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Autobiography (A Pilgrim's Testament) — Ignatius of Loyola

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Autobiography (A Pilgrim's Testament)

Acta Patris Ignatii (Relato del peregrino)

Retrato de Ignacio de Loyola
byIgnatius of Loyola

It covers the years from Pamplona (1521) to his arrival in Rome (1538), with a short appendix on the writing of the Exercises and the Constitutions. It is a spiritual autobiography rather than a chronicle: Ignatius selects the episodes in which he learned to read 'the diversity of spirits' —the convalescence at Loyola, the scruples and the illumination at the Cardoner in Manresa, the journey to Jerusalem, the trials at Alcalá and Salamanca, the studies in Paris— and tells them with sobriety, irony and no hagiography. It is the main primary source for his conversion.

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Authorship note

Account dictated by Ignatius to Luís Gonçalves da Câmara in three sessions (August–September 1553, March 1555 and September–October 1555). Gonçalves da Câmara took notes and wrote them up afterwards; the first part survives in Spanish and the last in Italian, because the copyist who made the fair copy was Italian. Ignatius speaks of himself in the third person as 'the pilgrim'. Francis Borgia withdrew it from circulation in 1567 in favour of Ribadeneira's biography; the full text was published in the Monumenta Historica S.I. (1904; critical edition 1943).

Editions and translations

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English

  • A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola — Ignatius of Loyola

    A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola

    Ignatius Press, 2001

    Translation: Joseph N. Tylenda

    ISBN 0898708109

    Edición revisada.

  • A Pilgrim's Testament: The Memoirs of St. Ignatius of Loyola

    Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1995

    Translation: Parmananda R. Divarkar

    ISBN 1880810093

    Buy the book · Amazon (amazon.com)View in store · Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, Boston College (Jesuit Sources)
  • The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, with Related Documents — Ignatius of Loyola

    The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, with Related Documents

    Fordham University Press, 1993

    Translation: Joseph F. O'Callaghan

    ISBN 9780823214808

    Edición de John C. Olin.

  • A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola — Ignatius of Loyola

    A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola

    Michael Glazier, 1985

    Translation: Joseph N. Tylenda

    ISBN 9780894534683

  • The Autobiography of St. Ignatius

    Benziger Brothers, 1900

    Ed. J. F. X. O'Conor; versión desde la traducción latina de Coudret. Dominio público (Project Gutenberg 24534).

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Other works by Ignatius of Loyola

Sources

  • Ignacio de Loyola. Autobiografía (Acta Patris Ignatii), recogida por Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, 1553–1555. Texto castellano en Wikisource.

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