Teresa of Jesus

Durante el ocaso de la Edad Media, el cisma papal y la proliferación de visionarias que clamaban recibir iluminaciones celestiales, contribuyeron a un nuevo y vehemente intento de parte de un grupo selecto de intelectuales por reforzar los parámetros de control eclesiásticos acerca de la veracidad o no de las supuestas manifestaciones sobrenaturales entre el colectivo humano. Fruto de ese esfuerzo llevado a cabo por la corporación teologal es la síntesis realizada en materia de discernimiento espiritual por el reconocido teólogo Jean Gerson, cuya elaboración estableció con relativa claridad los criterios básicos del esquema hermenéutico a partir de los cuales juzgar las expresiones de religiosidad extraordinarias. El presente trabajo propone adentrarse en un caso testigo y ejemplar del mundo moderno: el de la reformadora descalza Teresa de Ávila. Partiendo del diseño interpretativo que hegemonizó el tiempo que le tocó vivir, los juicios emitidos por el dominico Pedro Ibáñez, la misiva enviada por el sacerdote secular Juan de Ávila, y la censura, del también fraile de la Orden de los Predicadores, Domingo Báñez, al relato autobiográfico de la religiosa abulense, nos han dejado un claro ejercicio aplicado del esquema gersoniano en materia de discernimiento espiritual. El análisis propuesto nos permitirá observar que ese ejercicio implicaba tanto los intereses puestos en juego por cada uno de los evaluadores, como así también una compleja actividad censora para clasificar y presentar un diagnóstico sobre una persona bajo observación.

Throughout the 20th century, Teresa of Avila’s person and work, beginning
with her writings, have been reread with renewed interest, in the light of
evolving contemporary questions. Teresa’s personal history, as well as the context
in which she lived and acted, have been extensively studied thanks to current endeavours
in the field of Teresian historiography. The present contribution undertakes
to indicate some of the lines of research which have been a main source of
enrichment for Teresian historical studies in the last decades.

Nel corso del XX secolo la persona e l’opera di Teresa di Gesù, a partire
dai suoi scritti, sono state rilette con rinnovato interesse, seguendo l’evolversi
delle problematiche contemporanee. Grazie anche all’impiego dei canoni storiografici
correnti nell’ambito della storiografia teresiana, tanto la sua storia personale
quanto il contesto in cui visse e operò sono stati ampiamente approfonditi. Il presente
lavoro si prefigge di indicare alcune linee di ricerca che hanno maggiormente
arricchito gli studi storici teresiani negli ultimi decenni.

In 1577 Teresa de Jesús composed the Interior Castle, an account of her spiritual experiences that deployed architectural images designed to incite readers to piety and devotion. Critical readings have identified the castle as a spiritual and aesthetic emblem of Christian hegemony, emplotting de Jesús's works in the rhetorical frame of Reconquista narratives. But the Castle, like the houses in the 1562 Book of Life and the palaces in the 1562-1564 Way of Perfection, moves readers to remember landscapes that differ from a monocultural event, as it narrates the ultimate spiritual encounter in frank dissidence with the hegemonic politics and aesthetics of Catholicism that became the law of the land in Spain after 1492. In line with a diversity of medieval mystical traditions from Europe and the Middle East, the choice of a castle—a key architectural sign of the Middle Ages—as the place of paradox, memory, and experience of the sublime offers clues that de Jesús figured out a way to communicate what seemed to be an unaccountable event in Counter-Reformation Spain: being in the presence of divinity and living to tell such story in cross-confessional terms. This essay analyzes the polysemic traces of the castle built by this mystic woman with the figurative fragrance of multicultural medieval Iberia, a space where she carefully negotiated war, crusades, and other kingdoms of heaven with contemplation, survival (pervivencia), and adaptation.