Introduction |
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St. Ignatius Loyola has been the subject of several competent biographies. But though Ignatian hagiology counts among its exponents such brilliant and scholarly biographers as Dudon, Astrain, the poets Francis Thompson. and John Dryden, Stewart Rose, Christopher Hollis and others, still there is a certain fascination in reading what the saint has to say for himself. |
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| St. Ignatius did not write his own life story. He narrated it to Father Luis Gonzalez de Cámara, who in turn dictated it to an amanuensis. The final autobiography, half in Spanish and half in Italian, is published in Fontes Narrativi de S. Ignatio Loyola, vol. I (Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu), and also in Obras Completas de S. Ignacio de Loyola, ed. Dalmases and Iparraguirre (Madrid 1952). | |
| In the following pages HEIGHTS is offering a humble homemade English translation of Spanish excerpts from the autobiography. Originally we had intended to print the Spanish text in juxtaposition to the English translation, but after the proofs were already printed, limitations of space forced us to omit--- regretfully--the Spanish text. | |
| The following excerpts were translated by some members of the HEIGHTS staff: Antonio V. Ayala, Edmundo Martinez, Eduardo Rialp, Santiago Robles, Roberto Rodriguez, Gonzalo Sy-Quia Jr., Vicente Valdepeñas Jr. and other hands. |