[*]Special Note: The references for the works of St. Teresa (except for Life) used in the footnotes throughout this work refer to Complete Works of St. Teresa, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, 3 vols., Sheed & Ward, New York, 1957.
[2]Foundations, Chap. XIV (Vol. III, p. 66).
[3]Life, Chap. XXV (p. 243).
[4]Way of perfection, Chap. XXXII (Vol. II, p. 138).
[5]Life, Chap. XXXVI (pp. 344-5).
[6]Life, Chap. XXXIII (p. 312).
[7]Way of perfection, Chap. XX (Vol. II, p. 86).
[8]Vol. III, pp. 229-31.
[9]Conceptions of the Love of God, Chap. II (Vol. II, p. 375).
[10]Foundations, Chap. XIV (Vol. III, p. 66).
[11]Way of perfection, Chap. XXII (Vol. II, p. 94).
[12]Foundations, Chap. XIX (Vol. III, p. 94).
[13]Foundations, Chap. XXVIII (Vol. III, p. 164).
[14]Life, Chap. XXXVIII (p. 361).
[15]Life, Chap. XIII (p. 147).
[16]Way of perfection, Chap. XX (Vol. II, p. 88).
[17]Life, Chap. XIII (p. 145).
[18]Ibid., Chap. XXXVI (Vol. II, p. 156).
[19]Life, Chap. XXXVII (p. 360).
[20]Such references as these are to be found everywhere. See, for example, p. 151, Vol. II, pp. 68, 234, 291, Vol. III, pp. xxii, xxiii.
21In the Escorial manuscript. See Vol. II, p. 97, n. 6.
[22]Foundations, Chap. XXV (Vol. III, p. 132 ).
[23]Way of perfection, Chap. XIX (Vol. II, p. 76).
[24]Vol. II, p. 68.
[25]Vol. III, p. 39.
[26]Vol. II, p. 312.
[27]Life, Chap. XIII (p. 147).
[28]Life, Chap. XXXIV (p. 324).
[29]Life, Chap. VII (p. 98 ).
[30]Life, Chap. XXX (p. 282 ).
[31]Foundations, Chap. XV (Vol. III, p. 74).
[32]Life, Chaps. XIII, XXXVII, XXVI, XXIX (p. 140, 380, 244, 273).
[33]Relations, III (Vol. I, p. 316).
[34]See, for a typical example, Life, Chap. XXXVIII (p. 362).
[35]Life, Chap. VII (p. 98).
[36]Interior Castle, VI, ix (Vol. II, p. 316).
[37]Life, Chap. XXXVI (p. 343).
[38]Way of perfection, Chap. XXXII (Vol. II, p. 135).
[39][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.]
[40]Such a subject-index will be found in Vol. III, pp. 445-54 of my edition of the Complete Works.
[41]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.
[42]Cf. her reference to the Bible in Life, Chap. XXV (p. 239).
[43]I.e., about six months after Maldonado's visit: cf. final words of FI (Vol. III, p. 4).
[44]Some authorities believe that, between December 11 and 17 of this year, St. Teresa had an interview with Philip II at El Escorial (cf. P. Silverio, IX, 266).
[45]Jerónimo Gracián: Lucidario del verdadero espíritu, Chap. V. She did, however, eventually write the book she was asked for: it was the Interior Castle.
[46]Life, Chap. X (p. 123).
47[This is the title nearly always given in Spanish to the Interior Castle.]
[48]Historia del Carmen Descalzo, Bk. V, Chap. XIII.
[49]Foundations, Chap. VII (Vol. III, p. 36, n. 2).
[50]Quoted in full by P. Silverio, I, lxix.
[51]Ribera, Bk. I, Chap. V.
[52]Life, Chap. II (p. 68).
[53][St. John of the Cross, I, liv ff., et passim.]
[54]B.Nac. MS. 3180 Adiciones E., Nos. 13, 14.
[55][Cf. S.S.M., II, 155-6.]
[56][S.S M., II, 151-89.]
[57][St. John of the Cross, II, 72.]
[58]["The Flaming Hart" ("Upon the book and picture of the seraphicall St. Teresa").]
[59]St. Teresa's father, Don Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, was twice married. By his first wife he had three children; by his second, Doña Beatriz Dávila y Ahumada, nine. Of these nine, Rodrigo and Teresa were respectively the second and the third, white Lorenzo, father of the Teresa who copied the Life (p. 62) was the fourth. Both parents were well descended and the family was in comfortable circumstances, though not wealthy.
[60]At this time well-to-do families in Spain often kept as slaves Moors whose families had remained in the country after the Re-conquest.
[61]Doña Beatriz had married at fourteen, having been born in 1495, and died in 1528.
[62]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.
[63]Ribera (Bk. I, Chap. IV) describes the attempt as having actually been made. The children left Ávila 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".
[64]Actually, as we have seen, she was thirteen. Doña Beatriz made her will, shortly before her death, on November 24, 1528.
[65]Tradition has it that the image was one which is now in Ávila 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 Ávila.
[66]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.
[67]This was her half-sister, Doña María, her father's only daughter by his first wife.
[68][The word honra, which St. Teresa uses in various senses -- good, bad and neutral -- I often render "reputation" or "good name", but in this context -- i.e., of a girl of St. Teresa's age, living in the Spain of her day -- the translation "honour" does not seem too strong: indeed, the contrast which she makes between the two kinds of honra almost necessitates it.]
[69]This was the Augustinian convent of Our Lady of Grace, a foundation some twenty years old situated outside the city walls, which took girls from good families as boarders.
[70][Honra.]
[71][St. Teresa's reference to this intimacy is so delicately vague that it is difficult for the translator not to express more than she actually says. The interpretation here given to her words I have decided upon after some hesitation. Dissenting readers may choose between P. Grégoire's "Il s'agissait de relations qui semblaient pouvoir aboutir à une alliance honorable pour moi", and Lewis's "The conversation I shared in was with one who, I thought, would do well in the estate of matrimony", the editor's footnote inferring that St. Teresa had "listened only to the story of her cousin's intended marriage". In default of other information I take the meaning to be that, as this woman was of marriageable (i.e., mature) age, the writer assumed that she would soon marry and their intimacy would come to an end: all would then be well that ended well. This seems a much more natural interpretation than one which represents St. Teresa as predicting her own marriage.]
[72]St. Matthew xx, 16.
[73]Doña Juana Suárez, a nun in the Convent of the Incarnation at Ávila, where St. Teresa afterwards professed.
[74]Doña María, living at Castellanos de la Cañada. Cf. n. 80.
[75]Cf. n. 81.
[76][Lit.: "did He force me to exercise force upon myself." The play upon words cannot be fully brought out by any satisfactory translation.]
[77]A Spanish translation of these, by Juan de Molina, had been published at Valencia, in 1520.
[78]Her younger brother Antonio, who became a Dominican, and later a Hieronymite. Then ill health compelled him to return to the world and he died in the Indies, in 1546.
[79]The Convent of the Incarnation, Ávila, is situated on the north side of the city, outside the walls. It had been founded in 1479, as a residence for ladies who were members of the Third Order of Carmel but later it was converted into a convent with the title of Our Lady of the Incarnation. As to the date of her entry into the Convent, there has been a great deal of doubt, but documents [published by P. Silverio in his appendices] appear to have established that she took the habit on November 2, 1536, and made her solemn profession on November 3, 1537, at the ages of twenty-one and twenty-two respectively. [Previously Ribera's dates of 1535 and 1536 had been generally accepted, though there was also evidence in favour of 1533 and 1534.] Cf. Relation IV (p. 319): "It is forty years since this nun took the habit." This was written in 1576.
[80][This last phrase has puzzled the commentators. I take the meaning to be that St. Teresa went to stay with her sister, Doña María who had married a certain Don Martín de Guzmán y Barrientos, in the late autumn ("when the winter began" -- but it begins early on the Castilian plateau), was under the supervision of the curandera, who lived near the sister, during the winter, and went to live with her, to take the intensive and painful course of treatment referred to in the text, in the following April, staying till July. It was presumably on a first visit to the curandera, made for the purpose of a consultation, that St. Teresa was accompanied by the older nun. But Becedas, where the curandera lived, was over forty miles from Ávila, whereas Doña María's village of Castellanos de la Canada was quite near Becedas, so that by going to stay with her sister she saved herself long journeys during the winter. This interpretation seems to me the only one which fits all the facts.]
[81]The uncle, Don Pedro, lived at Hortigosa, a village on the road to Castellanos. The Discalced Carmelite community of St. Joseph, at Ávila, still preserves the copy of Francisco de Osuna's Third Spiritual Alphabet [cf. S.S.M., I,79-131] here referred to.
[82][St. Teresa must have been mistaken. She cannot possibly have been less than twenty-three and was probably a little older.]
[83][Lit.: "a person of the Church", but the context makes the meaning clear.]
[84]P. Vicente Barrón, a theologian of repute, who was also her father's confessor.
[85][Spanish writers always describe the Society of Jesus as the "Company" and that word is kept throughout this translation.]
[86]The Discalced nuns of St. Joseph's, Ávila, have an edition of St. Gregory's Morals, in two volumes, which, according to an inscription in the second volume, were read and marked by St. Teresa. Both in these volumes, however, and in the Alphabet, it can be stated with confidence that the majority of the marks were not made by the Saint.
[87]Job ii, 10.
[88]According to Ribera (Bk. I, Chap. VII), she was believed to be dead, a grave was dug for her at the Incarnation and nuns came from that convent to keep vigil by her body. Her father, however, was convinced that there was still life in her and refused to consent to the burial.
[89][Pascua florida. Lewis (p. 33) erroneously translates "Palm Sunday."]
[90][Envuelto. Lit.: "wrapped up", "swathed".]
[91][Honra. Cf. n. 68.]
[92]In many Spanish convents at this time it was customary to allow any nun who could afford to do so to pay the expenses of the yearly festival of some one saint to whom she might be particularly devoted. This custom obtained at the Incarnation.
[93]Galatians ii, 20.
[94][The Saint wrote, no doubt inadvertently, "that did not displease Him".] P. Báñez corrected this to: "that He did not like".
[95][Honra.]
[96][Hardly quite so long, as] it seems certain that Don Alonso died on December 24, 1543. His will is dated December 3, 1543, and his son and executor Lorenzo opened it on December 26 [P. Silverio reproduces documents which disprove Mir's date of 1545 for Don Alonso's death].
[97]P. Vicente Barrón [cf. p. 27, n. 2].
[98][The metaphor, hacerse espaldas, is St. Teresa's.]
[99][An apparent reference to Ezechiel xviii, 21.]
[100][Lit.: "the grief (pena) of being . . . ." "Discomfort," "embarrassment," "depression" would be modern equivalents of the substantive, but none of these is sufficiently comprehensive. St. Teresa is referring to all the varied reactions produced in man by the contact between his littleness and the greatness of God.]
[101]Tradition has it that this was an Ecce Homo, which is still venerated in the Convent of the Incarnation, though some writers have described it as a representation of Christ bound to the Column.
[102][The original has an untranslatable play upon words: lit.: "must be (sic) gained or lost a great deal -- I mean (its) meditation (will be) lost."]
103A Spanish translation of the Confessions was made by a Portuguese, P. Sebastián Toscano, and dedicated by him to Doña Leonor de Mascareñas, a great friend of St. Teresa (cf. Foundations, Chap. XVII: Vol. III, p. 81): the dedication is dated January 15, 1554. [If, as is likely, this was the edition given to the Saint, the incident supports a later date than 1554-5, which is the date commonly given, for her "second conversion".]
[104][Confessions, Bk. VIII, Chap. XII.]
[105]These persons, according to a manuscript note by P. Gracián to be found in a copy of the first edition of St. Teresa's works, were "Master Fray Domingo Báñez and Fray García de Toledo".
[106][Honra. n. 68. This is an example of the use of the word to denote something reprehensible in nuns: elsewhere she adjures her sisters to think (in another sense) of their own honra, or reputation.]
[107][Lit.: "hardly have they touched us in a point of honour." Cf. the use of "punto de honra" or "pundonor" in Spanish drama.]
[108]"P. Pedro Ibáñez", observes P. Gracián, in another manuscript note to the copy of the first edition of St. Teresa's works referred to above (p. 62).
[109]The reference as to the twenty-second epistle of St. Jerome "Ad Eustochium", which describes how vividly there would come to him in the desert pictures of the pomps and vanities of pagan Rome.
[110][The metaphors here follow the Spanish exactly.]
[111][Lit.: "is growing fat and taking strength." Fatness is often spoken of in Spain as synonymous with robustness and made a subject of congratulation.]
112By the Franciscan P. Alonso de Madrid: first published at Seville in 1521 and reprinted many times in the sixteenth century.
[113][Presumably a reference to Philippians iv, 13, unless the author is attributing Our Lord's words in St. Matthew xix, 26 to St. Paul.]
[114]"Da quod jubes et jube quod vis" (Confessions, Bk. X, Chap. XXIX).
[115]St. Matthew xiv, 29.
[116]According to P. Gracián, these persons were María de San Pablo, Ana de los Angeles and Doña María de Cepeda. The same names are given by P. Gracián's sister, M. María de San José. (B.Nac., MS. 12,936.) [Lewis, however (p. 98, n. 6), aptly remarks that, as shown in Chap. VII (p. 101), one of the three must have been St. Teresa's father.]
[117][While there are too many similarities between the writings of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross for more than a very small proportion of them to be referred to, I cannot forbear quoting here the latter's well-known maxim: "Live in this world as though there were in it but God and thy soul, so that thy heart may be detained by aught that is human" (St. John of the Cross, III, 256).]
[118][Lit.: "of more than two" -- but the expression is a figurative one.]
[119][Cf. St. John of the Cross: Spiritual Canticle, Stanza VI.]
[120][2 Corinthians xi, 14.]
[121]I.e., St. Joseph's, Ávila.
[122][Lit.: "the flowers and carnations." No doubt carnations, with their strong fragrance, were flowers which particularly appealed to St. Teresa: she often lays special stress on some such thing when it catches her imagination.]
[123]Proverbs viii, 31.
[124][The verb cortar, here translated "cut off", is rendered "prune", "prune away" earlier in this chapter. The sense is different here but the author seems to have the earlier passage in mind.]
[125]St. Matthew xvii, 4.
[126]Without altering the word "humility", P. Báñez wrote underneath it, in the original manuscript, "humanity". This emendation [if It was meant for one] has been adopted by none of the editions.
[127]The original has "truth" (verdad), not "will" (voluntad). [P. Silverio, while agreeing that voluntad is more logical, respects the clear reading of the autograph and gives verdad; but the context, I think, makes it quite clear that "will" is meant, and the two words, in the Spanish, are sufficiently alike to be confused by a writer as often inaccurate as St. Teresa. Lewis, p. 122, n., cites three Spanish commentators who have adopted voluntad, though he himself translates "truth".]
[128]St. Matthew xvi, 24.
[129][I have translated literally, but the phrase, a common one in Spanish, is equivalent to "at the point of death."]
[130]St. Luke xv, 9.
[131]The feast of King David is to be found in the Carmelite calendar revised by the Chapter-General in 1564.
[132]The "person", as so often in St. Teresa, was the author herself. [The description of the poem is too vague for it to be identified.]
[133][Lit.: "by seeing" (viendo), which reading P. Silverio adopts; but I think we may assume this to be an error for "by living" (viviendo).]
[134]The reference is to P. Pedro Ibáñez. The parenthetical sentence [which I have bracketed in the text] is scored through in the autograph, by some hand other than the Saint's -- probably by P. Báñez.
[135]After this word come three or four others, which have been so effectively scored through that they are indecipherable. No doubt they were words eulogizing P. Ibáñez.
[136]Probably the other four were P. Daza, Don Francisco de Salcedo, Doña Guiomar de Ulloa and P. Ibáñez.
[137]The reference is to clandestine meetings held at Valladolid by a group of people suspected of heresy, under the leadership of Dr. Austín Cazalla, a Canon of Salamanca and a Chaplain to the Emperor Charles V. These meetings came to an end in 1559, when an auto was held which involved persons of high rank and caused a great sensation in the country. The unorthodox propaganda of the Cazallist group spread as far as Ávila and St. Teresa had herself come into contact with it.
[138]P. Báñez wrote in the margin of the autograph here: "Legant praedicatores."
[139][Tan fuerte . . . que no se le vaya en gostaduras. A difficult phrase, which used to be interpreted by assuming gastadura, a presumedly archaic substantive from gastar (spend, waste, fail to profit from), for gostadura, of which the modern form is gustadura, and which denotes the action of tasting. But I greatly prefer gostadura, and, though the figure could not be pressed to its logical conclusion, the translation I suggest seems wholly in accord with St. Teresa's realistic way of looking at things, whereas the gastadura reading ("strong enough not to fritter it all away", ". . . not to waste it all") is by comparison conventional.]
140These four words were crossed out in the manuscript by the author.
141This sentence was also crossed out by the author.
[142][Lit.: "Maintains the web." This curious phrase will be familiar to readers of St. John of the Cross ("Break the web of this sweet encounter": Living Flame of Love, Stanza I): cf. St. John of the Cross, III, 34-40, where the phrase is commented upon by its author. Here I think the reference as not to the web, or thread, of human life, but to that of Communion with God. Changing the metaphor, one might render: "It is the will that is the soul's stanchion." In the text, however, I have used a phrase which better suits the context.]
[143][The Spanish is deshacerse: this verb, often used by St. Teresa, is the contrary of hacer, to do, and can generally be rendered "be consumed", "be destroyed", "be annihilated".]
[144][Paso: incident, occurrence -- here, no doubt, referring to some scene in the Gospels.]
[145]Probably P. Báñez, though P. Gracián and María de San José say that P. Barrón is meant.
[146][Deshacerse. Cf. p. 179, n. 4.]
[147][Deshacerse.]
[148]Psalm cxviii, 137 [A.V., cxix, 137]. The Latin text is: "Justus es, Domine, et rectum judicium tuum." The remainder of the verse no doubt escaped the Saint's memory. [The Latin opening she would remember, because it comes at the beginning of one of the divisions of the psalm. This is an interesting illustration of her indifference to precision in her work. Even a hasty revision would have revealed the omission of the latter part of the verse: it is strange that P. Báñez did not supply it.]
[149]P. Barrón.
[150]The bracketed sentence is found in the margin of the autograph in St. Teresa's hand.
[151][P. Silverio says that this happened at St. Joseph's, Ávila, "about the year 1565". But, as this book was only completed in 1565, and the incident is referred to in a phrase which suggests some lapse of time, his chronology would seem to have little meaning. Lewis (p. 162, n. 6) says "1564 or 1565", which is not much better.]
[152][Envuelto. See n. 90.]
153Psalm ci, 8. [A.V., cii, 7]: "I have watched, and am become as a sparrow all alone on the housetop." [St. Teresa's spelling of Latin is largely phonetic and always quaint. It will suffice to reproduce this one example of it: Vigilavi ed fatus sun sicud passer solitarius yn tecto. The orthography given in the text is here, and will normally be else where, that of the Vulgate.]
[154]Psalm xli, 4 [A.V., xlii, 3].
[155]Galatians vi, 14: ". . . by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world."
[156][Malachias iv, 2. A.V.: "Sun of Righteousness."]
[157][Quien está de lo alto . . . I give the most obvious translation of this rather unusual phrase (lit.: "he who is from the height"), but I suspect the omission of mirando: "He who is looking (down) from on high . . ." the reference being to the soul's attitude to the world.]
[158]P. Báñez altered this phrase to: "It has no desire to seek or possess any will save that of Our Lord," and the change was followed in the editio princeps.
[159]St. Vincent Ferrer: De Via spirituali, Chap. XIV: "Si dicerent tibi aliquid quod sit contra fidem, et contra Scripturam sacram, aut contra bonos mores, abhorreas eorum visionem et judicia, tanquam stultas dementias, et earum raptus, sicut rabiamenta." St. Teresa could have read this book in a Spanish version published at Toledo in 1510, and reprinted five years later, in a volume containing also the life of Blessed Angela de Foligno and the Rule of St. Clare.
[160]Psalm liv, 7 [A.V., lv, 6].
[161][Cf. St. John of the Cross, I, 25: "All the creatures are nothing; and their affections, we may say, are less than nothing. . . . The soul that sets its affections upon the being of creation is likewise nothing in the eyes of God, and less than nothing." (Ascent of Mount Carmel, I, iv.)]
[162][P. Silverio supposes this to refer to Psalm cxlii, 2 (A.V., cxliii, 2): "In thy sight no man living shall be justified." But the interrogative form suggests rather Job xxv, 4 ("Can man be justified compared with God?") or of Job iv, l7 ("Shall man be justified in comparison of God?").]
[163][Barro: mud, clay. Often used in Spanish as a symbol of the earthly and material.]
[164][Cf. St. John of the Cross, I, 62, sect. 9]
[165][This second "it" must refer to the soul (alma), which is feminine in Spanish. P. Silverio, however, has the masculine pronoun el; I follow earlier texts, which amend this to ella.]
[166]Algún cornado. The cornado was a small copper coin, worth about as much as a cuarto, or 3/100 of a peseta. It had come in late in the thirteenth century and in St. Teresa's day was no longer current; but it was spoken of metaphorically, in the sense of "brass farthing" or "mite", much as the cuarto is now.
[167][Probably a reminiscence of Apocalypse ii, 23: "And I will give to every one of you according to your works."]
[168]Romans vii, 24: "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
[169][Presumably St. John xvi, 7-14 is meant. The Spanish has "at the time of" for "with regard to" and the "had" which follows is in the indicative mood: grammatically, therefore, the sense of the passage is that the words were spoken after the Holy Spirit had come. No doubt this was an inadvertence on the part of the author.]
[170]The passage "But it seems to me . . . all the rest" was inserted by the author in the margin of the autograph.
[171]This chapter, which dwells on the suitability of the Humanity of Christ as a subject for meditation, attacks an idea, very prevalent in St. Teresa's time, that at certain stages of mystical progress any such "corporeal" subject, even the mystery of Our Lord's Incarnation, should be rigidly excluded by the contemplative. All later Spanish mystics follow St. Teresa here and many specifically eulogize or embroider this exposition.
[172]"By 'recently' . . . visions" is a marginal addition in St. Teresa's hand.
[173][Lewis (p. 187, n. 5) supposes this to be P. Juan de Prádanos: cf. n. 190.]
[174]She seems to be addressing P. García de Toledo here and the addition of "Sir" may be due to the fact that he was the son of the Count of Oropesa. She uses the same word when writing to the aristocratic Don Álvaro de Mendoza, Bishop of Ávila.
[175]St. Luke v, 8.
[176][St. Luke xvii, 10.]
[177][The exact sense of this clause is doubtful. Dar voces means to cry or shout aloud and the meaning may well be "he has no need to make a fuss about it". I translate "practise singing" only out of deference to the contact. P. Silverio has "He" for "he": if we adopt this, we must read: "He (God) has no need to proclaim the fact." But this seems to me a definitely inferior interpretation.]
[178][Or: "and how well loved is he who loves Him . . . !"]
[179][Lit.: "and keep themselves (to themselves)."]
[180]Such were the notorious Sor Magdalena de la Cruz of Córdoba [and María de la Visitación, the Lisbon prioress who was credited with having received the stigmata: cf. S.S.M., I, 37-8].
[181]It was in 1554 that the Society of Jesus founded the College of St. Giles (San Gil) at Ávila, to which foundation St. Teresa owed a great deal of the spiritual help which she received from the Jesuit Fathers.
[182][Cosa recia. Lit.: "a stout (tough, hard) thing." As we might say in conversation: "A little too strong."]
[183][Acabarlo conmigo. A stronger rendering, such as "put an end to it all", would not be out of place.]
[184]This was Gaspar Daza, a pious and learned priest who for some time was St. Teresa's confessor and helped her a great deal with the foundation of St. Joseph's. He died in 1592.
[185]Don Francisco de Salcedo, an Ávilan gentleman whose wife, Doña Mencía del Águila, was a cousin of the wife of Don Pedro de Cepeda, St. Teresa's uncle (cf. n. 81). He had studied theology at the Dominican College of St. Thomas, in Ávila, and after the death of his wife, took Holy Orders. He died in 1580.
[186]One of these links is mentioned in the preceding note.
187[She refers to the Ascent of Mount Sion, published at Seville, in 1535, by a Franciscan lay-brother, Bernardino de Laredo. An account of Laredo and his book will be found in S.S.M., II, 41-76.]
[188]Salcedo and Daza.
[189]1 Corinthians x, 13. "And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it."
[190]This was P. Juan de Prádanos, who was St. Teresa's confessor for two months and probably the first Jesuit confessor she ever had. He died at Valladolid, in 1597.
[191]The Convent of the Incarnation, Ávila.
[192]P. Juan de Prádanos.
[193][Lit.: "any superfluous thing" -- presumably referring to small comforts or luxuries.]
[194]St. Francis Borgia [Sp., Borja] had been appointed Commissary of the Society of Jesus in Spain and it was in this capacity that, on several occasions, he visited the College of St. Giles at Ávila. The visit on which he made the acquaintance of St. Teresa took place in 1557. The Duchess of Gandía, who was one of the witnesses when evidence was being taken previously to her beatification, deposed that she had "often heard the Duke of Gandía, Father Francis of Borja, who became General of the Society of Jesus, speak of the spirituality, life and sanctity of the Mother Teresa of Jesus."
[195]Doña Guiomar (or Jerónima) de Ulloa. Both her parents, Don Pedro de Ulloa and Doña Aldonza de Guzmán, bore illustrious names. Left a widow at the age of twenty-five, she devoted herself to a life of virtue, and helped St. Teresa, whom she first met in 1557, with her early work in connection with the Discalced Reform. Cf. St. Teresa's testimony to her in a letter to her brother Lorenzo, dated December 31, 1561 (Letters [St.], I, 4), where she describes their friendship as closer than one between sisters.
[196]P. Baltasar Álvarez, who was one of the best directors St. Teresa ever had, though at times, as we shall see in Chap. XXVIII, he was somewhat hesitating and timid in his treatment of her. He acted as her confessor from 1559 to 1564, and in 1567, while at Medina del Campo, was of great use to her in connection with the foundation which she made there. He died on July 25, 1580, at the age of only forty-seven.
[197]Chap. XIX. The date of this first locution can be fixed only approximately, between 1555 and 1557.
[198]Chap. VII.
[199][This phrase is not in the original, but appears to be understood.]
[200][The verb translated "wilt", "will" and "love" is querer: the play upon words cannot be satisfactorily rendered.]
[201][The verb is faltar, translated "lack" and "fail" in this half-punning sentence, and "fail" below. One might render: "All these, my Lord, I lack, but . . . Thou shalt never lack me."]
[202][Evidently a reference to the miracle recorded in St. Matthew viii, 23-7, St. Mark iv, 35-40 and St. Luke viii, 22-5.]
[203][An apparent reference to St. Matthew x, 28.]
[204][Clearly St. Teresa has here in mind St. John viii, 44.]
[205][The fig, or "fico", is a contemptuous motion which we should make by a "snap of the fingers" but which in sixteenth-century Spain was made by holding up the closed fist with the thumb showing between the first and the second finger (dar higas). Cf. n. 226.]
[206][The Spanish idiom is literally: "who will not clap his hands to his head".]
[207]B. Baltasar Álvarez.
[208]In 1559, Don Fernando de Valdés, Grand Inquisitor of Spain, published an Index of books of which he forbade the reading, and this included not only heretical works, but also a great many devotional books written in Spanish which he thought might do simple souls harm.
[209][Unless the author is mistaken about this, her first imaginary vision (see n. 221) cannot have taken place before January 25, 1560.]
[210][On various types of vision, see Vol. II, p. 279, n.]
[211]This Franciscan saint [of whom an account will be found in S.S.M, II, 99-120] had in 1540 initiated a Discalced Reform in his Order not unlike that afterwards begun by St. Teresa. Cf. Ch. XXVII, para. 16-19, Ch. XXV.
[212]Canticles vi, 2 or vi, 4 is probably meant, but the reminiscence is a vague one and several other phrases in the same book might have been in St. Teresa's mind.
[213][Lit.: "accepter" (acetador), but the context suggests a reference to Acts x, 34. (D.V.: "God is not a respecter of persons.")]
[214][St. Luke xxiii, 26, 28.]
[215][This sentence is a free translation of one of the most obscure and ungrammatical sentences in St. Teresa. One can only guess at its precise meaning, but there is no doubt as to its general sense.]
[216]St. Peter of Alcántara died on October 18, 1562 [a fact which would be useful in helping to fix the date of this book were there not references to later events below].
[217][Lit.: naked.]
[218]This was his penitent María Díaz, a well-to-do woman of great saintliness who lived a life of Franciscan poverty and charity in Ávila and to whom St. Teresa alludes by name more than once [e.g., Letters, 10, 403], describing her as a saint.
[219][Actually he was fifty-nine.]
[220]Psalm cxxi, 1 [A.V., cxxii, 1]: "I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord."
[221][P. Silverio dates this occurrence January 25, 1558, but a reference in Chap. XXVI (see n. 209) suggests that it was subsequent to 1559. A further allusion (see n. 227) would indicate June 29 or 30 rather than January 25.]
[222][I.e., the intellectual vision. By "this", of course, is meant the imaginary vision.]
[223]P. Baltasar Álvarez. As this Father was only twenty-five years of age when he became St. Teresa's director, it is not surprising that he was disinclined to trust his own opinion, the more so as his Rector, P. Dionisio Vázquez, was a man of a rigid and inflexible temperament. P. Luis de la Puente [who was under him at Medina and wrote his biography: cf. S.S.M., II, 310-13] tells us that he himself was very conscious of his deficiencies in this respect. Cf. La Puente: Vida den Padre Baltasar Álvarez, etc., Madrid, 1615, Chap. XIII.
[224]The period was actually of six years, but the author naturally dwells most upon the first three, which were the most difficult for her.
[225][If the first imaginary vision occurred on January 25, 1560 (cf. nn. 209, 221, but also n. 227), this would mean that St. Teresa was writing this chapter in the summer of 1565, which is about correct. To date the first vision in January 1558 would bring the writing of the chapter to 1563, which is almost certainly too early.]
[226]Dar higas -- i.e., make the sign of contempt described in n. 205.
[227][This phrase would seem to indicate that the first vision was on June 29 (or possibly on June 30: the Commemoration of St. Paul) and not on January 25 (see n. 225). If this deduction and my dating of the year as 1560 are both correct, this part of the book was not written until the very end of 1565.]
[228]This cross was later given by St. Teresa's sister Juana to Doña María Enríquez de Toledo, Duchess of Alba. After the Duchess's death the Carmelites claimed possession of it and until the end of the eighteenth century it was preserved in their Valladolid convent. It was lost during the religious persecutions of 1835.
229Psalm xli, 1 [A.V., xlii, 1]: "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O God."
[230][Lit.: "too low for so high an ill."]
[231]St. Teresa wrote "Cherubims", but P. Báñez added the marginal note: "it seems more like those which are called Seraphims", and Fray Luis de León, in his edition, adopted this form.
[232][P. Silverio dates this occurrence "about 1562" but gives no evidence for the date, and I see none. An earlier year (1559-60) is more usually given.] Carmelite tradition has it that St. Teresa received the same favour again while Prioress of the Incarnation, between 1571 and 1574. The heart of the Saint has not unnaturally been the subject of the most extraordinary inventions. [Some of these are described by P. Silverio.] On May 25, 1726, Pope Benedict XIII appointed a festival and office for the Transverberation, which is observed on August 27. First instituted for the Discalced Carmelites it was extended to Spain as a whole by Clement XII on December 11, 1733.
[233]Chap. XX.
[234][Hoja de lata. Lit.: "tinplate."]
[235][The only one of these "little books" still extant is the Treatise of Prayer and Meditation: S.S.M., II, 106.]
[236]Doña Guiomar de Ulloa.
[237][This word, temerosa, might also be translated "timorous", "timid" but St. Teresa's use of "and", rather than of "but", to connect it with "holy" seems to indicate the meaning given in the text.]
[238][The Franciscan term for a group of religious houses not large enough to form a province.]
[239][The sudden and characteristic change of person is reproduced exactly from the original.]
[240]P. Baltasar Álvarez, according to Gracián.
[241]St. John iv, 15 "Sir, give me this water." These words, which form part of the Gospel for the Friday after the third Sunday in Lent, the Saint could have read as a child beneath a picture of the scene in the Gospel. On her father's death the picture was given to the Convent of the Incarnation, where it is still preserved.
[242][Lit.: "had made me give great blows."]
[243]This would be either P. Báñez or P. García de Toledo, who were the Saint's confessors from about 1563 to 1566.
[244][The brackets here are mine. The sentence is an excellent example (and there are many others in the Life) of St. Teresa's inconsequent way of writing. An idea comes into her head and at once she writes it down, even if (which is not the case here) doing so completely dislocates her sentence.]
[245]P. Federico de S. Antonio (Vita della Santa Madre Teresa di Gesú, Bk. I, Chap. XXII) thinks the Saint had contemplated going to a convent in Flanders or Brittany. The Parisian Carmelites (Oeuvres de Sainte Thérèsa, Vol. I, p. 409) suggest that she had in mind a convent established near Mantes, in 1477, by B. Françoise d'Ambroise. But there seems no reason to assume that she ever thought of going to a house outside Spain.
[246]This reference is probably to a stay which St. Teresa made with her younger sister, Juana, and her husband, Don Juan de Ovalle. From letters which the Saint wrote to her brother, Don Lorenzo, it is clear that lack of means, together with Don Juan's difficult temperament, made Doña Juana's married life anything but a smooth one. The two came from Alba to Ávila, for reasons connected with the foundation of St Joseph's, in August 1561.
[247][Honra; and so throughout this and the following paragraphs. Cf. n. 68.]
[248]["Girls'," may seem an unduly colloquial word, but the Spanish is even more unexpected: niñas, "young girls", "children".]
[249][Cf. n. 247. "Reputation" would be a better word here, but the wordplay in the last sentence of the paragraph requires "honour".]
[250][This is evidently a reminiscent reference to Ch. XXX. The application of the figure, however, it will be seen, is slightly different.]
[251][See Ch. V.]
[252]The Convent of the Incarnation, Ávila.
[253]A Bull published by Pope Eugenius IV on February 15, 1432.
[254]María de Ocampo, daughter of Don Diego de Cepeda and Doña Beatriz de la Cruz y Ocampo, who were St. Teresa's cousins. She herself took the Discalced habit at Ávila in 1563.
[255]Another account of this conversation [cit. P. Silverio, I, 268, n.] says that it arose out of a discussion on the hermit-saints. Some of the nuns suggested the establishment of a small convent in which a few of them could lead a more penitential life. St. Teresa then said they ought to restore the primitive Rule and one nun offered her financial help if she would found a convent of the kind described. At this point, Doña Guiomar de Ulloa (the "widowed lady" of the text) arrived, and, on being told of the conversation, said that she too would help in the good work.
[256][I translate "He" in deference to P. Silverio's capitalization of the pronoun, but a likelier reading seems to me "he" (St. Joseph). Sixteenth-century manuscripts do not capitalize pronouns which refer to God, so the matter must remain one for conjecture.]
[257]P. Baltasar Álvarez.
[258]This was not, as is often said, P. Angel de Salazar, but P. Gregorio Fernández, who was Provincial from 1551 to 1553 and again from 1559 to the end of 1561.
[259]The Saint's niece Teresita related [cf. P. Silverio, I, 270, n.] that the proposed reform was even publicly denounced from Ávilan pulpits. On one occasion, she says, St. Teresa and her sister Doña Juana went to hear a sermon at St. Thomas's and to Doña Juana's discomfiture the preacher ("a religious of a certain Order") began to inveigh against "nuns who left their convents to go and found new Orders". But when she turned indignantly to see how St. Teresa was taking it, she found that she was having a quiet laugh (con gran paz se estaba riendo). [Cf. ch. XXIII, para. 5.] The identity of the preacher has been guessed at, but is not known.
[260]P. Pedro Ibáñez, one of the Saint's chief supporters in the early days of her Reform, of which, however, he saw very little, for he died in 1565.
[261]A line is obliterated here, presumably by P. Báñez.
[262]Master Gaspar Daza. [The title of "Master" was conferred by the Orders upon certain religious in virtue of teaching posts held by them, or as a distinction.
[263]The prison-cell of the Incarnation still exists. It was quite common in those days for religious communities to imprison their recalcitrant members.
[264]P. Baltasar Álvarez.
[265]P. Pedro Ibáñez.
[266]At Trianos, in the province of León. Actually he died there, at about the time when St. Teresa was completing this book, so his return to Ávila, referred to in the text below, can have been only temporary.
[267]The Rector who left Ávila was P. Dionisio Vázquez, confessor of St. Francis Borgia and famous in the history of the Society of Jesus for his negotiations with Philip II, the Inquisition and the Holy See, the aim of which was to remove the Spanish houses of the Society from the jurisdiction of the General in Rome. He was succeeded, in 1561, by P. Gaspar de Salazar. Disagreements which arose between St. Giles' College and Don Álvaro de Mendoza, Bishop of Ávila, led to P. Salazar's removal early in 1562: he had gone when St. Teresa returned from her visit to Toledo. She had a great regard for him and speaks highly of him in a number of her letters.
[268]Doña Juana who lived at Alba. Cf. n. 246.
[269]The benefactor was St. Teresa's brother Lorenzo, who had emigrated to America, settled in what to-day is the capital of Ecuador and married a daughter of one of the conquistadores of Peru. He came back to Spain a wealthy man and did a great deal of good with his money. See Letters, 2.
[270]The house, which St. Teresa bought through the agency of her brother-in-law Don Juan de Ovalle, was indeed so small that all her biographers have compared it to the "little porch of Bethlehem" (cf. Foundations: Vol. III, p. 66). Julian de Ávila (Vida de Santa Teresa, Part II, Chap. VIII) describes the chapel as "hardly more than ten paces in length". The diminutive bell used in this first convent was restored in 1868 to Ávila from Pastrana, where it was taken in 1634, and now hangs beside the great bell which calls the religious to offices.
[271][The second personal pronouns in this quotation are in the singular, but the phraseology is markedly colloquial, and to bring this out I have used "you" in preference to "thou".]
[272]The original Brief (February 7, 1562), addressed to Doña Aldonza de Guzmán and her daughter Doña Guiomar de Ulloa, authorized them to hold property in common, as the Saint had not at that time decided to forgo an endowment. A Rescript dated December 5, 1562, however, confirmed by Brief of July 17, 1565, granted the Convent permission to live on public charity, without a fixed revenue.
[273]This rapture is believed to have come to the Saint in 1561, in the chapel known as that of the Santísimo Cristo in the Dominican church of St. Thomas, Ávila.
[274]The Bishop, when the foundation was made, was Don Álvaro de Mendoza (n. 267, above), who had taken possession of his office on December 4, 1560. He was greatly devoted to St. Teresa and a strong supporter of her Reform.
[275]Toledo.
[276]This lady was Doña Luisa de la Cerda, widow of Don Arias Pardo de Saavedra, who died in 1561, and daughter of the Duke of Medinaceli, who was in the direct line of descent from Alfonso X.
[277]A Jesuit house had been founded at Toledo in 1558 by St. Francis Borgia. Its first Superior, P. Pedro Domenech, later became St. Teresa's confessor.
[278]Some of these favours are described in the Relations (cf. pp. 315-16).
[279]Ribera, Yepes and St. Teresa's early biographers in general suppose this religious to have been P. Vicente Barrón, but modern editors follow Gracián, who, in the notes already referred to (pp. 62-3), identifies him as P. García de Toledo. Of aristocratic stock (n. 174) this Dominican went to the Indies as a child with the Viceroy of Mexico, and professed in the capital of the Viceroyalty in 1535. Returning to Spain, he became Superior of the Ávilan monastery in 1555. Later, he accompanied his cousin, who was appointed Viceroy of Peru, to that country, returning shortly before St. Teresa's death.
[280]This monastery, dedicated to St. Peter Martyr, was in fact near the palace of the Duke of Medinaceli, which has been a Discalced Carmelite convent since 1607, and is not far from the Puerta del Cimbrón.
[281]P. Pedro Ibáñez.
[282]P. Gaspar de Salazar.
[283]Luis de Leon substituted "trust" (confiar) for the "be certain" (estar cierta) of the original manuscript, and other editors have followed him. But St. Teresa felt that the joint witness of a good conscience and her interior locutions gave her the moral certainty which she describes.
[284]Probably St. Peter of Alcántara (d. October 18, 1562) and P. Ibáñez (d. February 2, 1565). [If P. Ibáñez is included, the reference has a bearing upon the date of this book: cf. n 340.]
[285]A. Gaspar de Salazar.
[286]PP. Pedro Ibáñez and Domingo Báñez, especially the first-named.
[287][P. Silverio reads "he", as though St. Teresa could have learned things from the Dominican which the Lord taught him later! The pluperfect and the word "previously" (antes) seem to settle the matter.]
[288]I.e., from Ávila.
[289]According to Gracián, this was P. García de Toledo.
[290]Don Martín de Guzmán y Barrientos, husband of the Saint's half-sister María (ch. IV).
[291]Thus St. Teresa in the autograph; but P. Banez emended the phrase so that it read: "without having had the opportunity The early editions follow the author, but later editors have tended to adopt the emendation.
[292]Cf. n. 74.
[293]Doña Guiomar de Ulloa.
[294]From January 1562 until the beginning of July of the same year.
[295][A beata is a somewhat vague term denoting a woman who either lives in a religious community without being professed or keeping the full rule or lives under a rule in her own house, wearing a distinctive habit but belonging to no community.]
[296]Her name was María de Jesus. Born at Granada in 1522, she had been left a widow when very young and had entered the convent of the Calced Carmelites of her native city. But, believing that God had called her to found a reformed house of the Order, she left the convent before making her profession and journeyed with some friends to Rome, where she eventually obtained a Brief for this purpose. Her attempts to make a foundation in Granada failed and it was then that she came to see St. Teresa, as described in this chapter. Later Doña Leonor de Mascareñas gave her a house at Alcalá de Henares and the convent was founded in July 1563.
[297]Chap. VI of the Rule says: -- "Nullus fratrum sibi aliquid proprium esse dicat, sed sint vobis omnia communia." Gregory IX, by a Brief dated April 6, 1229, forbade the Carmelites to possess houses, lands or money.
[298]P. Ibáñez, then at Trianos. (Cf. n. 266.)
[299]Doña Guiomar de Ulloa.
[300]This title, here given to P. Ibáñez, is an academic one, equivalent in the Order of St. Dominic to that of Licentiate [in English, to Bachelor of Arts, Divinity, etc.].
[301]P. Angel de Salazar. He ordered St. Teresa to return from Toledo to Ávila to be present at the election of a Prioress.
[302]P. Pedro Domenech, Rector of the Toledo house of the Society of Jesus.
[303][An apparent reference to 2 Corinthians xii, 9.]
[304]Psalm xciii, 20 [A.V., xciv, 20].
[305]St. Matthew vii, 14.
[306]This Brief of Pius IV was dated February 7, 1562. It would have been the beginning of July when it reached Ávila.
[307]Probably not Don Francisco de Salcedo, as is generally supposed, but Don Juan Blázquez, father of the Count of Uceda, as it was he with whom St. Peter of Alcántara usually stayed when at Ávila.
[308]It certainly was not. When St. Peter of Alcántara reached Ávila, the Bishop was away. Fray Peter went to the village where he was staying to see him and found him completely opposed to the establishment of a convent without an endowment. He persuaded him, however, to come back to Ávila and visit St. Teresa at the Incarnation, and as a result of the interview he withdrew all his objections and became her staunch supporter.
[309]Don Juan de Ovalle. He had come to Toledo, while St. Teresa was there, to inform her of the progress being made with the house which was to become the Reformed foundation, and had intended to return thence to Alba. But he fell ill at Ávila on his way back: Doña Juana was, of course, at Alba. It was in these circumstances that St. Teresa was allowed to go and stay with him, which, as she suggests in the text, gave her the opportunity to complete the preparations for the new foundation in secrecy.
[310]Doña Guiomar was away at Toro.
[311]These were: Antonia de Henao (del Espíritu Santo), a penitent of St. Peter of Alcántara; María de la Paz (de la Cruz) who had been living with Doña Guiomar de Ulloa, in whose house she first met St. Teresa; Ursula de Revilla (de los Santos), recommended to the Saint by Gaspar Daza; María de Ávila (de San José), sister of Julian de Ávila. The names given in brackets are those taken by these nuns in religion. The Bishop deputed P. Daza to give them the habit. St. Teresa was present, with two of her cousins who were nuns at the Incarnation and later joined the Reform; and others who attended were Gonzalo de Aranda, Salcedo, Ovalle and his wife and Julian de Ávila. The Cathedral Chapter at Ávila still celebrates a solemn Mass, at St. Joseph's, yearly, on St. Bartholomew's Day, and a sermon is preached, in commemoration of the historic occasion.
[312]The Book of Professions belonging to St. Joseph's, nevertheless, shows that, on entering the convent, Antonia del Espíritu Santo and Ursula de los Santos brought small sums as alms.
[313][A characteristic play upon words: cf. Translator's Preface.]
[314]Gracián, in his notes, says that this was Doña Isabel de Ávila; but this Prioress was succeeded, on August 12, 1562, by Doña María Cimbrón, who seems therefore to be the person referred to.
[315]P. Ángel de Salazar.
[316][P. Silverio (I, 311, n. 1) gives a long independent account of the "commotion" mainly from Julián de Ávila's biography of St. Teresa: I do not reproduce this, as St. Teresa's own narrative would seem sufficiently detailed. The Bishop's strong support of the new foundation is an outstanding feature of the events here related.]
[317]P. Báñez, who wrote here, in the margin of the autograph: "This was at the end of August in the year 1562. I was there and gave this opinion. Fr. Domingo Bañes. And I sign this on May 2, 1575, when His Mother has founded nine convents in which the Rule is strictly observed."
[318]Gonzalo de Aranda.
[319]Gaspar Daza (see n. 184).
[320][This vision, then, occurred after October 18, 1562, the date of St. Peter's death.]
[321]Marchese, St. Peter of Alcántara's biographer, confirms this statement. Daza had been to Arenas to visit him a few days before his death and had brought him a letter from Salcedo telling of the opposition with which St. Teresa was meeting and of the reason for it. This news inspired him to write encouraging her to continue.
[322]Mir (Santa Teresa de Jesús, Madrid, 1912, I, 559) suggests that this was P. Baltasar Álvarez, but gives insufficient evidence for the supposition, nor does any further evidence appear to exist.
[323][This phrase, ya que estaba en buenos términos, presents some difficulty. Lewis translates, more or less literally, "the matter was in good train"; but, in actual fact, as the following lines make clear, it was not -- only the acceptance of the endowment, it seemed, could have resolved the conflict. I take the author's meaning to be that, from her point of view, the position was clarified -- there was a straight issue: she no longer had to contend with her own subconscious aversion from financial help.]
[324]P. Ibáñez.
[325]Despite his good will, the Provincial found certain obstacles in the way of his granting this permission, and, although apparently he did so verbally on July 3, 1563, it was not unto August 22 that he was able to issue a patent giving leave to Doña Teresa de Ahumada, María Ordóñez, Ana Gómez and María de Cepeda to transfer to St. Joseph's. The Nuncio's confirmation of this patent, as far as it affected St. Teresa, was dated August 21, 1564. P. Jerónimo de San José infers from the Preface to the Foundations (Vol. III, p. xxi) that St. Teresa was living at St. Joseph's in December 1562 [though I do not myself think that, considering how near that convent was to the Incarnation, the words of the reference necessarily mean this]. Others think she went there in March 1563, the date given by María Pinel in her manuscript History of the Convent of the Incarnation. The earliest extant records at St. Joseph's give no help, as they date only from 1580.
[326]At one time every Discalced Carmelite convent had a picture representing this vision.
[327]María de Jesus. Cf. n. 295. Having more fervour than discretion, this lady went to such lengths in the austerities which she imposed that life in her consent became impossible and in 1567 St. Teresa had to visit it in order to put things straight, which she did by giving the nuns the same Constitution as that of St. Joseph's. This Alcalá convent, however, never came under the jurisdiction of the Order, which in 1599 founded a convent of its own there, known as Corpus Christi.
[328]P. García de Toledo.
[329]Later St. Teresa increased this number, as well as admitting lay sisters, of whom there were none at St. Joseph's when it was founded. To-day there are twenty-one nuns in each convent, eighteen of whom are choir-nuns.
[330]PP. Pedro Ibáñez and García de Toledo.
[331]["More to be desired than the highest of them, which are so incomparably greater than the lowest" is the meaning. As it stands the sentence would seem to mean that the difference is between consolations and favours or between visions and raptures, but, as so often in St. Teresa, the true sense is indicated by the context.]
[332]["Lords" is señores, and "power", señorío: there is thus a play upon words, almost as though we were to read: "lords of the earth, who lord it by authority."]
[333]I.e., to St. Joseph's.
[334][Unless St. Teresa were mistaken about her own age -- a by no means uncommon phenomenon in Spain: so modern a writer as Núñez de Arce (1832-1903) for long believed himself to be two years younger than he was -- these lines must have been written before March 28, 1565.]
[335]Doña Luisa de la Cerda.
[336][Cf. Translator's Preface.]
[337]Anxious to make the life of the Reform as similar as possible to that of the primitive Carmelites, St. Teresa had a number of hermitages made at St. Joseph's, Ávila and her other foundations. At the time of her Beatification there were four of these in the garden of St. Joseph's and one within the convent itself. To-day, also, there are four, but in the shape of divisions of a single building.
338The Life of Christ, written in Latin by Ludolph of Saxony, a Carthusian, was translated into Spanish by Ambrosio de Montesinos about 1502 under the title Vita Christi cartuxano. It is one of the books which St. Teresa recommends to her nuns in her Constitutions (Vol. III, p. 220). It is often referred to as "the Carthusian" and its two parts as "the first" and "the second Carthusian" respectively.
[339]According to Gracián's notes, both this and the preceding paragraph refer to P. Ibáñez.
[340]P. Báñez adds in a marginal note: "This Father died Prior of Trianos." The note confirms Gracián's statement just quoted. [It also helps to fix the date of the book, as P. Ibáñez died on February 2, 1565. Taken in conjunction with the reference to St. Teresa's age (see n. 334) it seems to give us almost the exact date of the composition of these final chapters.]
[341]Gracián and María de San José assert that P. Álvarez is meant, but more probably the reference is to P. Gaspar de Salazar.
[342]Luis de León, in the editio princeps, altered this phrase to read: "Concerning those of a certain Order." A reason suggested for this is that in Chap. XL St. Teresa says that she does not name particular Orders, for fear of invidiousness, and that Fray Luis thought this to be an oversight. In another place, however, he leaves intact a reference to Dominicans and Franciscans and in the next line deletes one to St. Ignatius and his Society. The suppressions are more probably attributable to the strained relations existing between the Society and, on the one hand, certain religious Orders; on the other, the University of Salamanca. The correct reading in this present passage was restored by the Discalced Carmelites in their edition of 1627.
[343]This could not be P. Salazar, who was still alive when the book was completed. It may be P. Gregorio Fernández (see n. 258), whom we know to have been Prior of Ávila in 1541 and Provincial in 1551-3 and 1559-61.
[344]This must refer to the Incarnation, for, when these lines were written, all the nuns of St. Joseph's were still living. There are independent testimonies to this occurrence.
[345]This was Alonso de Henao, who had come from the Jesuit College at Alcalá and died on April 11, 1557.
[346]"Fray Matía," says Gracián's note. His full name was Diego (de San) Matías; for some time he was confessor at the Incarnation.
[347]P. Ibáñez.
[348]"Her cousin, Pedro Mexía", according to Gracián.
[349]PP. Báñez and García de Toledo.
[350][An untranslatable play upon words: the two verbs are "do" (hace) and "undo" (deshace).]
[351]Doña Luisa de la Cerda.
[352]St. Teresa may be thinking of Francisco de Cepeda's daughter, who professed on October 21, 1564, as Isabel de San Pablo, at the age of seventeen. The other young girls -- María Bautista, María de San Jerónimo and Isabel de Santo Domingo -- took the habit in 1563-4.
[353]This Brief was dated July 17, 1565. [If it took as long as its predecessor (n. 306) to reach Ávila, these lines cannot have been written before the very end of December 1565. But it may, of course, have come more quickly.]
[354]St. Matthew xx, 10.
[355]Apocalypse iv, 6-8.
[356]The College of St. Giles, Ávila.
[357]Cf. St. Matthew v, 18.
[358][In this and the next paragraph I follow P. Silverio in the use of capitals or lower-case letters for the word "truth".]
[359][The numerous repetitions in this and the preceding sentences will be noted. Cf. Translator's Preface.]
[360][Sp., plazas, squares, public places: i.e., in intercourse with men.]
[361]The quotation is taken from Chap. XXXI of the apocryphal Soliloquies, often published in Latin under the name of St. Augustine, and, in Spanish, at Valladolid, in 1515.
[362]Ribera (Bk. IV, Chap. V) thinks that the Society of Jesus is meant; but Gracián, in his notes, has "the Order of St. Dominic".
[363]This, too, according to Gracián's annotation, refers to the Order of St. Dominic. Ribera agrees here. Yepes (Bk. III, Chap. XVII) says: "For certain honourable motives the holy Mother refrained from naming this Order; but I know that she is speaking of the new Reform which she founded." A number of Carmelite writers take this view, but P. Silverio inclines to agree with Gracián and Ribera. [So do I: the language of the following paragraphs suggests the Order of Preachers -- certainly not the Discalced Carmelites.]
[364]This, says Gracián, was the Inquisitor Soto, who later became Bishop of Salamanca.
[365][Or "in which I am not sorry I am alive, nor do I seem to want to die." But the context, I think, favours the rendering given in the text.]
[366]St. Joseph's, Ávila.
[367]P. García de Toledo. [On the form "Sir", see n. 174.]
[368]Two of these would be PP. Báñez and García de Toledo. The identity of the third cannot be given for certain.
[369]This letter is found in the autograph, at the end of the last chapter. It was probably written to P. García de Toledo. [The heading is not, of course, in the original.]
[370]P. Báñez appends the following note: "This date is to be understood as referring to the first draft of the Life, before it was rewritten and divided into chapters. To this version Mother Teresa of Jesus added many things which happened after this date, such as the foundation of the convent of St. Joseph, Ávila. . . ."