The Devil in the Details: How Teresa of Avila’s Description of the Work of the Devil Assured and Liberated Women

ABSTRACT The writings of Teresa of Avila have received much attention in recent scholarship. Surprisingly, though, her descriptions of the devil have not benefitted from the same extensive examination. This essay is an attempt to fill this lacuna in the scholarship. Teresa, like most of her Christian contemporaries, believed a personal devil regularly attempted to thwart and deceive faithful Christians. In this essay, after a discussion of the historical context in which Teresa wrote, I provide a survey of the role of the devil in The Interior Castle. In each of the seven sets of chambers of the castle through which the soul progresses, the devil actively combats the journeyer. By extracting these descriptions of the devil’s work from The Interior Castle, one is able to ascertain a thorough understanding of how Teresa viewed the devil himself. This understanding in turn sheds light on how Teresa’s writing positively functioned in her own ecclesial context. Teresa’s accounts of the devil provided assurance and freedom to the nuns for whom she wrote as they contemplated their own spiritual journeys. These reflections on the devil not only buffered her readership but also Teresa herself against the constant suspicion of the Inquisition regarding the spiritual experiences of women.