Jesuits Early History
But a small part of this greatness is to be ascribed to their founder, Ignatius Loyola, who owes his fame more to the shrewd poliry and energy of his successors than to the merit of the original scheme of the order. At the Univereiry of Paris, Loyola entered into an agreeement with some of his fellow students to undertake the conversion of unbelievers, and a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A war with the Turks prevented their journey to Jerusalem. They therefore went to different universities in Upper Italy, to gain new afsociates ; Loyola himself went to Rome, where he accomplished, in 1539, his plan of founding a new and peculiarly organized order. He called it the Society of Jesus, in consequence of a vision, and bound the members, in addition to the usual vows of poverty, chastity, and implicit obedience to their superiors, to a fourth, viz. to go, unhesitatingly, and without recompense, whithersoever the order should send them, as missionaries for the conversion of infidels and heretics, or for the service of the church in any other way, and to devote all their powers and means to the accomplishment of the work.
The novices, besides spiritual exercises, were to be proved by performing the most menial offices for the sick, Xavier having given the example by sucking the loathsome sores of the sick in the hospitals. A special bull of Paul III, in 1540, established this society, whose object appeared so favorable to the interests of the Papal power ; and in the following year, the members, assembled in Rome, chose their founder for their first general. He showed himself, however, unequal to the management of great affairs. As general, he was ever pursuing secondary objects, while his learned and more sagacious friends contrived to improve arid carry out his rude plans for the advancement of the society.
The popes Paul III and Julius III, seeing what a support they would have in the Jesuits against the reformation, which was rapidly gaining ground, granted to them privileges such as no body of men, in church or state, had ever before obtained. They were permitted not only to enjoy all the rights of the mendicant and secular orders, and to be exempt from all episcopal and civil jurisdiction and taxes, so that they acknowledged no authority but that of the pope and the superiors of their order, and were permitted to exercise every priestly function, parochial rights notwithstanding, among all classes of men, even during an interdict, - but also (what is not even permitted to the archbishops unconditionally), they could absolve from all sins and ecclesiastical penalties, change the objects of the vows of the laity, acquire churches and estates without further papal sanction, erect houses for the order, and might, according to circumstances, dispense themselves from the observance of canonical hours of fasts and prohibitions of meats, and even from the use of the breviary.
Besides this, their general was invested with unlimited power over the members; could send them on missions of every kind, even amongst excommunicated heretics ; could appoint them professors of theology at his discretion, wherever he chose, and confer academical dignities, which were to be reckoned equal to those given by universities. These privileges, which secured to the Jesuits a spiritual power almost equal to that of the pope himself, together with a greater immunity, in point of religious observance, than the laity possessed, were granted them to aid their missionary labors, so that they might accommodate themselves to any profession or mode of life, among heretics and infidels, and be able, wherever they found admission, to organize Catholic churches without a further authority. But the latitude in which they understood their rights and immunities gave occasion to fear an unlimited extension and exercise of them, dangerous to all existing authority, civil and ecclesiastical, as the constitution of the order, and its erection into an independent monarchy in the bosom of other governments, assumed a more fixed character.
Ignatius Loyola, who died July 31, 1550, at Rome, left to the order the sketch of this constitution, and a mystical treatise called Spiritual Exercises, the use of which was formally introduced among the Jesuits, and occupies the first four weeks of every novice. This pious enthusiast, but by no means great man, obtained a lasting fame, and the honor of canonization (1622), by the rapid increase of his order, which, as early as 1557, numbered 1000 members in 12 provinces. The first was Portugal, where Xavier and Rodriguez, at the invitation of the king, had founded colleges. The increase of the Jesuits was no less rapid in the Italian states, where they were supported by thr influence of the pope ; in Spain, where they were, at first, opposed by the bishops, but soon prevailed through the example of the nobility. At the universities of Vienna, Prague and Ingolstadt, they obtained an ascendency which they held for two centuries.
In their strict hierarchical principles, in their restless, zealous activity, ¡rnd in their success in making converts, the Catholic, princes, as well as the pope himself, found the most effectual barrier against the growing power of Protestantism. Even to the common people they soon recommended themselves, as the offspring of the new spirit of the times, and were, therefore, readily favored by persons who were ilidisposed to the monks. For institutions which would not adopt the tendency of the age towards practical improvement and a more cheerful tone of conduct, could no longer succeed, after the restoration of learning and sound reasoning ; the excited world preferred business to contemplation, and the mendicant monks, who had every where pushed themselves into notice, had passed their most splendid epoch.
Those who disliked the Franciscans as too coarse and vulgar, and the Dominicans as too rigid and gloomy, were the better pleased with the polished, cheerful and social Jesuits. Nobody could accuse thorn of idle brooding in prayer and psalm-singing ; even in the houses of the professed, the cannoncal hours were not observed ; they no where remained long at their exercises of devotion, even as the spiritual guides of the laity ; they careifully avoided all appearance of spiritual pride, and dressed like the secular clergy, and might even change this dress for the ordinary garb of the country, in places where they thought to gain easier entrance without any such mark of distinction.
Besides this, they were directed to use a gentle demeanor while engaged in their religious or political operations; to win men by compliance with their peculiarities ; never to contend openly, even against declared enemies ; and never to betray any passion ; but to keep their views and measures secret, and, under a show of coldness and reserve, to prosecute the more ardently and constantly, in secret, what might have excited opposition if made public.
This spirit of worldly policy, and accommodation to circumstances, was principally derived from the artful principles of their second general, James Lainez, who had the address to soften what was austere and monastic in the regulations of the founder, and to adapt them, according to the circumstances of the times, to the object of the society. This was originally nothing else but the preservation and establishment of the papal power against all the attacks of Protestantism, of kings, and national bishops. To this end the Jesuits systematically labored, under the pretext of promoting religion or the honor of God ( In majorera Dei gloriam, as the inscription is on their arms) ; and, as nothing appeared more conducive to their purpose than the subjection of the mind and of public opinion, they gained dominion over the young by the establishment of schools, and over the adult by confession, preaching, and the common intercourse of society.
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