The Jesuits, 1534-1921

PREFACE

Some years ago the writer of these pages, when on his way to what is called a general congregation of the Society of Jesus, was asked by a fellow-passenger on an Atlantic liner, if he knew anything about the Jesuits. He answered in the affirmative and proceeded to give an account of the character and purpose of the Order. After a few moments, he was interrupted by the inquirer with, "You know nothing at all about them, Sir; good day." Possibly the Jesuits themselves are responsible for this attitude of mind, which is not peculiar to people at sea, but is to be met everywhere.

As a matter of fact, no Jesuit has thus far ever written a complete or adequate history of the Society; Orlandini, Jouvancy and Cordara attempted it a couple of centuries ago, but their work never got beyond the first one hundred years. Two very small compendiums by Jesuits have been recently published, one in Italian by Rosa, the other in French by Brucker, but they are too congested to be satisfactory to the average reader, and Brucker's stops at the Suppression of the Society by Clement XIV in 1773. Crétineau-Joly's history was written in great haste; he is often a special pleader, and even Jesuits find him too eulogistic. At present he is hopelessly antiquated, his last volume bearing the date of 1833. B. N. (Barbara Neave) published in English a history of the Society based largely on Crétineau-Joly. The consequence of this lack of authoritative works is that the general public gets its information about the Jesuits from writers who are prejudiced or ill-informed or, who, perhaps, have been hired to defame the Society for political purposes. Other authors, again, have found the Jesuits a romantic theme, and have drawn largely on their imagination for their statements.

Attention was called to this condition of things by the Congregation of the Society which elected Father Martin to the post of General of the Jesuits in 1892. As a result he appointed a corps of distinguished writers to co-operate in the production of a universal history of the Society, which was to be colossal in size, based on the most authentic documents, and in line with the latest and most exacting requirements of recent scientific historiography. On the completion of the various parts, they are to be co-ordinated and then translated into several languages, so as to supply material for minor histories within the reach of the general public. Such a scheme necessarily supposes a very considerable time before the completion of the entire work, and, as matter of fact, although several volumes have already appeared in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, the authors are still discussing events that occurred two centuries ago. Happily their researches have thrown much light on the early history of the Order; an immense number of documents inédits, published by Carayon and others, have given us a more intimate knowledge of the intermediate period; many biographies have been written, and the huge volume of the "Liber sæcularis" by Albers brings the record down to our own days. Thus, though much valuable information has already been made available for the general reader the great collaborative work is far from completion. Hence the present history of the Jesuits.

WORKS CONSULTED

Institutum Societatis Jesu.

Jouvancy – Epitome historiæ Societatis Jesu.

Jouvancy – Monumenta Societatis Jesu.

Crétineau-Joly – Hist. relig., pol. et litt. de la Comp. de Jésus.

B. N. – The Jesuits: their foundation and history.

Rosa, I Gesuiti dalle origini ai nostri giorni.

Meschler, Die Gesellschaft Jesu.

Böhmer-Monod – Les Jésuites.

Feval, – Les Jésuites.

Huber – Der Jesuitenorden.

Duhr – Jesuiten-Fabeln.

Brou – Les Jésuites et la légende.

Belloc, Pascal's Provincial Letters.

Foley – Jesuits in Conflict.

Fouqueray – Histoire de la compagnie de Jésus en France.

Bournichon – La Compagnie de Jésus en France: 1814-1914.

Albers – Liber sæcularis ab anno 1814 ad annum 1914.

Tacchi-Venturi – Storia della compagnia di Gesù in Italia.

Monti – La Compagnia di Gesù.

Duhr – Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutschen Zunge.

Kroess – Geschichte der böhmischen Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu.

Astrain – Hist. de la Comp. de Jesús en la asist. de España.

Hughes – History of the Society of Jesus of North America.

Alegre – La Compañía de Jesús en la Nueva España.

Frias – La Provincia de España de la compañía de Jesús, 1815-63.

Pollard – The Jesuits in Poland.

Hogan – Ibernia Ignatiana.

Tanner – Societas Jesu præclara.

Lives of Jesuit Saints.

Menologies of the Society of Jesus.

Southwell – Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu.

Sommervogel – Bibl. des écrivains de la comp. de Jésus.

Chandlery – Fasti breviores Societatis Jesu.

Maynard – The Studies and Teachings of the Society of Jesus.

Daniel – Les Jésuites instituteurs.

Weld – Suppression of the Society of Jesus in Portugal.

De Ravignan – De l'existence et de l'institut des Jésuites.

De Ravignan – Clément XIII et Clément XIV.

Theiner – Geschichte des Pontifikats Klemens XIV.

Artaud de Montor – Histoire du pape Pie VII.

Carayon – Documents inédits concernants la Compagnie de Jésus.

Bertrand – Mémoires sur les missions.

Brou – Les Missions du xixe siècle.

Seaman – Map of Jesuit Missions in the United States.

Marshall – Christian Missions.

Bancroft – Native Races of the Pacific States.

Campbell – Pioneer Priests of North America.

Charlevoix – Histoire du Japon.

Charlevoix – Histoire du Paraguay.

Charlevoix – Histoire de la Nouvelle-France.

Crasset – Histoire de l'église du Japon.

Avril – Voyage en divers états d'Europe et d'Asie.

Thwaites – Jesuit Relations.

Bolton – Kino's Historical Memoir.

Janssen – History of the German People.

Lavisse – Histoire de France.

Ranke – History of the Popes.

Lingard – History of England.

Tierney-Dodd – Church History of England.

Pollen – The Institution of the Archpriest Blackwell.

Haile-Bonney – Life and Letters of John Lingard.

Pollock – The Popish Plot.

Guilday – English Catholic Refugees on the Continent.

MacGeoghegan – History of Ireland.

Flanagan – Ecclesiastical History of Ireland.

O'Reilly – Lives of the Irish Martyrs and Confessors.

Rochefort – Histoire des Antilles.

Eyzaguirre – Historia de Chile.

Tertre – Histoire de St. Christophe.

Rohrbacher – History of the Church.

Hübner – Sixte-Quint.

Huc – Christianity in China, Tartary and Tibet.

Robertson – History of Charles V.

Shea – The Catholic Church in Colonial Days.

Pacca – Memorie storiche del ministero.

Sainte-Beuve – Causeries.

Petit de Julleville – Histoire de la littérature française.

Godefroy – Littérature française.

Schlosser – History of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

Cantü – Storia universale.

The Cambridge Modern History, Vols. VIII, XII.

The Month.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, passim.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, passim.

Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, passim.

CHAPTER I

ORIGIN

The Name – Opprobrious meanings – Caricatures of the Founder – Purpose of the Order – Early life of Ignatius – Pampeluna – Conversion – Manresa – The Exercises – Authorship – Journey to Palestine – The Universities – Life in Paris – First Companions – Montmartre First Vows – Assembly at Venice. Failure to reach Palestine – First Journey to Rome – Ordination to the Priesthood – Labors in Italy – Submits the Constitutions for Papal Approval – Guidiccioni's opposition – Issue of the Bull Regimini – Sketch of the Institute – Crypto-Jesuits.

The name "Jesuit" has usually a sinister meaning in the minds of the misinformed. Calvin is accused of inventing it, but that is an error. It was in common use two or three centuries before the Reformation, and generally it implied spiritual distinction. Indeed, in his famous work known as "The Great Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ," which appeared somewhere about 1350, the saintly old Carthusian ascetic, Ludolph of Saxony, employs it in a way that almost provokes a smile. He tells his readers that "just as we are called Christians when we are baptized, so we shall be called Jesuits when we enter into glory." Possibly such a designation would be very uncomfortable even for some pious people of the present day. The opprobrious meaning of the word came into use at the approach of the Protestant Reformation. Thus, when laxity in the observance of their rule began to show itself in the once fervent followers of St. John Columbini – who were called Jesuati, because of their frequent use of the expression: "Praised be Jesus Christ" – their name fixed itself on the common speech as a synonym of hypocrisy. Possibly that will explain the curious question in the "Examen of Conscience" in an old German prayer-book, dated 1519, where the penitent is bidden to ask himself: "Did I omit to teach the Word of God for fear of being called a Pharisee, a Jesuit, a hypocrite, a Beguine?"

The association of the term Jesuit with Pharisee and hypocrite is unpleasant enough, but connecting it with Beguine is particularly offensive. The word Beguine had come to signify a female heretic, a mysticist, an illuminist, a pantheist, who though cultivating a saintly exterior was credited with holding secret assemblies where the most indecent orgies were indulged in. The identity of the Beguines with Jesuits was considered to be beyond question, and one of the earliest Calvinist writers informed his co-religionists that at certain periods the Jesuits made use of mysterious and magical devices and performed a variety of weird antics and contortions in subterraneous caverns, from which they emerged as haggard and worn as if they had been struggling with the demons of hell (Janssen, Hist. of the German People, Eng. tr., IV, 406-7). Unhappily, at that time, a certain section of the association of Beguines insisted upon being called Jesuits. There were many variations on this theme when the genuine Jesuits at last appeared. In Germany they were denounced as idolaters and libertines, and their great leader Canisius was reported to have run away with an abbess. In France they were considered assassins and regicides; Calvin called them la racaille, that is, the rabble, rifraff, dregs. In England they were reputed political plotters and spies. Later, in America, John Adams, second President of the United States, identified them with Quakers and resolved to suppress them. Cotton Mather or someone in Boston denounced them as grasshoppers and prayed for the east wind to sweep them away; the Indians burned them at the stake as magicians, and the Japanese bonzes insisted that they were cannibals, a charge repeated by Charles Kingsley, Queen Victoria's chaplain, who, in "Westward Ho," makes an old woman relate of the Jesuits first arriving in England that "they had probably killed her old man and salted him for provision on their journey to the Pope of Rome." No wonder Newman told Kingsley to fly off into space.

The climax of calumny was reached in a decree of the Parliament of Paris, issued on August 6, 1762. It begins with a prelude setting forth the motives of the indictment, and declares that "the Jesuits are recognized as guilty of having taught at all times, uninterruptedly, and with the approbation of their superiors and generals, simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, the black art, magic, astrology, impiety, idolatry, superstition, impurity, corruption of justice, robbery, parricide, homicide, suicide and regicide." The decree then proceeds to set forth eighty-four counts on which it finds them specifically guilty of supporting the Greek Schism, denying the procession of the Holy Ghost; of favoring the heresies of Arianism, Sabellianism, and Nestorianism; of assailing the hierarchy, attacking the Mass and Holy Communion and the authority of the Holy See; of siding with the Lutherans, Calvinists and other heretics of the sixteenth century; of reproducing the heresies of Wycliff and the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians; of adding blasphemy to heresy; of belittling the early Fathers of the Church, the Apostles, Abraham, the prophets, St. John the Baptist, the angels; of insulting and blaspheming the Blessed Virgin; of undermining the foundations of the Faith; destroying belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ; casting doubt on the mystery of the Redemption; encouraging the impiety of the Deists; suggesting Epicureanism; teaching men to live like beasts, and Christians like pagans (de Ravignan, De l'existence et de l'institut des Jésuites, iii).

This was the contribution of the Jansenists to the Jesuit chamber of horrors. It was endorsed by the government and served as a weapon for the atheists of the eighteenth century to destroy the religion of France, and finally the lexicons of every language gave an odious meaning to the name Jesuit. A typical example of this kind of ill-will may be found in the "Diccionario nacional" of Domínguez. In the article on the Jesuits, the writer informs the world that the Order was the superior in learning to all the others; and produced, relatively at every period of its existence more eminent men, and devoted itself with greater zeal to the preaching of the Gospel and the education of youth – the primordial and sublime objects of its Institute. Nevertheless its influence in political matters, as powerful as it was covert, its startling accumulation of wealth, and its ambitious aims, drew upon it the shafts of envy, created terrible antagonists and implacable persecutors, until the learned Clement XIV, the immortal Ganganelli, suppressed it on July 21, 1773, for its abuses and its disobedience to the Holy See. Why the "learned Clement XIV" should be described as "immortal" for suppressing instead of preserving or, at least, reforming an order which the writer fancies did more than all the others for the propagation of the Faith is difficult to understand, but logic is not a necessary requisite of a lexicon. "In spite of their suppression," he continues, "they with their characteristic pertinacity have succeeded in coming to life again and are at present existing in several parts of Europe." The "Diccionario" is dated, Madrid, 1849. In other words, the saintly Pius VII performed a very wicked act in re-establishing the Order.

Of course the founder of this terrible Society had to be presented to the public as properly equipped for the malignant task to which he had set himself; so writers have vied with each other in expatiating on what they call his complex individuality. Thus a German psychologist insists that the Order established by this Spaniard was in reality a Teutonic creation. The Frenchman Drumont holds that "it is anti-semitic in its character," though Polanco, Loyola's life-long secretary, was of Jewish origin, as were Laínez, the second General, and the great Cardinal Toletus. A third enthusiast, Chamberlain, who is English-born, dismisses all other views and insists that, as Loyola was a Basque and an Iberian, he could not have been of Germanic or even Aryan descent, and he maintains that the primitive traits of the Stone Age continually assert themselves in his character. In reading the Spiritual Exercises, he says, "I hear that mighty roar of the cave bear and I shudder as did the men of the diluvial age, when poor, naked and defenceless, surrounded by danger day and night, they trembled at that voice." (Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, I, 570.) "If this be true," says Brou in "Les Jésuites et la légende," "then, by following the same process of reasoning, one must conclude that as Xavier was a Basque, his voice also was ursine and troglodytic; and as Faber was a Savoyard, he will have to be classified as a brachycephalous homo alpinus." Herman Müller, in "Les Origines de la Compagnie de Jésus" claims the honor of having launched an entirely novel theory about Loyola's personality. "The 'Exercises' are an amalgam of Islamic gnosticism and militant Catholicism," he tells us; "but where did Ignatius become acquainted with these Mussulmanic congregations? We have nothing positive on that score, though we know that one day he met a Moor on the road and was going to run him through with his sword. Then too, there were a great many Moors and Moriscos in Catalonia, and we must not forget that Ignatius intended to go to Palestine to convert the Turks. He must, therefore, have known them and so have been subject to their influence." Strange to say, Müller feels aggrieved that the Jesuits do not accept this very illogical theory, which he insists has nothing discreditable or dishonoring in it.

Omitting many other authorities, Vollet in "La Grande Encyclopédie" (s. v. Ignace de Loyola, Saint), informs his readers that "impartial history can discover in Loyola numberless traits of fantastic exaltation, morbific dreaminess, superstition, moral obscurantism, fanatical hatred, deceit and mendacity. On the other hand, it is impossible not to admit that he was a man of iron will, of indomitable perseverance in action and in suffering, and unshakeable faith in his mission; in spite of an ardent imagination, he had a penetrating intelligence, and a marvelous facility in reading the thoughts of men; he was possessed of a gentleness and suppleness which permitted him to make himself all to all. Visionary though he was, he possessed in the supreme degree, the genius of organization and strategy; he could create the army he needed, and employ the means he had at hand with prudence and circumspection. We can even discover in him a tender heart, easily moved to pity, to affection and to self-sacrifice for his fellow-men." Michelet says he was a combination of Saint Francis of Assisi and Machiavelli. Finally Victor Hugo reached the summit of the absurd when he assured the French Assembly in 1850 that "Ignatius was the enemy of Jesus." As a matter of fact the poet knew nothing of either, nor did many of his hearers.

As far as we are aware, St. Ignatius never used the term Jesuit at all. He called his Order the Compañía de Jesús, which in Italian is Compagnia, and in French, Compagnie. The English name Society, as well as the Latin Societas, is a clumsy attempt at a translation, and is neither adequate nor picturesque. Compañía was evidently a reminiscence of Loyola's early military life, and meant to him a battalion of light infantry, ever ready for service in any part of the world. The use of the name Jesus gave great offense. Both on the Continent and in England, it was denounced as blasphemous; petitions were sent to kings and to civil and ecclesiastical tribunals to have it changed; and even Pope Sixtus V had signed a Brief to do away with it. Possibly the best apology for it was given by the good-natured monarch, Henry IV, when the University and Parliament of Paris pleaded with him to throw his influence against its use. Shrugging his shoulders, he replied: "I cannot see why we should worry about it. Some of my officers are Knights of the Holy Ghost; there is an Order of the Holy Trinity in the Church; and, in Paris, we have a congregation of nuns who call themselves God's Daughters. Why then should we object to Company of Jesus?"

The Spaniards must have been amazed at these objections, because the name Jesus was, as it still is, in very common use among them. They give it to their children, and it is employed as an exclamation of surprise or fear; like Mon Dieu! in French. They even use such expressions as: Jesu Cristo! Jesu mille veces or Jesucristo, Dios mio! The custom is rather startling for other nationalities, but it is merely a question of autre pays, autres mœurs. A compromise was made, however, for the time being, by calling the organization "The Society of the Name of Jesus," but that was subsequently forbidden by the General.

As a rule the Jesuits do not reply to these attacks. The illustrious Jacob Gretser attempted it long ago; but, in spite of his sanctity, he displayed so much temper in his retort, that he was told to hold his peace. Such is the policy generally adopted, and the Society consoles itself with the reflection that the terrible Basque, Ignatius Loyola, and a host of his sons have been crowned by the Universal Church as glorious saints; that the august Council of Trent solemnly approved of the Order as a "pious Institute;" that twenty or thirty successive Sovereign Pontiffs have blessed it and favored it, and that after the terrible storm evoked by its enemies had spent its fury, one of the first official acts of the Pope was to restore the Society to its ancient position in the Church. The scars it has received in its numberless battles are not disfigurements but decorations; and Cardinal Allen, who saw its members at close quarters in the bloody struggles of the English Mission, reminded them that "to be hated of the Heretikes, S. Hierom computeth a great glorie."

It is frequently asserted that the Society was organized for the express purpose of combatting the Protestant Reformation. Such is not the case. On the contrary, St. Ignatius does not seem to have been aware of the extent of the religious movement going on at that time. His sole purpose was to convert the Turks, and only the failure to get a ship at Venice prevented him from carrying out that plan. Indeed it is quite likely that when he first thought of consecrating himself to God, not even the name of Luther had, as yet, reached Montserrat or Manresa. They were contemporaries, of course, for Luther was born in 1483 and Loyola in 1491 or thereabouts; and their lines of endeavor were in frequent and direct antagonism, but without either being aware of it. Thus, in 1521, when Loyola was leading a forlorn hope at Pampeluna to save the citadel for Charles V, Luther was in the castle of Wartburg, plotting to dethrone that potentate. In 1522 when the recluse of Manresa was writing his "Exercises" for the purpose of making men better, Luther was posing as the Ecclesiast of Wittenberg and proclaiming the uselessness of the Ten Commandments; and when Loyola was in London begging alms to continue his studies, Luther was coquetting with Henry VIII to induce that riotous king to accept the new Evangel.

Ignatius Loyola was born in the heart of the Pyrenees, in the sunken valley which has the little town of Azcoitia at one end, and the equally diminutive one of Azpeitia at the other. Over both of them the Loyolas had for centuries been lords either by marriage or inheritance. Their ancestral castle still stands; but, whereas in olden times it was half hidden by the surrounding woods, it is today embodied in the immense structure which almost closes in that end of the valley.

The castle came into the possession of the Society through the liberality of Anne of Austria, and a college was built around it. The added structure now forms an immense quadrangle with four interior courts. From the centre of the façade protrudes the great church which is circular in form and two hundred feet in height. Its completion was delayed for a long time but the massive pile is now finished. At its side, but quite invisible from without, is the castle proper, somewhat disappointing to those who have formed their own conceptions of what castles were in those days. It is only fifty-six feet high and fifty-eight wide. The lower portion is of hewn stone, the upper part of brick. Above the entrance, the family escutcheon is crudely cut in stone, and represents two wolves, rampant and lambent, having between them a caldron suspended by a chain. This device is the heraldic symbol of the name Loyola. The interior is elaborately decorated, and the upper story, where Ignatius was stretched on his bed of pain after the disaster of Pampeluna, has been converted into an oratory.

The church looks towards Azpeitia. A little stream runs at the side of the well-built road-way which connects the two towns. Along its length, shrines have been built, as have shelters for travelers if overtaken by a storm. The people are handsome and dignified, stately in their carriage – for they are mountaineers – and are as thrifty in cultivating their steep hills, which they terrace to the very top, as the Belgians are in tilling their level fields in the Low Countries. There is no wealth, but there is no sordid poverty; and a joyous piety is everywhere in evidence. Azpeitia glories in the fact that there St. Ignatius was baptized; and when some years ago, it was proposed to remove the font and replace it by a new one, the women rose in revolt. Their babies had to be made Christians in the same holy basin as their great compatriot, no matter how old and battered it might be.