAPTER I
Describes how the Lord began to awaken her soul in childhood to a love
of virtue and what a help it is in this respect to have good parents.
If I had not been so wicked it would have been a help to me
that I had parents who were virtuous and feared God, and also
that the Lord granted me His favour to make me good. My
father 1 was fond of reading good books and had some in Spanish
so that his children might read them too. These books, together
with the care which my mother took to make us say our prayers
and to lead us to be devoted to Our Lady and to certain saints,
began to awaken good desires in me when I was, I suppose,
about six or seven years old. It was a help to me that I never saw
my parents inclined to anything but virtue. They themselves
had many virtues. My father was a man of great charity towards
the poor, who was good to the sick and also to his servants
so much so that he could never be brought to keep slaves, because
of his compassion for them. On one occasion, when he had a
slave of a brother of his in the house, 2 he was as good to her as
to his own children. He used to say that it caused him intolerable
distress that she was not free. He was strictly truthful: nobody
ever heard him swear or speak evil. He was a man of the most
rigid chastity.
My mother, too, was a very virtuous woman, who endured a
life of great infirmity: she was also particularly chaste. Though
extremely beautiful, she was never known to give any reason for
supposing that she made the slightest account of her beauty;
and, though she died at thirty-three, her dress was already
that of a person advanced in years. She was a very tranquil
woman, of great intelligence. Throughout her life she endured
great trials and her death was most Christian. 3
We were three sisters and nine brothers : all of them, by the
goodness of God, resembled their parents in virtue, except myself,
though I was my father's favourite. And, before I began to offend
1 St. Teresa's father, Don Alonso Sanchez de Gepeda, was twice married By his
first wife he had three children; by his second, Dona Beatriz Davila y Ahumada, nine.
Of these nine, Rodngo and Teresa were respectively the second and the third, while
Lorenzo, father of the Teresa who copied the Life (p 7, above) was the fourth.
Both parents were well descended and the family was in comfortable circumstances,
though not wealthy.
2 At this time well-to-do families in Spain often kept as slaves Moors whose families
had remained in the country after the Reconquest
3 Dona Beatriz had married at fourteen, having been born in 1495, and died in
1528.
I] LIFE i]
God, I think there was some reason for this, for it grieves me
whenever I remember what good inclinations the Lord had giver
me and how little I profited by them. My brothers and sisters
never hindered me from serving God in any way.
I had one brother almost of my own age. 1 It was he whom
I most loved, though I had a great affection for them all, as had
they for me. We used to read the lives of saints together; and.
when I read of the martyrdoms suffered by saintly women for
God's sake, I used to think they had purchased the fruition
of God very cheaply; and I had a keen desire to die as they had
done, not out of any love for God of which I was conscious, but
in order to attain as quickly as possible to the fruition of the
great blessings which, as I read, were laid up in Heaven. I
used to discuss with this brother of mine how we could become
martyrs. We agreed to go off to the country of the Moors,
begging our bread for the love of God, so that they might behead
us there; and, even at so tender an age, I believe the Lord had
given us sufficient courage for this, if we could have found a
way to do it; but our greatest hindrance seemed to be that we
had a father and a mother. 2 It used to cause us great astonish-
ment when we were told that both pain and glory would last
for ever. We would spend long periods talking about this and we
liked to repeat again and again, "For ever ever ever!"
Through our frequent repetition of these words, it pleased the
Lord that in my earliest years I should receive a lasting^mpression
of the way of truth.
When I saw that it was impossible for me to go to any place
where they would put me to death for God's sake, we decided
to become hermits, and we used to build hermitages, as well as
we could, in an orchard which we had at home. We would
make heaps of small stones, but they at once fell down again,
so we found no way of accomplishing our desires. But even now
it gives me a feeling of devotion to remember how early God
granted me what I lost by my own fault.
I gave alms as I could, which was but little. I tried to be alone
when I said my prayers, and there were many such, in particular
the rosary, to which my mother had a great devotion, and this
made us devoted to them too. Whenever I played with other little
girls, I used to love building convents and pretending that we
1 The reference is almost certainly to Rodrigo, who was four years her senior.
He emigrated to America in 1535 and died two years later fighting the Indians on
the banks of the Rio de la Plata. On the incident in the text, see Yepes, Bk. I,
Chap. II.
8 Ribera (Bk. I, Chap. IV) describes the attempt as having actually been made. The
children left Avila and "went on over the bridge, until they were met by an uncle
who took them back home to their mother, greatly to her relief, for she had^been
having them searched for everywhere with great anxiety".
is LIFE [CHAP.
were nuns; and I think I wanted to be a nun, though not so much
as the other things I have described.
I remember that, when my mother died, I was twelve years
of age or a little less. 1 When I began to realize what I had lost,
I went in my distress to an image of Our Lady 2 and with many
tears besought her to be a mother to me. Though I did this in
my simplicity, I believe it was of some avail to me; for whenever
I have commended myself to this Sovereign Virgin I have
been conscious of her aid ; and eventually she has brought me
back to herself. It grieves me now when I observe and reflect
how I did not keep sincerely to the good desires which I had
begun.
O my Lord, since it seems Thou art determined on my salvation
and may it please Thy Majesty to save me ! and on granting
me all the graces Thou hast bestowed on me already, why has
it not seemed well to Thee, not for my advantage but for Thy
honour, that this habitation wherein Thou hast had continually
to dwell should not have become so greatly defiled? It grieves
me, Lord, even to say this, since I know that the fault has been
mine alone, for I believe there is nothing more Thou couldst
have done, even from this early age, to make me wholly Thine.
Nor, if I should feel inclined to complain of my parents, could
I do so, for I saw nothing in them but every kind of good and
anxiety for my welfare. But as I ceased to be a child and began
to become aware of the natural graces which the Lord had given
me, and which were said to be many, instead of giving Him
thanks for them, as I should, I started to make use of them to
offend Him. This I shall now explain.
CHAPTER II
Describes how these virtues were gradually lost and how important' it
is in childhood to associate with people of virtue.
What I shall now describe was, I think, something which began
to do me great harm. I sometimes reflect how wrong it is of
parents not to contrive that their children shall always, and in
every way, see things which are good. My mother, as I have said,
1 Actually, as we have seen, she was thirteen. Dona Beatriz made her will, shortly
before her death, on November 24, 1528.
2 Tradition has it that the image was one which is now m Avila Cathedral, and
that Teresa and Rodrigo also* commended themselves to this Virgin before setting
out to be martyred. Yearly, on October 15, a ceremony commemorating the event
described in the text takes place in Avila.
II] LIFE 13
was very good herself, but, when I came to the age of reason,
I copied her goodness very little, in fact hardly at all, and evil
things did me a great deal of harm. She was fond of books of
chivalry; and this pastime had not the ill effects on her that it
had on me, because she never allowed them to interfere with her
work. But we^were always trying to make time to read them; and
she permitted this, perhaps in order to stop herself from thinking
of the great trials she suffered, and to keep her children occupied
so that in other respects they should not go astray. This annoyed
my father so much that we had to be careful lest he should see
us reading these books. For myself, I began to make a habit of
it, and this little fault which I saw in my mother began to cool
my good desires and lead me to other kinds of wrongdoing.
I thought there was nothing wrong in my wasting many hours,
by day 'and by night, in this useless occupation, even though I
had to hide it from my father. So excessively was I absorbed in
it that I believe, unless I had a new book, I was never happy.
I began to deck myself out and to try to attract others by my
appearance, taking great trouble with my hands and hair,
using perfumes and all the vanities I could get and there were
a good many of them, for I was very fastidious. There was
nothing wrong with my intentions, for I should never have wanted
anyone to offend God because of me. This great and excessive
fastidiousness about personal appearance, together with other
practices which I thought were in no way sinful, lasted for many
years: I see now how wrong they must have been. I had some
cousins, who were the only people allowed to enter my father's
house: 1 he was very careful about this and I wish to God that
he had been careful about my cousins too. For I now see the
danger of intercourse, at an age when the virtues should be
beginning to grow, with persons who, though ignorant of worldly
vanity, arouse a desire for the world in others. These cousins
were almost exactly of my own age or a little older than I. We
always went about together; they were very fond of me; and I
would keep our conversation on things that amused them and
listen to the stories they told about their childish escapades and
crazes, which were anything but edifying. What was worse, my
soul began to incline to the thing that was the cause of all its
trouble.
If I had to advise parents, I should tell them to take great
care about the people with whom their children associate at
1 Don Alonso's brother, Don Francisco, had a house near his own, in the Plazuela de
Santo Domingo, "where the seventeenth-century Discalced Carmelite monastery
now stands. The cousins referred to were no doubt Don Francisco's children : he had
at least four sons, as well as several daughters.
14 LIFE [CHAP.
such an age. Much harm may result from bad company and we
are inclined by nature to follow what is worse rather than what
is better. This was the case with me : I had a sister much older
than myself, 1 from whom, though she was very good and chaste,
I learned nothing, whereas from a relative whom we often had
in the house I learned every kind of evil. This person was so
frivolous in her conversation that my mother had tried very
hard to prevent her from coming to the house, realizing what
harm she might do me, but there were so many reasons for her
coming that she was powerless. I became very fond of meeting
this woman. I talked and gossiped with her frequently; she
joined me in all my favourite pastimes; and she also introduced
me to other pastimes and talked to me about all her conversations
and vanities. Until I knew her (this was when I was about
fourteen or perhaps more: by knowing her I mean becoming
friendly with her and receiving her confidences) I do not think
I had ever forsaken God by committing any mortal sin, or lost
my fear of God, though I was much more concerned about my
honour. 2 This last fear was strong enough to prevent me from
forfeiting my honour altogether, and I cannot think that I would
have acted differently about this for anything in the world;
nor was there anyone in the world whom I loved enough to
forfeit my honour for. So I might have had the strength
not to sin against the honour of God, as my natural inclination
led me not to go astray in anything which I thought concerned
worldly honour, and I did not realize that I was forfeiting my
honour in many other ways.
I went to great extremes in my vain anxiety about this, though
I took not the slightest trouble about what I must do to live a
truly honourable life. All that I was seriously concerned about
was that I should not be lost altogether. My father and sister
were very sorry about this friendship of mine and often reproved
me for it. But, as they could not prevent my friend from coming
to the house, their efforts were of no avail, for when it came to
doing anything wrong I was very clever. I am sometimes
astonished at the harm which can be caused by bad company;
if I had not experienced it I could 
