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Project Gutenberg’s The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, by Teresa of Avila
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Title: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus
Author: Teresa of Avila
Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8120]
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[This file was first posted on June 16, 2003]
Edition: 10
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START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA OF JESUS ***Produced by Elizabeth T. Knuth
The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus
Transcriber’s Note: Corrections suggested in the Corrigenda,
[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
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