Saint Theresa — Religious Enthusiasm (i)
by John Lord, LL. D.
I HAVE already painted in Cleopatra, to the best of
my ability, the Pagan woman of antiquity, revelling
in the pleasures of vanity and sensuality, with a feeble
moral sense, and without any distinct recognition of God
or of immortality. The genius of Paganism was simply
the deification of the Venus Polyhymnia,——the adorn-
meant and pleasure of which is perishable in man. It
directed all the energies of human nature to the pam-
pering and decorating of this mortal body, not believing
that the mind and soul which animate it, and which
are the sources of all its glory, would ever live beyond
the grave. A few sages believed differently,——men
who rose above the spirit of Paganism, but not such
men as Alexander, or Cæsar, or Antony, the foremost
men of all the world in grand ambitions and successes.
Taking it for granted that this world is the only thea-
tre for enjoyment, or action, or thought, men naturally
said, "Let us eat and drink and be merry, for to-morrow
we die." And hence no higher life was essayed than
that which furnished sensual enjoyments, or incited an
ambition to be strong and powerful. Of course,
riches were sought above everything, since these fur-
nished the means of gratifying those pleasures which
were most valued, or stimulated that vanity whose
essence is self-idolatry.
With this universal rush of humanity after pleas-
ures which centred in the body, the soul was left
dishonoured and uncared for, except by a few philoso-
phers. I do not now speak of the mind, for there were
intellectual pleasures derived from conversation, books,
and works of art. And some called the mind divine,
in distinction from matter; some speculated on the
nature of each, and made mind an matter in perpetual
antagonism, as the good and evil forces of the uni-
verse. But the prevailing opinion was that the whole
man perished, or became absorbed in the elemental
forces of nature, or reappeared again in new form upon
the earth, to expiate those sins of which human nature
is conscious. To some men were given longings after
immortality, not absolute convictions,——men like Plato,
Socrates, and Cicero. But I do not speak of these illus-
trious exceptions; I mean the great mass of the people,
especially the rich and powerful and pleasure-seeking,——
those whose supreme delight was in banquets, palaces,
or intoxicating excitements, like chariot0racings and
gladiatorial shows; yea, triumphal processions to raise
the importance of the individual self, and stimulate
vanity and pride.
Hence paganism put a small value, comparatively,
en even intellectual enjoyments. It cultivated those
arts which appeal to the senses more than to the
mind; it paid dearly for any sort of intellectual train-
ing which could be utilized,——oratory, for instance, to
enable a lawyer to gain a case, or a statesman to con-
trol a mob; it rewarded those poets who could sing
blended praises to Bacchus and Venus, or who could
excite the passions at the theatre. But it paid still
higher prices to athletes and dancers, and almost no
price at all to those who sought to stimulate a love of
knowledge for its own sake,——men like Socrates, for ex-
ample who walked barefoot, and lived on fifty dollars
a year, and who at last was killed out of pure hatred
for the truths he told and the manner in which he
told them,——this martyrdom occurring in the most
intellectual city in the world. In both Greece and
Rome there was an intellectual training for men bent
on utilitarian ends; even as we endow schools of sci-
ence and technology to enable us to conquer nature,
and to become strong and rich and comfortable; but
there were no schools for women, whose intellects were
disdained, and who were valued only as servants or
animals,——either to drudge, or to please the senses.
But even if there were some women in Paganism
of high mental education,——if women sometimes rose
above their servile condition by pure intellect, and
amused men by their wit and humor,——still their
souls were little thought of. Now, it is the soul of
woman——not her mind, and still less her body——which
elevates her, and makes her, in some important re-
spects, the superior of man himself. He has dominion
over her by force of will, intellect, and physical power.
When she has dominion over him, it is by those quali-
ties which come from her soul,——her superior nature,
greater than both mind and body. Paganism never
recognized the superior nature, especially in woman,——
that which must be fed, even in this world, or there
will be constant unrest and discontent. And inasmuch
as Paganism did not feed it, women were unhappy,
especially those who had great capacities. They may
have been comfortable, but they were not contented.
Hence, women made no great advance either in happi-
ness or in power, until Christianity revealed the greatness
of the soul, its perpetual longings, its infinite capacities,
and its future satisfactions. The spiritual exercises of
the soul then became the greatest source of comfort
amid those evils which once ended in despair. With
every true believer, the salvation of so precious a thing
necessarily became the end of life, for Christianity
taught that the soul might be lost. in view of the
soul's transcendent value, therefore, the pleasures of
the body became of but little account in comparison.
Riches are good, power is desirable; eating and drink-
ing are very pleasant; praise, flattery, admiration,——
all these things delight us, and under Paganism were
sought and prized. But Christianity said, "What shall
a man give in exchange for his soul?"
Christianity, then, set about in earnest to rescue this
soul which Paganism had disregarded. In consequence
of this, women began to rise, and shine in a new light.
They gained a new charm, even moral beauty,——yea,
a new power, so that they could laugh at ancient foes
and say triumphantly, when those foes sought to crush
them, "O Grave, where is thy victory? O Death, where
is thy sting?" There is no beauty among women like
this moral beauty, whose seat is in the soul. It is not
only a radiance, but it is a defence: it protects women
from the wrath and passion of men. With glory irra-
diating every feature, it is said to the boldest, Thus far
shalt thou come and no farther. It is a benediction to
the poor and a welcome to the rich. It shines with
such unspeakable loveliness, so rich in blessing and so
refined in ecstasy, that men gaze with more than admi-
ration, even with sentiments bordering on that adora-
tion which the Middle Ages felt for the mother of our
Lord, and which they also bestowed upon departed
saints. In the immortal paintings of Raphael and
Murillo we get some idea of this moral beauty, which
is so hard to copy.
So woman passed gradually from contempt and deg-
radation to the veneration of men, when her soul was
elevated by the power which Paganism never knew.
But Christianity in the hands of degenerate Romans
and Gothic barbarians made many mistakes in its
efforts to save so priceless a thing as a human soul.
Among other things, it instituted monasteries and con-
vents, bot for men and women, in which they sought
to escape the contaminating influences which had de-
graded them. If Paganism glorified the body, monas-
ticism despised it. In the fierce protests against the
peculiar sins which had marked Pagan life,——gluttony,
wine0drinking, unchastity, ostentatious vanities, and
turbulent mirth,——monasticism decreed abstinence, per-
petual virginity, the humblest dress, the entire disuse
of ornaments, silence, and meditation. This form of
life, it was believed, fortified the spirit against tempta-
tion. Moreover, monasticism encouraged whatever it
thought would make the soul triumphant over the body,
almost independent of it. Whatever would feed the
soul, it said, should be sought, and whatever would
pamper the body should be avoided.
As a natural consequence of all this, piety gradually
came to seek its most congenial home in monastic re-
treats, and to take on a dreamy, visionary, and intro-
spective mood. The "saints" saw visions of both angels
and devils, and a superstitious age believed in their
revelations. The angels appeared to comfort and sus-
tain the soul in temptations and trials, and the devils
came to pervert and torment it. Good judgment and
severe criticism were lost to the Church; and, more-
over, the gloomy theology of the Middle Ages, all
based on fears of endless physical torments,——for
the wretched body was the source of all evil, and there-
fore must be punished,——gave sometimes a repulsive
form to piety itself. Intellectually, that piety now
excites our sympathy, because it was so much mixed
up with dreams and ecstasies and visions and hallucina-
tions. It produces a moral aversion also, because it was
austere, inhuman, and sometimes cruel. Both monks
and nuns, when they conformed to the rules of their
order, were sad, solitary, dreary-looking people, although
their faces shone occasionally in the light of ecstatic
visions of heaven and the angels.
But whatever mistakes monasticism made, however
severe the religious life of the Middle Ages,——in fact,
all its social life,——still it must be admitted that the
aim of the time was high. Men and women were en-
slaved by superstitions, but they were not Pagan. Our
own age is, in some respects, more Pagan than were
the darkest times of mediæval violence and priestly
despotism, since we are reviving the very things against
which Christianity protested as dangerous and false,——
the pomps, the banquets, the ornaments, the arts of the
old Pagan world.
Now, all this is preliminary to what I have to say of
Saint Theresa. We cannot do justice to this remarka-
ble woman without considering the sentiments of her
day, and those circumstances that controlled her. We
cannot properly estimate her piety——that for which she
was made a saint in the Roman calendar——without
being reminded of a different estimate which Pagan-
ism and Christianity placed upon the soul, and conse-
quently the superior condition of women in our modern
times. Nor must we treat lightly or sneeringly that
institution which was certainly one of the steps by
which women rose in the scale of both religious and
social progress. For several ages nuns were the only
charitable women, except queens and princesses, of
whom we have record. But they were drawn to their
calm retreats, not merely to serve God more effectually,
nor merely to perform deeds of charity, but to study.
As we have elsewhere said, the convents in those days
were schools no less than asylums and hospitals, and
were especially valued for female education. However,
in these retreats religion especially became a passion.
There was a fervor in it which in our times is unknown.
It was not a matter of opinion, but of faith. In these
times there may be more wisdom, but in the Middle
Ages there was more zeal and more unselfishness and
more intensity,——all which is illustrated by the sainted
woman I propose to speak of.
Saint Theresa was born at Avila, in Castile, in the
year 1515, at the close of the Middle Ages; but she
really belonged to the Middle Ages, since all the habits,
customs, and opinions of Spain at that time were medi-
æval. The Reformation never gained a foothold in
Spain. None of its doctrines penetrated that country,
still less modified or changed its religious customs, insti-
tutions, or opinions. And hence Saint Theresa virtu-
ally belonged to the age of Bernard, and Anselm, and
Elizabeth of Hungary. She was of a good family as
much distinguished for virtues as for birth. Both her
father and mother were very religious and studious,
reading good books, and practising the virtues which
Catholicism ever enjoined,——alms-giving to the poor,
and kindness to the sick and infirm,——truthful, chaste,
temperate, God-fearing. They had twelve children,
all good, though Theresa seems to have been the favor-
ite, from her natural sprightliness and enthusiasm.
Among the favorite books of the Middle Ages were the
lives of saints and martyrs; and the history of these
martyrs made so great an impression on the mind of
the youthful Theresa that she and one of her brothers
meditated a flight into Africa that they might be put
to death by the Moors, and thus earn the crown of
martyrdom, as well as the eternal rewards in heaven
which martyrdom was supposed to secure. This scheme
being defeated by their parents, they sought to be her-
mits in the garden which belonged to their house,
playing the part of monks and nuns.
At eleven, Theresa lost her mother, and took to read-
ing romances, which, it seems, were books of knight-
errantry, at the close of the chivalric period. These
romances were innumerable, and very extravagant and
absurd, and were ridiculed by Cervantes, half-a-century
afterwards, in his immortal "Don Quixote." Although
Spain was mediæval in its piety in the sixteenth cen-
tury, this was the period of its highest intellectual
culture, especially in the drama. De Vega and Cer-
vantes were enough of themselves to redeem Spain
from any charges of intellectual stupidity. But for the
Inquisition and the demoralization which followed
the conquests of Cortés and Pizarro, under the reign of
the benighted Philip II, Spain might have rivalled
Germany, France, and England in the greatest of her
literature. At this time there must have been consider-
able cultivation among the class to which Theresa
belonged.
Although she never was sullied by what are called
mortal sins, it would appear that as a girl of fourteen
Theresa was, like most other girls, fond of dress and
perfumes and ornaments, elaborate hair-dressing, and
of anything which would make a person attractive.
Her companions also were gay young ladies of rank, as
fond of finery as she was, whose conversation was not
particularly edifying, but whose morals were above re-
proach. Theresa was sent to a convent in her native
town by her father, that she might be removed from
the influence of gay companions, especially her male
cousins, who could not be denied the house. At first
she was quite unhappy, finding the convent dull, triste,
and strict. I cannot conceive of a convent being a
very pleasant place for a worldly young lady, in any
country or in any age of the world. Its monotony and
routine and mechanical duties must ever have been
irksome. The pleasing manners and bright conver-
sation of Theresa caused the nuns to take an unusual
interest in her; and one of them in particular exercised
a great influence upon her, so that she was inclined
at times to become a nun herself, though not of a very
strict order, since she was still fond of the pleasures
of the world.
At sixteen, Theresa's poor health made it necessary
for her to return to her father's house. When she re-
covered she spent some time with her uncle, afterwards
a monk, who made her read good books, and impressed
upon her the vanity of the world. In a few months
she resolved to become a nun,——out of servile fear
rather than love, as she avers. The whole religious life
of the Middle Ages was based on fear,——the fear of being
tortured forever by devils and hell. So universal and
powerful was this fear that it became the leading idea
of the age, from which very few were ever emancipated.
On this idea were based the excommunications, the
interdicts, and all the spiritual weapons by which the
clergy ruled the minds of the people. On this their
ascendancy rested; they would have had but little
power without it. It was therefore their interest to
perpetuate it. And as they ruled by exciting fears, so
they themselves were objects of fear rather than of love.
All this tended to make the Middle Ages gloomy,
funereal, repulsive, austere. There was a time when I
felt a sort of poetic interest in these dark times, and
called them ages of faith; but the older I grow, and
the more I read and reflect, the more dreary do those
ages seem to me. Think of a state of society when
everything suggested wrath and vengeance, even in the
character of God, and when this world was supposed to
be under the dominion of devils! Think of an educa-
tion which impresses on the minds of interesting young
girls that the trifling sins which they committed every
day, and which proceeded from the exuberance of ani-
mal spirits, justly doomed them to everlasting burnings,
without expiations,——a creed so cruel as to undermine
the health, and make life itself a misery! Think of a
spiritual despotism so complete that confessors and
spiritual fathers could impose or remove these expia-
tions, and thus open the door to heaven or hell!
And yet this despotism was the logical result of a
generally accepted idea, instead of the idea being an
outgrowth of the despotism, since the clergy, who con-
trolled society by working on its fears, were themselves
as complete victims and slaves as the people whom they
led. This idea was that the soul would be lost unless
sins were expiated, and expiated by self-inflicted tor-
ments on the body. Paul taught a more cheerful doc-
trine of forgiveness, based on divine and infinite love,——
on faith and repentance. The Middle Ages also believed
in repentance, but taught that repentance and penance
were synonymous. The asceticism of the Church in
its conflict with Paganism led to this perversion of
apostolic theology. The very idea that Christianity
was sent to subvert,——that is, the old Oriental idea of
self-expiation, seen among the fakirs and sofis and
Brahmins alike, and in a less repulsive form among
the Pharisees,——became once again the ruling idea of
theologians. The theologians of the Middle Ages
taught this doctrine of penance and self-expiation with
peculiar zeal and sincerity; and fear rather than love
ruled the Christian world. Hence the austerity of
convent life. Its piety centred in the perpetual cruci-
fixion of he body, in the suppression of desires and
pleasures which are perfectly innocent. The highest
ideal of Christian life, according to convent rules, was a
living and protracted martyrdom, and in some cases even
the degradation of our common humanity. Christianity
nowhere enjoins the eradication of passions and appe-
tites, but the control of them. It would not mutilate
and disfigure the body, for it is a sacred temple, to be
made beautiful and attractive. On the other hand the
Middle Ages strove to make the body appear repulsive,
and the most loathsome forms of misery and disease to
be hailed as favorite modes of penance. And as Christ
suffered agonies on the cross, so the imitation of Christ
was supposed to be a cheerful and ready acceptance of
voluntary humiliation and bodily torments,——the more
dreadful to bear, the more acceptable to the Deity as a pro-
pitiation for sin. Is this statement denied? Read the
biographies of the saints of the Middle Ages. See how
penance, and voluntary suffering, and unnecessary ex-
posure of the health, and eager attention to the sick in
loathsome and contagious diseases, and the severest and
most protracted fastings and vigils, enter into their piety;
and how these extorted popular admiration, and received
the applause and rewards of the rulers of the Church.
I never read a book which left on my mind such repulsive
impressions of mediæval piety as the Life of Catherine of
sienna, by her confessor,——himself one of the great
ecclesiastical dignitaries of the age. I never read any-
thing so debasing and degrading to our humanity.
One turns with disgust from the narration of her lauded
penances.
So we see in the Church of the Middle Ages——the
Church of Saint Theresa——two great ideas struggling for
the mastery, yet both obscured and perverted: faith in
a crucified Redeemer, which gave consolation and hope;
and penance, rather than repentance, which sought to
impose the fetters of the ancient spiritual despotisms.
In the early Church, faith and repentance went hand
in hand together to conquer the world, and to intro-
duce joy and peace and hope among believers. In the
Middle Ages, faith was divorced from repentance, and
took penance instead as a companion,——an old enemy;
so that there was discord in the Christian camp, and
fears returned, and joys were clouded. Sometimes
faith prevailed over penance, as in the monastery of
Bec, where Anselm taught a cheerful philosophy,——or
in the monastery of Clairvaux, where Bernard lived in
seraphic ecstasies, his soul going out in love and joy; and
then again penance prevailed, as in those grim retreats
where hard inquisitors inflicted their cruel torments.
But penance, on the whole, was the ruling power, and
cast over society its funereal veil of dreariness and fear.
Yet penance, enslaving as it was, still clung to the
infinite value of the soul, the grandest fact in all
revelations, and hence society did not relax into Pagan-
ism. Penance would save the soul, though surround-
ing it with gloom, maceration, heavy labors, bitter tears,
terrible anxieties. The wearied pilgrim, the isolated
monk, the weeping nun, the groaning peasant, the peni-
tent baron, were not thrown into absolute despair, since
there was a possibility of appeasing divine wrath, and
since they all knew that Christ had died in order to
save some,——yea, all who conformed to the direction of
those spiritual guides which the Church and the age
imposed.
Such was Catholic theology when Theresa——an en-
thusiastic, amiable, and virtuous girl of sixteen, but at
one time giddy and worldly——wished to enter a con-
vent for the salvation of her soul. She says she was
influenced by servile fear, and not by love. It is now
my purpose to show how this servile fear was gradually
subdued by divine grace, and how she became radiant
with love,——in short, an emancipated woman, in all the
glorious liberty of the gospel of Christ; although it was
not until she had passed through a most melancholy
experience of bondage to the leading ideas of her
Church and age. It is this emancipation which made
her one of the great women of history, not complete
and entire, but still remarkable, especially for a Spanish
woman. It was love casting out fear.
After a mental struggle of three months, Theresa
resolved to become a nun. But her father objected,
partly out of his great love for her, and partly on
account of her delicate and fragile body. Her health
had always been poor: she was subject to fainting fits
an burning fevers. Whether her father, at last, con-
sented to her final retirement from the world I do not
discover from her biography; but, with his consent or
without it, she entered the convent and assumed the
religious habit,——not without bitter pangs on leaving
her home, for she did violence to her feelings, having no
strong desire for monastic seclusion, an being warmly
attached to her father. Neither love to God nor a
yearning after monastic life impelled the sacrifice, as
she admits, but a perverted conscience. She felt her-
self in danger of damnation for her sins, and wished to
save her soul, and knew no other way than to enter
upon the austerities of the convent, which she endured
with remarkable patience and submission, suffering not
merely from severities to which she was unaccustomed,
but great illness in consequence of them. A year was
passed in protracted miseries, amounting to martyrdom,
from fainting fits, heart palpitations, and other infirm-
ities of the body. The doctors could do nothing for
her, and her father was obliged to order her removal to
a more healthful monastery, where no vows of enclosure
were taken.
And there she remained a year, with no relief to her
sufferings for three months. Her only recreation was
books, which fortified her courage. She sought instruc-
tion, but found no one who could instruct her so as to
give repose to her struggling soul. She endeavored to
draw her thoughts from herself by reading. She could
not even pray without a book. She was afraid to be left
alone with herself. Her situation was made still worse
by the fact that her superiors did not understand her.
When they noticed that she sought solitude, and shed
tears for her sins, they fancied she had a discontented
disposition, and added to her unhappiness by telling
her so. But she conformed to all the rules, irksome or
not, and endured every mortification, and even per-
formed acts of devotion which were not required. She
envied the patience of a poor woman who died of the
most painful ulcers, and thought it would be a blessing
if she could be afflicted in the same way, in order, as
she said, to purchase eternal good. And this strange
desire was fulfilled, for a severe and painful malady
afflicted her for three years.
Again was she removed to some place for cure, for
her case was desperate. And here her patience was
supernal. Yet patience under bodily torments did not
give the sought-for peace. It happened that a learned
ecclesiastic of noble family lived in this place, and she
sought relief in confessions to him. With a rare judg-
ment and sense, and perhaps pride and delicacy, she
disliked to confess to ignorant priests. She said that
the half-learned did her more harm than good. The
learned were probably more lenient to her, and more
in sympathy with her, and assured her that those sins
were only venial which she had supposed were mortal.
But she soon was obliged to give up this confessor, since
he began to confess to her, and to confess sins in com-
parison with which the sins she confessed were venial
indeed. He not only told her of his slavery to a bad
woman, but confessed a love for Theresa herself, which
she of course repelled, though not with the aversion she
ought to have felt. It seems that her pious talk was in-
strumental in effecting his deliverance from a base bon-
dage. He soon after died, and piously, she declared; so
that she considered it certain that his soul was saved.
Theresa remained three months in this place, in most
grievous sufferings, for the remedy was worse than the
disease. Again her father took her home, since all de-
spaired of her recovery, her nervous system being utterly
shattered, and her pains incessant by day and by night;
the least touch was a torment. At last she sank into a
state of insensibility from sheer exhaustion, so that she
was supposed to be dying, even to be dead; and her
grave was dug, and the sacrament of extreme unction
was administered. She rallied from this prostration,
however, and returned to the convent, though in a state
of extreme weakness, and so remained for eight months.
For three years she was a cripple and could move
about only on all-fours; but she was resigned to the
will of God.
It was then, amid the maladies of her body, that she
found relief to her over-burdened soul in prayer. She
no longer prayed with a book, mechanically and by
rote, but mentally, with earnestness, and with the un-
derstanding. And she prayed directly to God Almighty,
and thereby came, she says, to love Him. And with
prayer came new virtues. She now ceases to speak ill
of people, and persuades others to cease from all de-
tractions, so that absent people are safe. She speaks
of God as her heavenly physician, who alone could
cure her. She now desires, not sickness to show her
patience, but health in order to serve God better. She
begins to abominate those forms and ceremonies to
which so many were slavishly devoted, and which she
regards as superstitious. But she has drawbacks and
relapses, and is pulled back by temptations and vani-
ties, so that she is ashamed to approach God with that
familiarity which frequent prayer requires. Then she
fears hell, which she thinks she deserves. She has not
yet reached the placidity of a pardoned soul. Per-
fection is very slow to be reached, and that is what
the Middle Ages required in order to exorcise the fears
of divine wrath. Not, however, until these fears are
exorcised can there be the liberty of the gospel or the
full triumph of love.
Thus for several years Theresa passed a miserable
life, since the more she prayed the more she realized
her faults; and these she could not correct, because
her soul was not a master, but a slave. She was
Drawn two ways, in opposite directions. She made
good resolutions, but failed to keep them; and then
there was a deluge of tears,——the feeling that she
was the weakest and wickedest of all creatures. For
nearly twenty years she passed through this tempestu-
ous sea, between failings and risings, enjoying neither
the sweetness of God nor the pleasures of the world.
But she did not lose the courage of applying herself
to mental prayer. This fortified her; this was her
stronghold; this united her to God. She was per-
suaded if she persevered in this, whatever sin she might
commit, or whatever temptation might be presented,
that, in the end, her Lord would bring her safe to the
port of salvation. So she prayed without ceasing. She
especially insisted on the importance of mental prayer
(which is, I suppose, what is called holy meditation) as
a sort of treaty of friendship with her Lord. At last
she feels that the Lord assists her, in His great love,
and she begins to trust in Him. She declares that
prayer is the gate through which the Lord bestows
upon her His favors; and it is only through this that
any comfort comes. Then she begins to enjoy sermons,
which once tormented her, whether good or bad, so long
as God is spoken of, for she now loves Him; and she
cannot hear too much of Him she loves. She delights
to see her Lord's picture, since it aids her to see Him
inwardly, and to feel that He is always near her, which
is her constant desire.
from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume IV, Part I: Great Women, pp. 109 - 130
Copyright 1883, 1885, 1888, by John Lord.
Copyright 1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York
Posted May 26, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC · edited
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