Table of Contents
|
Words
:
Alphabetical
-
Frequency
-
Inverse
-
Length
-
Statistics
|
Help
|
IntraText Library
St. Teresa of Avila
The Way of Perfection
IntraText CT - Text
INTRODUCTION
ESCORIAL AUTOGRAPH
Previous
-
Next
Click here to hide the links to concordance
ESCORIAL
AUTOGRAPH
The
Way
of
perfection
-- or
Paternoster
, as its
author
calls
it, from the latter
part
of its
content
-- was
written
twice
. Both
autographs
have been
preserved
in
excellent
condition
, the
older
of them in the
monastery
of
San
Lorenzo
el
Real
,
El
Escorial
, and the other in the
convent
of the
Discalced
Carmelite
nuns
at
Valladolid
. We have already
seen
how
Philip
II
acquired
a
number
of
Teresan
autographs
for his
new
Escorial
library
, among them that of the
Way
of
perfection
. The
Escorial
manuscript
bears
the
title
"
Treatise
of the
Way
of
Perfection
", but this is not in
St
.
Teresa
's
hand
. It
plunges
straight
into the
prologue
: both the
title
and the
brief
account
of the
contents
, which are found in most of the
editions
, are
taken
from the
autograph
of
Valladolid
, and the
humble
protestation
of
faith
and
submission
to the
Holy
Roman
Church
was
dictated
by the
Saint
for the
edition
of the
book
made in
ƒvora
by
Don
Teutonio
de
Braganza
- it is found in the
Toledo
codex
, which will be
referred
to again
shortly
.
The
text
,
divided
into
seventy-three
short
CHAPTERs
, has no
CHAPTER-divisions
in the
ordinary
sense
of the
phrase
, though the
author
has
left
interlinear
indications
showing
where each
CHAPTER
should begin. The
CHAPTER-headings
form
a
table
of
contents
at the end of the
manuscript
and only
two
of them (
55
and
56
) are in
St
.
Teresa
's own
writing
. As the
remainder
, however, are in a
feminine
hand
of the
sixteenth
century
, they
may
have been
dictated
by her to one of her
nuns
: they are almost
identical
with those which she herself
wrote
at a later
date
in the
autograph
of
Valladolid
.
There are a
considerable
number
of
emendations
in this
text
, most of them made by the
Saint
herself, whose
practice
was to
obliterate
any
unwanted
word
so
completely
as to make it almost
illegible
. None of such
words
or
phrases
was
restored
in the
autograph
of
Valladolid
-- a
sure
indication
that it was she who
erased
them, or at least that she
approved
of their
having
been
erased
. There are
fewer
annotations
and
additions
in other
hands
than in the
autographs
of any of her
remaining
works
, and those few are of
little
importance
. This
may
be
due
to the
fact
that a later
redaction
of the
work
was made for the
use
of her
convents
and for
publication
: the
Escorial
manuscript
would have
circulated
very
little
and would never have been
subjected
to a
minute
critical
examination
. Most of what
annotations
and
corrections
of this
kind
there are were made by the
Saint
's
confessor
,
P
.
Garc
'a
de
Toledo
, whom, among others, she
asked
to
examine
the
manuscript
.
There is no
direct
indication
in the
manuscript
of the
date
of its
composition
. We
know
that it was
written
at
St
.
Joseph
's,
çvila
, for the
edification
and
instruction
of the first
nuns
of the
Reform
, and the
prologue
tells
us that only "a few
days
" had
elapsed
between the
completion
of the
Life
and the beginning of the
Way
of
perfection
. If, therefore, the
Life
was
finished
at the end of
1565
[or in the
early
weeks
of
1566
]
1
we can
date
the
commencement
of the
Way
of
perfection
with some
precision
. [But even then there is no
indication
as to how
long
the
composition
took
and when it was
completed
.]
A
complication
occurs
in the
existence
, at the end of a
copy
of the
Way
of
perfection
which
belongs
to the
Discalced
Carmelite
nuns
of
Salamanca
, and
contains
corrections
in
St
.
Teresa
's
hand
, of a
note
, in the
writing
of the
copyist
, which
says
: This
book
was
written
in the
year
sixty-two
-- I
mean
fifteen
hundred
and
sixty-two
." There
follow
some
lines
in the
writing
of
St
.
Teresa
, which make no
allusion
to this
date
; her
silence
might be
taken
as
confirming
it (though she
displays
no
great
interest
in
chronological
exactness
) were it not
absolutely
impossible
to
reconcile
such a
date
with the
early
CHAPTERs
of the
book
, which make it
quite
clear
that the
community
of
thirteen
nuns
was
fully
established
when they were
written
(
Chap
.
4
, below). There could not
possibly
have been so many
nuns
at
St
.
Joseph
's before
late
in the
year
1563
, in which
Mar
de
San
Jer-nimo
and
Isabel
de
Santo
Domingo
took
the
habit
, and it is
doubtful
if
St
.
Teresa
could
conceivably
have
begun
the
book
before the end of that
year
. Even, therefore, if the
reference
in the
preface
to the
Way
of
perfection
were to the first
draft
of the
Life
(
1562
), and not to that
book
as we
know
it, there would still be the
insuperable
difficulty
raised
by this
piece
of
internal
evidence
.
2
We are
forced
, then, to
assume
an
error
in the
Salamanca
copy
and to
assign
to the beginning of the
Way
of
perfection
the
date
1565
-
6
.
1
Cf
.
Vol
. I,
pp
.
2
-
5
, above
2
See
also the
reference
, in the "
General
Argument
" of the
Valladolid
redaction
, to her
being
Prioress
of
St
.
Joseph
's when the
book
was
written
.
Presumably
the
original
draft
is
meant
.
Previous
-
Next
Table of Contents
|
Words
:
Alphabetical
-
Frequency
-
Inverse
-
Length
-
Statistics
|
Help
|
IntraText Library
Best viewed with any browser at 800x600 or 768x1024 on Tablet PC
IntraText®
(V89) - Some rights reserved by
EuloTech SRL
- 1996-2007. Content in this page is licensed under a
Creative Commons License