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The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus

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The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus




Transcriber's Note: Corrections suggested in the Corrigenda,
p. [viii] of the original text, have been made. Section number
added for L 3.9, since both the translator's preface and the
index refer to it. Footnotes gathered at the ends of chapters.
Typographical errors in two Scriptural quotations have been
corrected: In L 21 note 10, I have changed "Quæ præparavit Deus
iis qui" to "Quæ præparavit Deus his qui;" and in L 29 note 12,
I have changed "As the longing of the heart" to "As the longing
of the hart."




The Life
of
St. Teresa of Jesus


Re-imprimatur.
+ Franciscus
Archiepiscopus Westmonast.

Die 27 Sept., 1904.





The Life
of
St. Teresa of Jesus,
of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel.
Written by Herself.

Translated from the Spanish by
David Lewis.

Third Edition Enlarged.

With additional Notes and an Introduction by
Rev. Fr. Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D.

London: Thomas Baker.
New York: Benziger Bros.
MCMIV.





Contents.


Chap.

Introduction to the Third Edition, by Rev. B. Zimmerman

St. Teresa's Arguments of the Chapters

Preface by David Lewis

Annals of the Saint's Life

Prologue

I. Childhood and early Impressions--The Blessing of pious
Parents--Desire of Martyrdom--Death of the Saint's Mother

II. Early Impressions--Dangerous Books and Companions--The Saint
is placed in a Monastery

III. The Blessing of being with good people--How certain
Illusions were removed

IV. Our Lord helps her to become a Nun--Her many Infirmities

V. Illness and Patience of the Saint--The Story of a Priest whom
she rescued from a Life of Sin

VI. The great Debt she owed to our Lord for His Mercy to her--She
takes St. Joseph for her Patron

VII. Lukewarmness--The Loss of Grace--Inconvenience of Laxity in
Religious Houses

VIII. The Saint ceases not to pray--Prayer the way to recover
what is lost--All exhorted to pray--The great Advantage of
Prayer, even to those who may have ceased from it

IX. The means whereby our Lord quickened her Soul, gave her Light
in her Darkness, and made her strong in Goodness

X. The Graces she received in Prayer--What we can do
ourselves--The great Importance of understanding what our Lord is
doing for us--She desires her Confessors to keep her Writings
secret, because of the special Graces of our Lord to her, which
they had commanded her to describe

XI. Why men do not attain quickly to the perfect Love of God--Of
Four Degrees of Prayer--Of the First Degree--The Doctrine
profitable for Beginners, and for those who have no
sensible Sweetness

XII. What we can ourselves do--The Evil of desiring to attain to
supernatural States before our Lord calls us

XIII. Of certain Temptations of Satan--Instructions
relating thereto

XIV. The Second State of Prayer--Its supernatural Character

XV. Instructions for those who have attained to the Prayer of
Quiet--Many advance so far, but few go farther

XVI. The Third State of Prayer--Deep Matters--What the Soul can
do that has reached it--Effects of the great Graces of our Lord

XVII. The Third State of Prayer--The Effects thereof--The
Hindrance caused by the Imagination and the Memory

XVIII. The Fourth State of Prayer--The great Dignity of the Soul
raised to it by our Lord--Attainable on Earth, not by our Merit,
but by the Goodness of our Lord

XIX. The Effects of this Fourth State of Prayer--Earnest
Exhortations to those who have attained to it not to go back nor
to cease from Prayer, even if they fall--The great Calamity of
going back

XX. The Difference between Union and Rapture--What Rapture
is--The Blessing it is to the Soul--The Effects of it

XXI. Conclusion of the Subject--Pain of the Awakening--Light
against Delusions

XXII. The Security of Contemplatives lies in their not ascending
to high Things if our Lord does not raise them--The Sacred
Humanity must be the Road to the highest Contemplation--A
Delusion in which the Saint was once entangled

XXIII. The Saint resumes the History of her Life--Aiming at
Perfection--Means whereby it may be gained--Instructions
for Confessors

XXIV. Progress under Obedience--Her Inability to resist the
Graces of God--God multiplies His Graces

XXV. Divine Locutions--Delusions on that Subject

XXVI. How the Fears of the Saint vanished--How she was assured
that her Prayer was the Work of the Holy Spirit

XXVII. The Saint prays to be directed in a different
way--Intellectual Visions

XXVIII. Visions of the Sacred Humanity and of the glorified
Bodies--Imaginary Visions--Great Fruits thereof when they come
from God

XXIX. Of Visions--The Graces our Lord bestowed on the Saint--The
Answers our Lord gave her for those who tried her

XXX. St. Peter of Alcantara comforts the Saint--Great Temptations
and Interior Trials

XXXI. Of certain outward Temptations and Appearances of Satan--Of
the Sufferings thereby occasioned--Counsels for those who go on
unto Perfection

XXXII. Our Lord shows St. Teresa the Place which she had by her
Sins deserved in Hell--The Torments there--How the Monastery of
St. Joseph was founded

XXXIII. The Foundation of the Monastery hindered--Our Lord
consoles the Saint

XXXIV. The Saint leaves her Monastery of the Incarnation for a
time, at the command of her superior--Consoles an afflicted Widow

XXXV. The Foundation of the House of St. Joseph--Observance of
holy Poverty therein--How the Saint left Toledo

XXXVI. The Foundation of the Monastery of St. Joseph--Persecution
and Temptations--Great interior Trial of the Saint, and
her Deliverance

XXXVII. The Effects of the divine Graces in the Soul--The
inestimable Greatness of one Degree of Glory

XXXVIII. Certain heavenly Secrets, Visions, and Revelations--The
Effects of them in her Soul

XXXIX. Other Graces bestowed on the Saint--The Promises of our
Lord to her--Divine Locutions and Visions

XL. Visions, Revelations, and Locutions

The Relations.

Relation.

I. Sent to St. Peter of Alcantara in 1560 from the Monastery of
the Incarnation, Avila

II. To one of her Confessors, from the House of Dona Luisa de la
Cerda, in 1562

III. Of various Graces granted to the Saint from the year 1568 to
1571, inclusive

IV. Of the Graces the Saint received in Salamanca at the end of
Lent, 1571

V. Observations on certain Points of Spirituality

VI. The Vow of Obedience to Father Gratian which the Saint made
in 1575

VII. Made for Rodrigo Alvarez, S.J., in the year 1575, according
to Don Vicente de la Fuente; but in 1576, according to the
Bollandists and F. Bouix

VIII. Addressed to F. Rodrigo Alvarez

IX. Of certain spiritual Graces she received in Toledo and Avila
in the years 1576 and 1577

X. Of a Revelation to the Saint at Avila, 1579, and of Directions
concerning the Government of the Order

XI. Written from Palencia in May, 1581, and addressed to Don
Alonzo Velasquez, Bishop of Osma, who had been when Canon of
Toledo, one of the Saint's Confessors





Introduction to the Present Edition.

When the publisher entrusted me with the task of editing this
volume, one sheet was already printed and a considerable portion
of the book was in type. Under his agreement with the owners of
the copyright, he was bound to reproduce the text and notes,
etc., originally prepared by Mr. David Lewis without any change,
so that my duty was confined to reading the proofs and verifying
the quotations. This translation of the Life of St. Teresa is so
excellent, that it could hardly be improved. While faithfully
adhering to her wording, the translator has been successful in
rendering the lofty teaching in simple and clear language, an
achievement all the more remarkable as in addition to the
difficulty arising from the transcendental nature of the subject
matter, the involved style, and the total absence of punctuation
tend to perplex the reader. Now and then there might be some
difference of opinion as to how St. Teresa's phrases should be
construed, but it is not too much to say that on the whole
Mr. Lewis has been more successful than any other translator,
whether English or foreign. Only in one case have I found it
necessary to make some slight alteration in the text, and I trust
the owners of the copyright will forgive me for doing so. In
Chapter XXV., § 4, St. Teresa, speaking of the difference between
the Divine and the imaginary locutions, says that a person
commending a matter to God with great earnestness, may think that
he hears whether his prayer will be granted or not: y es muy
posible, "and this is quite possible," but he who has ever heard
a Divine locution will see at once that this assurance is
something quite different. Mr. Lewis, following the old Spanish
editions, translated "And it is most impossible," whereas both
the autograph and the context demand the wording I have ventured
to substitute.

When Mr. Lewis undertook the translation of St. Teresa's works,
he had before him Don Vicente de la Fuente's edition (Madrid,
1861-1862), supposed to be a faithful transcript of the original.
In 1873 the Sociedad Foto-Tipografica-Catolica of Madrid
published a photographic reproduction of the Saint's autograph in
412 pages in folio, which establishes the true text once for all.
Don Vicente prepared a transcript of this, in which he wisely
adopted the modern way of spelling but otherwise preserved the
original text, or at least pretended to do so, for a minute
comparison between autograph and transcript reveals the startling
fact that nearly a thousand inaccuracies have been allowed to
creep in. Most of these variants are immaterial, but there are
some which ought not to have been overlooked. Thus, in Chapter
XVIII. § 20, St. Teresa's words are: Un gran letrado de la orden
del glorioso santo Domingo, while Don Vicente retains the old
reading De la orden del glorioso patriarca santo Domingo.
Mr. Lewis possessed a copy of this photographic reproduction, but
utilised it only in one instance in his second edition. [1]

The publication of the autograph has settled a point of some
importance. The Bollandists (n. 1520), discussing the question
whether the headings of the chapters (appended to this
Introduction) are by St. Teresa or a later addition, come to the
conclusion (against the authors of the Reforma de los Descalços)
that they are clearly an interpolation (clarissime patet) on
account of the praise of the doctrine contained in these
arguments. Notwithstanding their high authority the Bollandists
are in this respect perfectly wrong, the arguments are entirely
in St. Teresa's own hand and are exclusively her own work.
The Book of Foundations and the Way of Perfection contain similar
arguments in the Saint's handwriting. Nor need any surprise be
felt at the alleged praise of her doctrine for by saying: this
chapter is most noteworthy (Chap. XIV.), or: this is good
doctrine (Chap. XXI.), etc., she takes no credit for herself
because she never grows tired of repeating that she only delivers
the message she has received from our Lord. [2] The Bollandists,
not having seen the original, may be excused, but P. Bouix (whom
Mr. Lewis follows in this matter) had no right to suppress these
arguments. It is to be hoped that future editions of the works
of S. Teresa will not again deprive the reader of this remarkable
feature of her writings. What she herself thought of her books
is best told by Yepes in a letter to Father Luis de Leon, the
first editor of her works: "She was pleased when her writings
were being praised and her Order and the convents were held in
esteem. Speaking one day of the Way of Perfection, she rejoiced
to hear it praised, and said to me with great content: Some grave
men tell me that it is like Holy Scripture. For being revealed
doctrine it seemed to her that praising her book was like
praising God." [3]

A notable feature in Mr. Lewis's translation is his division of
the chapters into short paragraphs. But it appears that he
rearranged the division during the process of printing, with the
result that a large number of references were wrong. No labour
has been spared in the correction of these, and I trust that the
present edition will be the more useful for it. In quoting the
Way of Perfection and the Interior Castle (which he calls Inner
Fortress!) Mr. Lewis refers to similar paragraphs which, however,
are to be found in no English edition. A new translation of
these two works is greatly needed, and, in the case of the Way of
Perfection, the manuscript of the Escurial should be consulted as
well as that of Valladolid. Where the writings of S. John of the
Cross are quoted by volume and page, the edition referred to is
the one of 1864, another of Mr. Lewis's masterpieces.
The chapters in Ribera's Life of St. Teresa refer to the edition
in the Acts of the Saint by the Bollandists. These and all other
quotations have been carefully verified, with the exception of
those taken from the works on Mystical theology by Antonius a
Spiritu Sancto and Franciscus a S. Thoma, which I was unable to
consult. I should have wished to replace the quotations from
antiquated editions of the Letters of our Saint by references to
the new French edition by P. Grégoire de S. Joseph (Paris,
Poussielgue, 1900), which may be considered as the
standard edition.

In note 2 to Chap. XI. Mr. Lewis draws attention to a passage in
a sermon by S. Bernard containing an allusion to different ways
of watering a garden similar to St. Teresa's well-known
comparison. Mr. Lewis's quotation is incorrect, and I am not
certain what sermon he may have had in view. Something to the
point may be found in sermon 22 on the Canticle (Migne,
P. L. Vol. CLXXXIII, p. 879), and in the first sermon on the
Nativity of our Lord (ibid., p. 115), and also in a sermon on the
Canticle by one of St. Bernard's disciples (Vol. CLXXXIV.,
p. 195). I am indebted to the Very Rev. Prior Vincent McNabb,
O.P., for the verification of a quotation from St. Vincent Ferrer
(Chap. XX. § 31).

Since the publication of Mr. Lewis's translation the uncertainty
about the date of St. Teresa's profession has been cleared up.
Yepes, the Bollandists, P. Bouix, Don Vicente de la Fuente,
Mr. Lewis, and numerous other writers assume that she entered the
convent of the Incarnation [4] on November 2nd, 1533, and made
her profession on November 3rd, 1534. The remaining dates of
events previous to her conversion are based upon this, as will he
seen from the chronology printed by Mr. Lewis at the end of his
Preface and frequently referred to in the footnotes. It rests,
however, on inadequate evidence, namely on a single passage in
the Life [5] where the Saint says that she was not yet twenty
years old when she made her first supernatural experience in
prayer. She was twenty in March, 1535, and as this event took
place after her profession, the latter was supposed by Yepes and
his followers to have taken place in the previous November.
Even if we had no further evidence, the fact that St. Teresa is
not always reliable in her calculation should have warned us not
to rely too much upon a somewhat casual statement. In the first
chapter, § 7, she positively asserts that she was rather less
than twelve years old at the death of her mother, whereas we know
that she was at least thirteen years and eight months old. As to
the profession we have overwhelming evidence that it took place
on the 3rd of November, 1536, and her entrance in the convent a
year and a day earlier. To begin with, we have the positive
statement of her most intimate friends, Julian d'Avila, Father
Ribera, S.J., and Father Jerome Gratian. Likewise doña Maria
Pinel, nun of the Incarnation, says in her deposition: "She
(Teresa of Jesus) took the habit on 2 November, 1535." [6]
This is corroborated by various passages in the Saint's writings.
Thus, in Relation VII., written in 1575, she says, speaking of
herself: "This nun took the habit forty years ago." Again in a
passage of the Life written about the end of 1564 or the
beginning of the following year, [7] she mentions that she has
been a nun for over twenty-eight years, which points to her
profession in 1536. But there are two documents which place the
date of profession beyond dispute, namely the act of renunciation
of her right to the paternal inheritance and the deed of dowry
drawn up before a public notary. Both bear the date 31 October,
1536. The authors of the Reforma de los Descalços thought that
they must have been drawn up before St. Teresa took the habit,
and therefore placed this event in 1536 and the profession in
1537, but neither of these documents is necessarily connected
with the clothing, yet both must have been completed before
profession. The Constitutions of Blessed John Soreth, drawn up
in 1462, which were observed at the convent of the Incarnation,
contain the following rule with regard to the reception and
training of novices: [8] Consulimus quod recipiendus ante
susceptionem habitus expediat se de omnibus quae habet in saeculo
nisi ex causa rationabili per priorem generalem vel provincialem
fuerit aliter ordinatum. There was, indeed, good reason in the
case of St. Teresa to postpone these legal matters. Her father
was much opposed to her becoming a nun, but considering his piety
it might have been expected that before the end of the year of
probation he would grant his consent (which in the event he did
the very day she took the habit), and make arrangements for the
dowry. One little detail concerning her haste in entering the
convent has been preserved by the Reforma and the
Bollandists, [9] though neither seem to have understood its
meaning. On leaving the convent of the Incarnation for
St. Joseph's in 1563, St. Teresa handed the prioress of the
former convent a receipt for her bedding, habit and discipline.
This almost ludicrous scrupulosity was in conformity with a
decision of the general chapter of 1342 which said: Ingrediens
ordinem ad sui ipsius instantiam habeat lectisternia pro se ipso,
sin autem recipiens solvat lectum illum. As St. Teresa entered
the convent without the knowledge of her father she did not bring
this insignificant trousseau with her; accordingly the prioress
became responsible for it and obtained a receipt when St. Teresa
went to the new convent. The dowry granted by Alphonso Sanchez
de Cepeda to his daughter consisted of twenty-five measures,
partly wheat, partly barley, or, in lieu thereof, two hundred
ducats per annum. Few among the numerous nuns of the Incarnation
could have brought a better or even an equal dowry.

The date of St. Teresa's profession being thus fixed on the 3rd
of November, 1536, some other dates of the chronology must be
revised. Her visit to Castellanos de la Canada must have taken
place in the early part of 1537. But already before this time
the Saint had an experience which should have proved a warning to
her, and the neglect of which she never ceased to deplore, namely
the vision of our Lord; [10] her own words are that this event
took place "at the very beginning of her acquaintance with the
person" who exercised so dangerous an influence upon her.
Mr. Lewis assigns to it the date 1542, which is impossible seeing
that instead of twenty-six it was only twenty-two years before
she wrote that passage of her life. Moreover, it would have
fallen into the midst of her lukewarmness (according to
Mr. Lewis's chronology) instead of the very beginning. P. Bouix
rightly assigns it to the year 1537, but as he is two years in
advance of our chronology it does not agree with the surrounding
circumstances as described by him. Bearing in mind the hint
St. Teresa gives [11] as to her disposition immediately after her
profession, we need not be surprised if the first roots of her
lukewarmness show themselves so soon.

From Castellanos she proceeded to Hortigosa on a visit to her
uncle. While there she became acquainted with the book called
Tercer Abecedario. Don Vicente remarks that the earliest edition
known to him was printed in 1537, which tells strongly against
the chronology of the Bollandists, P. Bouix, and others.
Again, speaking of her cure at Bezadas she gives a valuable hint
by saying that she remained blind to certain dangers for more
than seventeen years until the Jesuit fathers finally undeceived
her. As these came to Avila in 1555 the seventeen years lead us
back to 1538, which precisely coincides with her sojourn at
Bezadas. She remained there until Pascua florida of the
following year. P. Bouix and others understand by this term Palm
Sunday, but Don Vicente shows good reason that Easter Sunday is
meant, which in 1539 was April the 6th. She then returned to
Avila, more dead than alive, and remained seriously ill for
nearly three years, until she was cured through the miraculous
intervention of St. Joseph about the beginning of 1542.
Now began the period of lukewarmness which was temporally
interrupted by the illness and death of her father, in 1544 or
1545, and came to an end about 1555. Don Vicente, followed by
Mr. Lewis, draws attention to what he believes to be a "proof of
great laxity of the convent," that St. Teresa should have been
urged by one of her confessors to communicate as often as once a
fortnight. It should be understood that frequent communion such
as we now see it practised was wholly unknown in her time.
The Constitutions of the Order specified twelve days on which all
those that were not priests should communicate, adding:
Verumtamen fratres professi prout Deus eis devotionem contulerit
diebus dominicis et festis duplicibus (i.e., on feasts of our
Lady, the Apostles, etc.), communicare poterunt si qui velint.
Thus, communicating about once a month St. Teresa acted as
ordinary good Religious were wont to do, and by approaching the
sacrament more frequently she placed herself among the more
fervent nuns. [12]

St. Teresa wrote quite a number of different accounts of her
life. The first, addressed to Father Juan de Padranos, S.J. [13]
and dated 1557, is now lost. The second, written for St. Peter
of Alcantara, is Relation I. at the end of this volume; a copy of
it, together with a continuation (Relation II.) was sent to
Father Pedro Ibañez in 1562. It is somewhat difficult to admit
that in the very same year she wrote another, more extensive,
account to the same priest, which is generally called the "first"
Life. At the end of the Life such as we have it now, St. Teresa
wrote: "This book was finished in June, 1562," and Father Bañez
wrote underneath: "This date refers to the first account which
the Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus wrote of her life; it was not
then divided into chapters. Afterwards she made this copy and
inserted in it many things which had taken place subsequent to
this date, such as the foundation of the monastery of St. Joseph
of Avila." Elsewhere Father Bañez says: [14] "Of one of her
books, namely, the one in which she recorded her life and the
manner of prayer whereby God had led her, I can say that she
composed it to the end that her confessors might know her the
better and instruct her, and also that it might encourage and
animate those who learn from it the great mercy God had shown
her, a great sinner as she humbly acknowledged herself to be.
This book was already written when I made her acquaintance, her
previous confessors having given her permission to that effect.
Among these was a licentiate of the Dominican Order, the Reverend
Father Pedro Ibañez, reader of Divinity at Avila. She afterwards
completed and recast this book." These two passages of Bañez
have led the biographers of the Saint to think that she wrote her
Life twice, first in 1561 and the following year, completing it
in the house of Doña Luisa de la Cerda at Toledo, in the month of
June; and secondly between 1563 and 1565 at St. Joseph's Convent
of Avila. They have been at pains to point out a number of
places which could not have been in the "first" Life, but must
have been added in the second; [15] and they took it for granted
that the letter with which the book as we now have it concludes,
was addressed to Father Ibañez in 1562, when the Saint sent him
the "first" Life. It bears neither address nor date, but from
its contents I am bound to conclude that it was written in 1565,
that it refers to the "second" Life, and that whomsoever it was
addressed to, it cannot have been to Father Ibañez, who was
already dead at the time. [16] Saint Teresa asks the writer to
send a copy of the book to Father Juan de Avila. Now we know
from her letters that as late as 1568 this request had not been
complied with, and that St. Teresa had to write twice to Doña
Luisa for this purpose; [17] but if she had already given these
instructions in 1562, it is altogether incomprehensible that she
did not see to it earlier, especially when the "first" Life was
returned to her for the purpose of copying and completing it.
The second reason which prevents me from considering this letter
as connected with the "first" Life will be examined when I come
to speak of the different ends the Saint had in view when writing
her Life. It is more difficult to say to whom the letter was
really addressed. The Reforma suggests Father Garcia de Toledo,
Dominican, who bade the Saint write the history of the foundation
of St. Joseph's at Avila [18] and who was her confessor at that
convent. It moreover believes that he it is to whom Chapter
XXXIV. §§ 8-20 refers, and this opinion appears to me plausible.
As to the latter point, Yepes thinks the Dominican at Toledo was
Father Vicente Barron, the Bollandists offer no opinion, and
Mr. Lewis, in his first edition gives first the one and then the
other. If, as I think, Father Garcia was meant, the passage in
Chapter XVI. § 10, beginning "O, my son," would concern him also,
as well as several passages where Vuestra Merced--you, my
Father--is addressed. For although the book came finally into
the hands of Father Bañez, it was first delivered into those of
the addressee of the letter.

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