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Theresa THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 412
cilor and member of the department of education in 1824 and professor of homiletics in the University of Berlin in 1839. His preaching was characterized by scrupulous adherence to purity and correctness of form, with earnest striving to enforce the truth by all the arts of eloquence; its content was the Biblical Christ, the pure Evangelical truth. Ten volumes of sermons (Berlin, 1818 aqq., in repeated editions and various forms) preserve his discourses, and Die Beredsamkeit eine Tugend, oder Grundlinien einer systematischen Rhetorik (Berlin, 1814; Eng. transl. by W. G. T. Shedd, Eloquence a Virtue, Andover, 1850, new ed., 1872) expounds his homiletical principles. In Die Lehre vam g6ttlichen. Reiche (Berlin, 1823) Theremin seeks to develop the entire moral and dogmatic basis of Christianity from the concept of the kingdom of God. Adalberts Bekenn,tnisse (Berlin, 1828; Eng. transl., Confessions of Adalbert, London, 1838) is apologetic in character, presenting the story of a life long restless and troubled because of devotion to the world and unbelief, then by providential leading and subjective receptivity brought to faith and Christian fellowship. Abendstunden (3 vols., Berlin, 1833-39) was Theremin's most popular work; it is a collection of religious poems, stories, letters, and the like, often showing more rhetoric than true poetic form, yet containing many meritorious productions. His last publication was Demosthenes and Massillon, ein, Beitrag zur Gesehichte der Beredadmkeit (Berlin, 1845). (C. VON PAr=Rf.)
BaLIoaaeray: ADB, aszvii. 724.THERESA, te-ri'sa or t6-r5's8 (TERESA DE
JESUS), SAINT: Spanish mystic and monastic
reformer; b. at Avila (53 m. n.w. of Madrid), Old
Castile, Mar. 28, 1515; d. at Alva Oct. 4, 1582. The
deeply pious and ascetic ideal after the example of
saints and martyrs was early instilled in her by her
father, the knight Alonso Sanchez de
Cloister Cepeda, and especially by her mother,
Life. Beatrix d'Avila y Ahumada. Leaving
her parental home secretly one morn
ing in 1534, she entered the monastery of the In
carnation of the Carmelite nuns at Avila. In the
cloister she suffered much from illness. Early in her
sickness she experienced periods of spiritual ecstasy
through the use of the devotional book, Abecedario
espiritual, commonly known as the " third " or the
" spiritual alphabet " (published, six parts, 1537
1554). This work, following the example of similar
writings of the medieval mystics, consisted of di
rections for tests of conscience and for spiritual self
concentration and inner contemplation, known in
mystical nomenclature as oratio recollectionis or
oratio meretalis. Besides, she employed other mys
tical ascetic works; such as the Tractatus de ora
tione et meditationx of Peter of Alcantara (q.v.),
and perhaps many of those upon which Ignatius
Loyola based his Exercitia, and not improbably this
Exercitia itself. She professed, in her illness, to
rise from the lowest stage, " recollection," to the
" devotions of peace " or even to the " devotions of
union," which was one of perfect ecstasy. With
this was frequently joined a rich " blessing of tears."
As the merely outer and void Roman Catholic dis
tinction between mortal and venial sin dawned
upon her, she came upon the secret of the awful terror of sinful iniquity, and the inherent nature of original sin. With this was correlated the consciousness of utter natural impotence and the necessity of absolute subjection to God. The intimation on the part of various of her friends (c. 1556) of a diabolical, not divine, element in her supernatural experiences led her to the most horrible self-inflicted tortures and mortificationa, far in excess of her ordinary asceticism, until Francisco Borgia, to whom she had made confession, reassured her. On St. Peter's Day of 1559 she became firmly convinced that Christ was present to her in bodily form, though invisible. This vision lasted almost uninterruptedly for more than two years. In another vision, a seraph drove the fiery point of a golden lance repeatedly through her heart, causing an unexampled, as it were, spiritual-bodily pain. The memory of this episode served as an inspiration in determining her long struggle of love and suffering, from which emanated her life-long passion for conformation to the life and endurance of the Savior, to be epitomized in the cry usually inscribed as a motto upon her images: " Lord, either let me. suffer or let me die."
The incentive to give outward practical expression to her inward motive was inspired in Theresa by Peter of Alcantara (q.v.). Inci-
Activities dentally, he became acquainted with as Founder her early in 1560, and became her spiri-
and Re- tual guide and counselor. She now re- former. solved to found a Carmelite monastery for nuns, and to reform the laxity which she had found in the Cloister of the Incarna tion and others. Giumara de Ullon, a woman of wealth and a friend, supplied the funds. The ab solute poverty of the new monastery established in 1562 and named St. Joseph's, at first excited a scandal among the citizens and authorities of Avila, and the little house with its chapel was in peril of suppression; but powerful patrons like the bishop himself, as well as the impression of well-secured subsistence and prosperity, turned animosity into applause. In Mar., 1563, when Theresa removed to the new cloister, she received the papal sanction to her prime principle of absolute poverty and re nunciation of property, which she proceeded to formulate into a " Constitution." Her plan was the revival of the earlier stricter rules, supple mented by new regulations like the three disciplines of ceremonial flagellation prescribed for the divine service every week, and the discalceation of the none, or the substitution of leather or wooden san dals for shoes. For the first five years Theresa re mained in pious seclusion, engaged in writing. In 1657 she received a patent from the Carmelite gen eral, Rubeo de Ravenna, to establish new houses of her order, and in this effort and later visitations she made long journeys through nearly all the provinces of Spain. Of these she gives a descrip tion in her Libro de Zas Fundacimles (a late ed., Madrid, 1880; Eng. transl., Book of the Foundations, London, 1871). Between 1567 and 1571, reform convents were established at Medina del Campo, Malagon, Valladolid, Toledo, Pastrana, Salamanca, and Alba de Tormes. After her sprit and example,
