Читать книгу Saint Teresa of Ávila: Collected Works. The Life of St. Teresa, The Interior Castle, Way of Perfection онлайн

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What the Saint wrote for Fra Ibañez has not been found. It is, no doubt, substantially preserved in her Life, as we have it now, and is supposed to have reached no further than the end of ch. xxxi. What follows was added by direction of another Dominican father, confessor of the Saint in the new monastery of St. Joseph, Fra Garcia of Toledo, who, in 1562, bade her "write the history of that foundation, and other matters."

But as the Saint carried a heavy burden laid on her by God, a constant fear of delusion, she had recourse about the same time to the Inquisitor Soto, who advised her to write a history of her life, send it to Juan of Avila, the "Apostle of Andalucia," and abide by his counsel. As the direction of Fra Garcia of Toledo and the advice of the Inquisitor must have been given, according to her account, about the same time, the Life, as we have it now, must have occupied her nearly six years in the writing of it, which may well be owing to her unceasing care in firmly establishing the new monastery of St. Joseph. The book at last was sent to Blessed Juan of Avila by her friend Doña Luisa de la Cerda, and that great master of the spiritual life wrote the following censure of it: