The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila: A Biography by Carlos Eire, 223 pages
In the 16th century, as the fires of the Protestant Reformation swept across northern Europe, a remarkable woman rose to prominence in Spain. A Carmelite nun from the Castilian city of Avila, Teresa of Jesus was a mystic and visionary, and also a tireless foundress and reformer. Living at a time when the Church had a healthy suspicion of those who claimed to be in direct communication with the Almighty, Teresa's autobiography, the Life of Teresa of Avila, was written both as description and defence, her mystical locutions having drawn her deeper into the Church rather than leading her astray to preach a new gospel.
As Carlos Eire details in his biography of St Teresa's autobiography, this defence entailed a series of drafts and revisions over the course of decades as Teresa and her spiritual advisors took care to cross every theological "t". Even so, it was not until after her death that the work was allowed to be widely circulated, and it continued to have its detractors. Their voices were drowned out, however, by the rapid spread of her cult, and she was canonized a mere forty years after her death, with the Life providing vital testimony to her sanctity. Nor does Eire's story stop there, for the following centuries saw the book become a defining text of early modern Catholicism, inspire great art (most famously Bernini's sculpture of the transverberation), influence religious movements including the Jansenists, Quakers, and Methodists, and finally be reimagined as a study in hysteria or proto-feminist tract. As Eire notes, this enduring influence of the Life is itself an undeniable testament to the force of its authors personality as well as the Power that moved her.
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