A violet odour and a fragrant oil were said to distil from her tomb ; and when it was opened nine months afterwards the flesh was found uncorrupted. Her relics were found to work miracles. She was buried at Avila, but her remains were eventually restored to Alva. Teresa was canonized by Gregory XV. in 1622. The honour was doubtless largely due to her asceticism and mystic visions. She called herself Teresa de Jesus, to signify the closeness of her relation to the heavenly Bridegroom, who directed all her actions. Though she deprecated excess of ascetic severity in others, she scourged herself habitually, and wore a peculiarly painful hair-cloth. But her life shows her to have been, besides, a woman of strong practicality and good sense, full of natural shrewdness, and with unusual powers of organization. "You deceived me in saying she was a woman," writes one of her confessors; "she is a bearded man." She was brave in the face of difficulties and dangers, pure in her motives, and her utterances, some of which have been quoted, have the true ethical ring about them. Her mss. were collected by Philip II. and placed in a rich case in the Escorial, the key of which
the king carried about with him. Besides her autobiography and the history of her foundations, her works (all written in Spanish) contain a great number of letters and various treatises of mystical religion, the chief of which are The Way of Perfection and The Castle of the Soul. Both describe the progress of the soul towards perfect union with God.
Her works, edited by two Dominicans, were published in 1587, and have since appeared in various editions. They were translated into Italian, French (4 vols., 1840-46) and Latin, and an English translation of the Life and works (except the letters) by A. Woodhead appeared in 1669. Other translations are: J. Dalton, Life (1851), The Way of Perfection and Letters (1902) ; D. Lewis, Life (1870), Founda tions (1871) ; A. R. Waller reprinted Woodhead's translation of The Way of Perfection (Igo') ; B. Zimmerman, Minor Works (IQI3) ; The Way of Perfection ('916) ; The Interior Castle (3rd ed. 1921). A translation of the Letters with introduction by Cardinal Gasquet appeared 1919-24 (4 vols.).