ABSTRACT
The original rules of the Carmelite order were of a mild character, and contained few injunctions with regard to flagellation and other devout torments. St Theresa, who was the founder of the barefooted male and female Carmelites, was the first to set an example of severe flagellation. Her life affords a perfect study of religious fanaticism. In her case, a naturally vivid imagination and a proud adventurous disposition were utterly perverted by an education without method, so that what was at first enthusiasm soon became madness. When seven years of age, her favourite books were the lives of saints, whose flagellations and sufferings captivated her mind, as the story of Robinson Crusoe does a modern schoolboy. Her elder brother being her chief companion at this time, they resolved to go among the Moors, that they might be flagellated and tortured for the sake of Christ. They were, however, found out, and had to undergo a good birching from their parents. This was not sufficient to prevent Theresa from leading a hermit’s life on her father’s estate, after the manner of the ancient hermits of Syria and Egypt. Her next course of reading was tales of chivalry, where love and war took the place of tortures. Thes romances so excited her warm southern nature that her father deemed it prudent to place her out of temptation within the walls of a convent. Here she resolved to renounce the world and lead a life of devotion; and thenceforth the birch, the scourge, and the haircloth, became her dearest friends. She entered into mysticism with even more enthusiasm than she had shewn for chivalry. Her chief delight was in flagellation. She would have given her life to scourge the whole world, or that the whole world might scourge her, for she delighted alike in the infliction and the reception of the birch. Her example had a powerful influence on her fellows, and monks and nuns tried to emulate her efforts, and consequently the laws of the order became more stringent. She was regarded with veneration and devotedness, and her mode of flagellation became in time the leading penance of the order.
