Renaissance in Italy Volume VI Part 10

CHAPTER IV.

THE COMPANY OF JESUS.

Vast Importance of the Jesuits in the Counter-Reformation--Ignatius Loyola--His Youth--Retreat at Manresa--Journey to Jerusalem--Studies in Spain and Paris--First Formation of his Order at Sainte Barbe--Sojourn at Venice--Settlement at Rome--Papal Recognition of the Order--Its Military Character--Absolutism of the General--Devotion to the Roman Church--Choice of Members--Practical and Positive Aims of the Founder--Exclusion of the Ascetic, Acceptance of the Worldly Spirit--Review of the Order's Rapid Extension over Europe--Loyola's Dealings with his Chief Lieutenants--Propaganda--The Virtue of Obedience--The _Exercitia Spiritualia_--Materialistic Imagination--Intensity and Superficiality of Religious Training--The Status of the Novice--Temporal Coadjutors--Scholastics--Professed of the Three Vows--Professed of the Four Vows--The General--Control exercised over him by his a.s.sistants--His relation to the General Congregation--Espionage a part of the Jesuit System--Advantageous Position of a Contented Jesuit--The Vow of Poverty--Houses of the Professed and Colleges--The Const.i.tutions and Declarations--Problem of the _Monita Secreta_--Reciprocal Relations of Rome and the Company--Characteristics of Jesuit Education--Direction of Consciences--Moral Laxity--Sarpi's Critique--Casuistry--Interference in affairs of State--Instigation to Regicide and Political Conspiracy--Theories of Church Supremacy--Insurgence of the European Nations against the Company.

We have seen in the preceding chapters how Spain became dominant in Italy, superseding the rivalry of confederate states by the monotony of servitude, and lending its weight to Papal Rome. The internal changes effected in the Church by the Tridentine Council, and the external power conferred on it, were due in no small measure to Spanish influence or sanction. A Spanish inst.i.tution, the Inquisition, modified to suit Italian requirements, lent revived Catholicism weapons of repression and attack. We have now to learn by what means a partial vigor was communicated to the failing body of Catholic beliefs, how the Tridentine creed was propagated, the spiritual realm of the Roman Pontiff policed, and his secular authority augmented. A Spanish Order rose at the right moment to supply that intellectual and moral element of vitality without which the Catholic Revival might have remained as inert as a stillborn child. The devotion of the Jesuits to the Papacy, was in reality the masterful Spanish spirit of that epoch, masking its world-grasping ambition under the guise of obedience to Rome. This does not mean that the founders and first organizers of the Company of Jesus consciously pursued one object while they pretended to have another in view. The impulse which moved Loyola was spontaneous and romantic. The world has seen few examples of disinterested self-devotion equal to that of Xavier. Yet the fact remains that Jesuitry, taking its germ and root in the Spanish character, persisting as an organism within the Church, but separate from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, devised the doctrine of Papal absolutism, and became the prime agent of that Catholic policy in Europe which pa.s.sed for Papal during the Counter-Reformation. The indissoluble connection between Rome, Spain, and the Jesuits, was apparent to all unprejudiced observers. For this triad of reactionary and belligerent forces Sarpi invented the name of the Diacatholicon, alluding, under the metaphor of a drug, to the virus which was being instilled in his days into all the States of Europe.[157]

The founder of the Jesuit order was the thirteenth child of a Spanish n.o.ble, born in 1491 at his father's castle of Loyola in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa.[158] His full name was Inigo Lopez de Recalde; but he is better known to history as Saint Ignatius Loyola. Ignatius spent his boyhood as page in the service of King Ferdinand the Catholic, whence he pa.s.sed into that of the Duke of Najara, who was the hereditary friend and patron of his family. At this time he thought of nothing but feats of arms, military glory, and romantic adventures.

[Footnote 157: For Sarpi's use of this phrase see his _Lettere_, vol.

ii. pp. 72, 80, 92. He clearly recognized the solidarity between the Jesuits and Spain. 'The Jesuit is no more separable from the Spaniard than the accident from the substance.' 'The Spaniard without the Jesuit is not worth more than lettuce without oil.' 'For the Jesuits to deceive Spain, would be tantamount to deceiving themselves.' _Ibid._ vol. i. pp.

203, 384, vol. ii. p. 48. Compare pa.s.sages in vol. i. pp. 184, 189. He only perceived a difference in the degrees of their noxiousness to Europe. Thus, 'the worst Spaniard is better than the least bad of the Jesuits' (vol. i. p. 212).]

[Footnote 158: Study of the Jesuits must be founded on _Inst.i.tutum Societatis Jesu_, 7 vols. Avenione; Orlandino, _Hist. Soc. Jesu_; Cretineau-Joly, _Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus_; Ribadaneira, _Vita Ignatii_; Genelli's Life of Ignatius in German, or the French translation; the Jesuit work, _Imago Primi Saeculi_; Ranke's account in his _History of the Popes_, and the three chapters a.s.signed to this subject in Philippson's _La Contre-Revolution Religieuse_. The latter will be found a most valuable summary.]

He could boast but little education; and his favorite reading was in _Amadis of Gaul_. That romance appeared during the boy's earliest childhood, and Spain was now devouring its high-flown rhapsodies with rapture. The peculiar admixture of mystical piety, Catholic enthusiasm, and chivalrous pa.s.sion, which distinguishes _Amadis_, exactly corresponded to the spirit of the Spaniards at an epoch when they had terminated their age-long struggle with the Moors, and were combining propagandist zeal with martial fervor in the conquest of the New World.

Its pages inflamed the imagination of Ignatius. He began to compose a romance in honor of S. Peter, and chose a princess of blood royal for his Oriana. Thus, in the first days of youth, while his heart was still set on love and warfare, he revealed the three leading features of his character--soaring ambition, the piety of a devotee, and the tendency to view religion from the point of fiction.

Ignatius was barely twenty when the events happened which determined the future of his life and so powerfully affected the destinies of Catholic Christendom. The French were invading Navarre; and he was engaged in the defense of its capital, Pampeluna. On May 20, 1521, a bullet shattered his right leg, while his left foot was injured by a fragment of stone detached from a breach in the bastion. Transported to his father's castle, he suffered protracted anguish under the hands of unskilled medical attendants. The badly set bone in his right leg had twice to be broken; and when at last it joined, the young knight found himself a cripple. This limb was shorter than the other; the surgeons endeavored to elongate it by machines of iron, which put him to exquisite pain.

After months of torture, he remained lame for life.

During his illness Ignatius read such books as the castle of Loyola contained. These were a 'Life of Christ' and the 'Flowers of the Saints'

in Spanish. His mind, prepared by chivalrous romance, and strongly inclined to devotion, felt a special fascination in the tales of Dominic and Francis. Their heroism suggested new paths which the aspirant after fame might tread with honor. Military glory and the love of women had to be renounced; for so ambitious a man could not content himself with the successes of a cripple in these spheres of action. But the legends of saints and martyrs pointed out careers no less n.o.ble, no less useful, and even more enticing to the fancy. He would become the spiritual Knight of Christ and Our Lady. To S. Peter, his chosen protector, he prayed fervently; and when at length he rose from the bed of sickness, he firmly believed that his life had been saved by the intercession of this patron, and that it must be henceforth consecrated to the service of the faith. The world should be abandoned. Instead of warring with the enemies of Christ on earth, he would carry on a crusade against the powers of darkness. They were first to be met and fought in his own heart. Afterwards, he would form and lead a militia of like-hearted champions against the strongholds of evil in human nature.

It must not be thought that the scheme of founding a Society had so early entered into the mind of Ignatius. What we have at the present stage to notice is that he owed his adoption of the religious life to romantic fancy and fervid ambition, combined with a devotion to Peter, the saint of orthodoxy and the Church. Animated by this new enthusiasm, he managed to escape from home in the spring of 1522. His friends opposed themselves to his vocation; but he gave them the slip, took vows of chast.i.ty and abstinence, and began a pilgrimage to our Lady of Montserrat near Barcelona. On the road he scourged himself daily. When he reached the shrine he hung his arms up as a votive offering, and performed the vigil which chivalrous custom exacted from a squire before the morning of his being dubbed a knight. This ceremony was observed point by point, according to the ritual he had read in _Amadis of Gaul_.

Next day he gave his raiment to a beggar, and a.s.sumed the garb of a mendicant pilgrim. By self-dedication he had now made himself the Knight of Holy Church.

His first intention was to set sail for Palestine, with the object of preaching to the infidels. But the plague prevented him from leaving port; and he retired to a Dominican convent at Manresa, a little town of Catalonia, north-west of Barcelona. Here he abandoned himself to the crudest self-discipline. Feeding upon bread and water, kneeling for seven hours together rapt in prayer, scourging his flesh thrice daily, and reducing sleep to the barest minimum, Ignatius sought by austerity to s.n.a.t.c.h that crown of sainthood which he felt to be his due. Outraged nature soon warned him that he was upon a path which led to failure.

Despair took possession of his soul, sometimes prompting him to end his life by suicide, sometimes plaguing him with hideous visions. At last he fell dangerously ill. Enlightened by the expectation of early death, he then became convinced that his fanatical asceticism was a folly. The despair, the dreadful phantoms which had haunted him, were ascribed immediately to the devil. In those rarer visitings of brighter visions, which sometimes brought consolation, bidding him repose upon G.o.d's mercy, he recognized angels sent to lead him on the pathway of salvation. G.o.d's hand appeared in these dealings; and he resolved to dedicate his body as well as his soul to G.o.d's service, respecting both as instruments of the divine will, and entertaining both in efficiency for the work required of them.

The experiences of Manresa proved eminently fruitful for the future method of Ignatius. It was here that he began to regard self-discipline and self-examination as the needful prelude to a consecrated life. It was here that he learned to condemn the ascetism of anchorites as pernicious or unprofitable to a militant Christian. It was here that, while studying the manual of devotion written by Garcia de Cisneros, he laid foundations for those famous _Exercitia_, which became his instrument for rapidly pa.s.sing neophytes through spiritual training similar to his own. It was here that he first distinguished two kinds of visions, infernal and celestial. Here also he grew familiar with the uses of concrete imagination;, and understood how the faculty of sensuous realization might be made a powerful engine for presenting the past of sacred history or the dogmas of orthodox theology under shapes of fancy to the mind. Finally, in all the experiences of Manresa, he tried the temper of his own character, which was really not that of a poet or a mystic, but of a sagacious man of action, preparing a system calculated to subjugate the intelligence and will of millions. Tested by self-imposed sufferings and by diseased hallucinations, his sound sense, the sense of one destined to control men, gathered energy, and grew in, solid strength: yet enough remained of his fanaticism to operate as a motive force in the scheme which he afterwards developed; enough survived from the ascetic phase he had surmounted, to make him comprehend that some such agony as he had suffered should form the vestibule to a devoted life. We may compare the throes of Ignatius at Manresa with the contemporary struggles of Luther at Wittenberg and in the Wartzburg. Our imagination will dwell upon the different issues to which two heroes distinguished by practical ability were led through their contention with the powers of spiritual evil. Protagonists respectively of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, they arrived at opposite conclusions; the one championing the cause of spiritual freedom in the modern world, the other consecrating his genius to the maintenance of Catholic orthodoxy by spiritual despotism. Yet each alike fulfilled his mission by having conquered mysticism at the outset of his world-historical career.

Ignatius remained for the s.p.a.ce of ten months at Manresa. He then found means to realize his cherished journey to the Holy Land. In Palestine he was treated with coldness as an ignorant enthusiast, capable of subverting the existing order of things, but too feeble to be counted on for permanent support. His motive ideas were still visionary; he could not cope with conservatism and frigidity established in comfortable places of emolument. It was necessary that he should learn the wisdom of compromise. Accordingly he returned to Spain, and put himself to school.

Two years spent in preparatory studies at Barcelona, another period at Alcala, and another at Salamanca, introduced him to languages, grammar, philosophy, and theology. This man of n.o.ble blood and vast ambition, past the age of thirty, sat with boys upon the common benches. This self-consecrated saint imbibed the commonplaces of scholastic logic. It was a further stage in the evolution of his iron character from romance and mysticism, into political and practical sagacity. It was a further education of his stubborn will to pliant temper. But he could not divest himself of his mission as a founder and apostle. He taught disciples, preached, and formed a sect of devotees. Then the Holy Office attacked him. He was imprisoned, once at Alcala for forty-two days, once at Salamanca for three weeks, upon charges of heresy. Ignatius proved his innocence. The Inquisitors released him with certificates of acquittal; but they sentenced him to four years' study of theology before he should presume to preach. These years he resolved to spend at Paris.

Accordingly he performed the journey on foot, and arrived in the capital of France upon February 2, 1528. He was then thirty-seven years old, and sixteen years had elapsed since he received his wounds at Pampeluna.

At Paris he had to go to school again from the beginning. The alms of well-wishers, chiefly devout women at Barcelona, amply provided him with funds. These he employed not only in advancing his own studies, but also in securing the attachment of adherents to his cause. At this epoch he visited the towns of Belgium and London during his vacations. But the main outcome of his residence at Paris was the formation of the Company of Jesus. Those long years of his novitiate and wandering were not without their uses now. They had taught him, while clinging stubbornly to the main projects of his life, prudence in the choice of means, temperance in expectation, sagacity in the manipulation of fellow-workers selected for the still romantic ends he had in view. His first two disciples were a Savoyard, Peter Faber or Le Fevre, and Francis Xavier of Pampeluna. Faber was a poor student, whom Ignatius helped with money. Xavier sprang from a n.o.ble stock, famous in arms through generations, for which he was eager to win the additional honors of science and the Church. Ignatius a.s.sisted him by bringing students to his lectures. Under the personal influence of their friend and benefactor, both of these men determined to leave all and follow the new light. Visionary as the object yet was, the firm will, fervent confidence, and saintly life of Loyola inspired them with absolute trust. That the Christian faith, as they understood it, remained exposed to grievous dangers from without and form within, that millions of souls were peris.h.i.+ng through ignorance, that tens of thousands were falling away through incredulity and heresy, was certain. The realm of Christ on earth needed champions, soldiers devoted to a crusade against Satan and his hosts. And here was a leader, a man among men, a man whose words were as a fire, and whose method of spiritual discipline was salutary and illuminative; and this man bade them join him in the Holy War. He gained them in a hundred ways, by kindness, by precept, by patience, by persuasion, by attention to their physical and spiritual needs, by words of warmth and wisdom, by the direction of their conscience, by profound and intense sympathy with souls struggling after the higher life. The means he had employed to gain Faber and Xavier were used with equal success in the case of seven other disciples. The names of these men deserve to be recorded; for some of them played a part of importance in European history, while all of them contributed to the foundation of the Jesuits. They were James Lainez, Alfonzo Salmeron, and Nicholas Bobadilla, three Spaniards; Simon Rodriguez d'Azevedo, a Portuguese; two Frenchmen, Jean Codure and Brouet; and Claude le Jay, a Savoyard. All these neophytes were subjected by Ignatius to rigid discipline, based upon his _Exercitia_. They met together for prayer, meditation, and discussion, in his chamber at the College of S. Barbe. Here he unfolded to them his own plans, and poured out on them his spirit. At length, upon August 15, 1534, the ten together took the vows of chast.i.ty and poverty in the church of S. Mary at Montmartre, and bound themselves to conduct a missionary crusade in Palestine, or, if this should prove impracticable, to place themselves as devoted instruments, without conditions and without remuneration, in the hands of the Sovereign Pontiff.

The society was thus established, although its purpose remained indecisive. The founder's romantic dream of a crusade in Holy Land, though never realized, gave an object of immediate interest to the a.s.sociated friends. Meanwhile two main features of its historical manifestation, the propaganda of the Catholic faith and unqualified devotion to the cause of the Roman See, had been clearly indicated.

Nothing proves the mastery which Ignatius had now acquired over his own enthusiasm, or the insight he had gained into the right method of dealing with men, more than the use he made of his authority in this first instance. The society was bound to grow and to expand; and it was fated to receive the lasting impress of his genius. But, as though inspired by some prophetic vision of its future greatness, he refrained from circ.u.mscribing the still tender embryo within definite limits which might have been pernicious to its development.

The a.s.sociates completed their studies at Paris, and in 1535 they separated, after agreeing to meet at Venice in the first months of 1537.

Ignatius meanwhile traveled to Spain, where he settled his affairs by bestowing such property as he possessed on charitable inst.i.tutions. He also resumed preaching, with a zeal that aroused enthusiasm and extended his personal influence. At the appointed time the ten came together at Venice, ostensibly bent on carrying out their project of visiting Palestine. But war was now declared between the Turks and the Republic of S. Mark. Ignatius found himself once more accused of heresy, and had some trouble in clearing himself before the Inquisition. It was resolved in these circ.u.mstances to abandon the mission to Holy Land as impracticable for the moment, and to remain in Venice waiting for more favorable opportunities. We may believe that the romance of a crusade among the infidels of Syria had already begun to fade from the imagination of the founder, in whose career nothing is more striking than his gradual abandonment of visionary for tangible ends, and his progressive subst.i.tution of real for shadowy objects of ambition.

Loyola's first contact with Italian society during this residence in Venice exercised decisive influence over his plans. He seems to have perceived with the acute scent of an eagle that here lay the quarry he had sought so long. Italy, the fountain-head of intellectual enlightenment for Europe, was the realm which he must win. Italy alone offered the fulcrum needed by his firm and limitless desire of domination over souls. It was with Caraffa and the Theatines that Ignatius obtained a home. They were now established in the States of S.

Mark through the beneficence of a rich Venetian n.o.ble, Girolamo Miani, who had opened religious houses and placed these at their disposition.

Under the direction of their founder, they carried on their designed function of training a higher cla.s.s of clergy for the duties of preaching and the priesthood, and for the repression of heresy by educational means. Caraffa's scheme was too limited to suit Ignatius: and the characters of both men were ill adapted for co-operation. One zeal for the faith inspired both. Here they agreed. But Ignatius was a Spaniard; and the second pa.s.sion in Caraffa's breast was a Neapolitan's hatred for that nation. Ignatius, moreover, contemplated a vastly more expansive and elastic machinery for his workers in the vineyard of the faith, than the future Pope's coercive temper could have tolerated.

These two leaders of the Counter-Reformation, equally ambitious, equally intolerant of opposition, equally bent upon a vast dominion, had to separate. The one was destined to organize the Inquisition and the Index. The other evolved what is historically known as Jesuitry.

Nevertheless we know that Ignatius learned much from Caraffa. The subsequent organization of his Order showed that the Theatines suggested many practical points in the method he eventually adopted for effecting his designs.

Some of his companions, meanwhile, journeyed to Rome. There they obtained from Paul III. permission to visit Palestine upon a missionary enterprise, together with special privileges for their entrance into sacerdotal orders. Those of the ten friends who were not yet priests, were ordained at Venice in June 1537. They then began to preach in public, roaming the streets with faces emaciated by abstinence, clad in ragged clothes, and using a language strangely compounded of Italian and Spanish. Their obvious enthusiasm, and the holy lives they were known to lead, brought them rapidly into high reputation of sanct.i.ty. Both the secular and the religious clergy of Italy could show but few men at that epoch equal to these brethren. It was settled in the autumn that they should all revisit Rome, traveling by different routes, and meditating on the form which the Order should a.s.sume. Palestine had now been definitely, if tacitly, abandoned. As might have been expected, it was Loyola who baptized his Order, and impressed a character upon the infant inst.i.tution. He determined to call it the Company of Jesus, with direct reference to those Companies of Adventure which had given irregular organization to restless military spirits in the past. The new Company was to be a 'cohort, or century, combined for combat against spiritual foes; men-at-arms, devoted, body and soul, to our Lord Jesus Christ and to his true and lawful Vicar upon earth.'[159] An Englishman of the present day may pause to meditate upon the grotesque parallel between the nascent Order of the Jesuits and the Salvation Army, and can draw such conclusions from it as may seem profitable.

[Footnote 159: These phrases occur in the _Deliberatio primorum patrum_.]

Loyola's withdrawal from all partic.i.p.ation in the nominal honor of his inst.i.tution, his enrollment of the militia he had levied under the name of Jesus, and the combative functions which he ascribed to it, were very decided marks of originality. It stamped the body with impersonality from the outset, and indicated the belligerent att.i.tude it was destined to a.s.sume. There was nothing exactly similar to its dominant conception in any of the previous religious orders. These had usually received their t.i.tle from the founder, had aimed at a life retired from the world, had studied the sanctification of their individual members, and had only contemplated an indirect operation upon society. Ignatius, on the contrary, placed his community under the protection of Christ, and defined it at the outset as a militant and movable legion of auxiliaries, dedicated, not to retirement or to the pursuit of salvation, but to freely avowed and active combat in defense of their Master's vicegerent upon earth. It was as though he had divined the deficiencies of Catholicism at that epoch, and had determined to supplement them by the creation of a novel and a special weapon of attack. Some inst.i.tutions of mediaeval chivalry, the Knights of the Temple, and S. John, for instance, furnished the closest a.n.a.logy to his foundation. Their spirit he transferred from the sphere of physical combat with visible forces, infidel and Mussulman, to the sphere of intellectual warfare against heresy, unbelief, insubordination in the Church. He had refined upon the crude enthusiasm of romance which inspired him at Montserrat. Without losing its intensity, this had become a motive force of actual and political gravity.

The Company of Jesus was far from obtaining the immediate approval of the Church. Paul III. indeed, perceived its utility, and showed marked favor to the a.s.sociates when they arrived in Rome about the end of 1537.

The people, too, welcomed their ministration gladly, and recognized the zeal which they displayed in acts of charity and their exemplary behavior. But the Curia and higher clergy organized an opposition against them. They were accused of heresy, and attempts to seduce the common folk. Ignatius demanded full and public inquiry, which was at first refused him. He then addressed the Pope in person, who ordered a trial, out of which the brethren came with full acquittal. After this success, they obtained a hold upon religious instruction in many schools of Rome. Adherents flocked around them; and they saw that it was time to give the society a defined organization, and to demand its official recognition as an Order. It was resolved to add the vow of obedience to their former vows of chast.i.ty and poverty. Obedience had always been a prime virtue in monastic inst.i.tutions; but Ignatius conceived of it in a new and military spirit. The obedience of the Jesuits was to be absolute, extending even to the duty of committing sins at a superior's orders. The General, instead of holding office for a term of years, was to be elected for life, with unlimited command over the whole Order in its several degrees. He was to be regarded as Christ present and personified. This autocracy of the General might have seemed to menace the overlords.h.i.+p of the Holy See, but for a fourth vow which the Company determined to adopt. It ran as follows: 'That the members will consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the Lord and the Roman Pontiff as G.o.d's vicar upon earth, in such wise that they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation or excuse all that the reigning Pope or his successors may enjoin upon them for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or any other infidels, to furthest Ind, as well as in the region of heretics, schismatics, or believers of any kind.'

Loyola himself drew up these const.i.tutions in five chapters, and had them introduced to Paul III., with the pet.i.tion that they might be confirmed. This was in September 1539, and it is singular that the man selected to bring them under the Pope's notice should have been Cardinal Contarini. Paul had no difficulty in recognizing the support which this new Order would bring to the Papacy in its conflict with Reformers, and its diplomatic embarra.s.sments with Charles V. He is even reported to have said, 'The finger of G.o.d is there!' Yet he could not confirm the const.i.tutions without the previous approval of three Cardinals appointed to report on them. This committee condemned Loyola's scheme; and nearly a year pa.s.sed in negotiations with foreign princes and powerful prelates, before a reluctant consent was yielded to the Pope's avowed inclination. At length the Bull of Sept. 27, 1540, _Regimini militantis Ecclesiae_, launched the Society of Jesus on the world. Ignatius became the first General of the Order; and the rest of his life, a period of sixteen years, was spent in perfecting the machinery and extending the growth of this inst.i.tution, which in all essentials was the emanation of his own mind.

It may be well at this point to sketch the organization of the Jesuits, and to describe the progress of the Society during its founder's lifetime, in order that a correct conception may be gained of Loyola's share in its creation. Many historians of eminence, and among them so acute an observer as Paolo Sarpi, have been of the opinion that Jesuitry in its later developments was a deflection from the spirit and intention of Ignatius. It is affirmed that Lainez and Salmeron, rather than Loyola, gave that complexion to the Order which has rendered it a mark for the hatred and disgust of Europe. Aquaviva, the fifth General, has been credited with its policy of interference in affairs of states and nations. Yet I think it can be shown that the Society, as it appeared in the seventeenth century, was a logical and necessary development of the Society as Ignatius framed it in the sixteenth.[160]

[Footnote 160: Sarpi, though he expressed an opinion that the Jesuits of his day had departed from the spirit of their founders, spoke thus of Loyola's worldly aims (_Lettere_, vol. i. p 224): 'Even Father Ignatius, Founder of the Company, as his biography attests, based himself in such wise upon human interest as though there were none divine to think about.']

Lainez, who succeeded the founder as General, digested the const.i.tutions and supplied them with a commentary or Directorium. He defined, formulated, and stereotyped the system; but the essential qualities of Jesuitry, its concentration upon political objects, its unscrupulousness in choice of means to ends, the worldliness which lurked beneath the famous motto _Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_, were implicit in Loyola's express words, and in his actual administration. The framework of the Order, as he fixed it, was so firmly traced, and so cunningly devised for practical efficiency, that it admitted of no alteration except in the direction of more rigid definition. Lainez may, indeed, have emphasized its tendency to become a political machine, and may have weakened its religious tone, by his rules for the interpretation of the const.i.tutions; but we have seen that the development of Loyola's own ideas ran in this direction. The real strength, as well as the worst vices of Jesuitry, were inherent in the system from the first; and in it we have perhaps the most remarkable instance on record, of the evolution of a cosmopolitan and world-important organism from the embryo of one man's conception.

The Bull _Regimini militantis Ecclesiae_ restricted the number of the Jesuits to sixty. If Ignatius did not himself propose this limit, the restriction may perhaps have suggested his policy of reserving the full privileges of the Society for a small band of selected members--the very essence of the body, extracted by processes which will be afterwards described. Anyhow, it is certain that though the Papal limitation was removed in 1543, and though candidates flowed on the tide of fas.h.i.+on toward the Order, yet the representative and responsible Fathers remained few in numbers. These were distributed as the General thought fit. He stayed in Rome; for Rome was the chosen headquarters of the Society, the nucleus of their growth, and the fulcrum of their energy.

From Rome, as from a center, Ignatius moved his men about the field of Europe. We might compare him under one metaphor to a chess-player directing his pieces upon the squares of the political and ecclesiastical chessboard; under another, to a spider spinning his web so as to net the greatest number of profitable partisans. The fathers were kept in perpetual motion. To s.h.i.+ft them from place to place, to exclude them from their native soil, to render them cosmopolitan and pliant was the first care of the founder. He forbade the follies of ascetic piety, inculcated the study of languages and exact knowledge, and above all things recommended the acquisition of those social arts which find favor with princes and folk of high condition. 'Prudence of an exquisite quality,' he said, 'combined with average sanct.i.ty, is more valuable than eminent sanct.i.ty and less of prudence.' Also he bade them keep their eyes open for neophytes 'less marked by pure goodness than by firmness of character and ability in conduct of affairs, since men who are not apt for public business do not suit the requirements of the Company.' Orlandino tells us that though Ignatius felt drawn to men who showed eminent gifts for erudition, he preferred, in the difficulties of the Church, to choose such as knew the world well and were distinguished by their social station. The fathers were to seek out youths 'of good natural parts, adapted to the acquisition of knowledge and to practical works of utility.' Their pupils were, if possible, to have physical advantages and manners that should render them agreeable. These points had more of practical value than a bare vocation for piety. In their dealings with tender consciences, they were to act like 'good fishers of souls, pa.s.sing over many things in silence as though these had not been observed, until the time came when the will was gained, and the character could be directed as they thought best.'[161] Loyola's dislike for the common forms of monasticism appears in his choice of the ordinary secular priest's ca.s.sock for their dress, and in his emanc.i.p.ation of the members from devotional exercises and attendance in the choir. The aversion he felt for ascetic discipline is evinced in a letter he addressed to Francis Borgia in 1548. It is better, he writes, to strengthen your stomach and other faculties, than to impair the body and enfeeble the intellect by fasting. G.o.d needs both our physical and mental powers for his service; and every drop of blood you shed in flagellation is a loss.

[Footnote 161: See Philippson, _op. cit._ pp. 61, 62.]

The end in view was to serve the Church by penetrating European society, taking possession of its leaders in rank and hereditary influence, directing education, a.s.suming the control of the confessional, and preaching the faith in forms adapted to the foibles and the fancies of the age. The interests of the Church were paramount: 'If she teaches that what seems to us white is black, we must declare it to be black upon the spot.' There were other precepts added. These, for instance, seem worth commemoration: 'The workers in the Lord's vineyard should have but one foot on earth, the other should be raised to travel forward.' 'The abnegation of our own will is of more value than if one should bring the dead to life again.' 'No storm is so pernicious as a calm, and no enemy is so dangerous as having none.' It will be seen that what is known as Jesuitry, in its mundane force and in its personal devotion to a cause, emerges from the precepts of Ignatius. We may wonder how the romances of the mountain-keep of Loyola, the mysticism of Montserrat, and the struggles of Manresa should have brought the founder of the Jesuits to these results. Yet, if we a.n.a.lyze the problem, it will yield a probable solution. What survived from that first period was the spirit of enthusiastic service to the Church, the vast ambition of a man who felt himself a destined instrument for shoring up the crumbling walls of Catholicity, the martial instinct of a warrior fighting at fearful odds with nations running toward infidelity.

He had no doubt where the right lay. He was a Spaniard, a servant of S.

Peter; and for him the creed enounced by Rome was all in all. But his commerce with the world, his astute Basque nature, and his judgment of the European situation, taught him that he must use other means than those which Francis and Dominic had employed. He had to make his Company, that forlorn hope of Catholicism, the exponent of a decadent and rotten faith. He had to adapt it to the necessities of Christendom in dissolution, to const.i.tute it by a guileful and sagacious method. He had to render it wise in the wisdom of the world, in order that he might catch the powers of this world by their interests and vices for the Church. He was like Machiavelli, endeavoring to save a corrupt state by utilizing corruption for ends acknowledged sound. And, like Machiavelli, he was mistaken, because it will not profit man to trust in craft or the manipulation of evil. Luther was stronger in his weakness than the creator of the Jesuit machinery, wiser in his simplicity than the deviser of that subtle engine. But Luther had the onward forces of humanity upon his side. Ignatius could but r.e.t.a.r.d them by his ingenuity.

We may be therefore excused if we admire Ignatius for the virile effort which he made in a failing cause, and for the splendid gifts of organizing prudence which he devoted to a misplaced object.

Under his direction, the members of the Society spread themselves over Europe, and always with similar results. Wherever they went, hundreds of adherents joined the Order. Paul III. and Julius III. heaped privileges upon it, seeing what a power it had become in warfare with heresy.

Ignatius spared no pains to secure his position in Rome, paying court to Cardinals and prelates, visiting amba.s.sadors and princes, soliciting their favors and offering the service of his brethren in return.

Profitable negotiations were opened with the King of Spain and the Duke of Bavaria, which, under cover of reforming convents, led to a part.i.tion of ecclesiastical property between the Jesuits and the State. Good reasons seemed to justify such acts of spoliation; for the old orders were sunk in sloth and immorality beyond redemption, while the Company kept alive all that was sound in Catholic discipline, preaching, and instruction. In Italy the Jesuits made rapid progress from the first.

Lainez occupied the Venetian territory, opposing Protestant opinions in Venice itself, at Brescia, and among the mountains of the Valtelline. Le Jay combated the forces of Calvin and Renee of France at Ferrara.

Salmeron took possession of Naples and Sicily. Piacenza, Modena, Faenza, Bologna, and Montepulciano received the fathers with open arms. The Farnesi welcomed them in Parma. Wherever they went, they secured the good will of n.o.ble women, and gained some hold on universities. Colleges were founded in the chief cities of the peninsula, where they not only taught gratis, but used methods superior to those previously in vogue.

Rome, however, remained the stronghold of the Company. Here Ignatius founded its first house in 1550. This was the Collegium Romanum; and in 1555, some hundred pupils, who had followed a course of studies in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and theology, issued from its walls. In 1557 he purchased the palace Salviati, on the site of which now stands the vast establishment of the Gesu. In 1552 he started a separate inst.i.tution, Collegium Germanic.u.m, for the special training of young Germans. There was also a subordinate inst.i.tution for the education of the sons of n.o.bles. These colleges afforded models for similar schools throughout Europe; some of them intended to supply the society with members, and some to impress the laity with Catholic principles. Uniformity was an object which the Jesuits always held in view.

They did not meet at first with like success in all Catholic countries.

In Spain, Charles V. treated them with suspicion as the sworn men of the Papacy; and the Dominican order, so powerful through its hold upon the Inquisition, regarded them justly as rivals. Though working for the same end, the means employed by Jesuits and Dominicans were too diverse for these champions of orthodoxy to work harmoniously together. The Jesuits belonged to the future, to the party of accommodation and control by subterfuge. The Dominicans were rooted in the past; their dogmatism admitted of no compromise; they strove to rule by force. There was therefore, at the outset, war between the kennels of the elder and the younger dogs of G.o.d in Spain. Yet Jesuitism gained ground. It had the advantage of being a native, and a recent product. It was powerful by its appeals to the sensuous imagination and carnal superst.i.tions of that Iberian-Latin people. It was seductive by its mitigation of oppressive orthodoxy and inflexible prescriptive law. Where the Dominican was steel, the Jesuit was reed; where the Dominican breathed fire and f.a.gots, the Jesuit suggested casuistical distinctions; where the Dominican raised difficulties, the Jesuit solved scruples; where the Dominican presented theological abstractions, the Jesuit offered stimulative or agreeable images; where the Dominican preached dogma, the Jesuit retailed romance. It only needed one ill.u.s.trious convert to plant the Jesuits in Spain. Him they found in Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, Viceroy of Catalonia, and subsequently the third General of the Order and a saint. This man placed the university, which he had founded, in their hands; and about the same time they gained a footing in the university of Salamanca. Still they continued to retain their strongest hold upon the people, who regarded them as saviours from the tyranny and ennui of the established Dominican hierarchy.

Portugal was won at a blow. Xavier and Rodriguez planted the Company there under the affectionate protection of King John III. When Xavier started on his mission to the Indies in 1541, Rodriguez took the affairs of the realm into his hands, controlled the cabinet, and formed the heir-apparent to their will.

With France they had more trouble. Both the University and the Parliament of Paris opposed their settlement. The Sorbonne even declared them 'dangerous in matters of the faith, fit to disturb the peace of the Church, and to reverse the order of monastic life; more adapted to destroy than to build.' The Gallican Church scented danger in these bondsmen of the Papacy; and it was only when they helped to organize the League that the influence of the Guises gave them a foothold in the kingdom. Even then their seminaries at Reims, Douai, and S. Omer must be rather regarded as outposts _epiteichismoi_ against England and Flanders, than, as nationally French establishments. In France they long remained a seditious and belligerent faction.[162]

[Footnote 162: It was not till the epoch of Maria de'Medici's Regency that the Jesuits obtained firm hold on France.]

They had the same partial and clandestine success in the Low Countries, where their position was at first equivocal, though they early gained some practical hold upon the University of Louvain. We are perhaps justified in attributing the evil fame of Reims, Douai, S. Omer, and Louvain to the incomplete sympathy which existed between the Jesuits and the countries where they made these settlements. Not perfectly at home, surrounded by discontent and jealousy, upon the borderlands of the heresies they were bound to combat, their system a.s.sumed its darkest colors in those hotbeds of intrigue and feverish fanaticism. In time, however, the Jesuits fixed their talons firmly upon the Netherlands, through the favor of Anne of Austria; and the year 1562 saw them comfortably ensconced at Antwerp, Louvain, Brussels, and Lille, in spite of the previous antipathy of the population. Here, as elsewhere, they pushed their way by gaining women and people of birth to their cause, and by showily meritorious services to education. Faber achieved ephemeral success as lecturer at Louvain.