The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 7 (of 7)

by Arthur Thomas Malkin

Such was the origin of the “Society of the Jesuits.” From this little congregation of obscure enthusiasts in the subterraneous chapel of Montmartre arose that redoubted Company, which sprang up into such immediate eminence; which spread so soon through the whole body of Christendom; which took possession of the courts and the consciences of princes, and exerted for so many years a scarcely credible influence, in every quarter of the globe, over the course of human affairs. Its first professed object was the conversion of the infidels: the entire devotion to the Roman See, whence its future importance chiefly proceeded, was not, as it would seem, the primary motive which Ignatius inspired into his followers. Perhaps the chivalrous feeling which animated, or rather created, the earliest efforts of his piety, was not yet extinct within him—or it may have been his policy to put forward, as the leading part of his design, that which required the greatest sacrifice and offered the least reward. But, however that may have been, he had no sooner thus bound his associates together, than he prescribed to them rules and practices of devotion, daily meditations and penances, spiritual conversations, the study and imitation of the character of Jesus, constant self-examination, and frequent communion. He appointed the Day of the Assumption, the anniversary of their vow, for their peculiar observance; and during an interval of preparation necessary for his disciples, he directed his own exertions to repress the progress in France of the doctrines of Luther and Zuinglius.

After visiting his native country, he proceeded to Venice, according to agreement with his followers, for the accomplishment of their vow of pilgrimage: and arrived there at the end of 1535.

Their first design however was to present themselves at Rome. There Ignatius acquired the confidence of Peter Ortiz, a distinguished Spaniard, employed by Charles V. to sustain at the Holy See the validity of the marriage of Catharine of Arragon with Henry VIII. Ortiz presented him to Paul III., who approved his doctrine and encouraged his project. Howbeit, his departure for the Holy Land was prevented by the Turkish war, which at that moment broke out; and at the end of 1537 he assembled his companions, now increased to nine, at Vicenza, and persuaded them, that, as the approach to Palestine was closed, it only remained for them to fulfil the other part of their vow, and offer their devoted services to the Pope. Accordingly, Ignatius, with two others, returned to Rome for that purpose. The rest dispersed themselves among the principal academies of Italy, to gain proselytes. All bound themselves to the observance of certain distinctive rules and practices; and to any interrogatories which might be put to them respecting the Order to which they belonged, Ignatius instructed them to reply, that they were members of the Company of Jesus.

The encouragement which he received at Rome induced him to take further measures for the establishment and enlargement of his new Order. He presently recalled his missionaries, and collected them about him at Rome. During their residence at Venice they had taken the two vows of poverty and chastity; they now added that of obedience, and decided to elect a General with absolute power. They next determined to undertake a fourth and peculiar obligation—one, to which they had indeed already engaged themselves in the chapel of Montmartre, but which they had not yet proclaimed to the world—that of doing, without aid or recompense, any errand on which the Pope, as Vicar of Christ, might think fit to send them. Loyola then applied to Paul III. for the confirmation of his Order. Some obstacles arose, which were gradually removed. A charge of heresy, founded chiefly on his early persecutions at Alcala and Salamanca, was advanced with great clamour against him and his companions; but a judicial inquiry, by confirming their innocence, increased their reputation. An influential Cardinal earnestly opposed the establishment of the new Order. But his objections were finally overcome, and, September 27, 1540, the Pope issued his bull to sanction the institution of Ignatius. The number of his disciples was still confined to nine. Three of these were then absent from Italy,—Xavier and Rodriguez on a mission to India, Le Fevre at the Diet of Worms; so that on the day appointed for the election of a general, six only assembled, together with Loyola. He was chosen unanimously: but he affected great sorrow at this decision, and only accepted the honour, after it had been pressed upon him by a second assembly, and urged by the authoritative command of his confessor. The ceremonies of profession were performed in the Church of St. Paul, April 22, 1541; and while Ignatius made his vow of especial obedience directly to the Pope, the vows of the others professed were tendered exclusively to their General.

The Pope immediately availed himself of the services thus offered him, and sent the six disciples on various missions into different parts of Europe. Ignatius alone remained at Rome, and employed himself in offices of piety. He lectured publicly on religious subjects; he discharged many duties of humanity and charity; he took measures for the conversion of the Jews at Rome; he established a penitentiary for women reclaimed from sin; he founded an asylum for orphans; and the leisure which he could spare from these holy works, he devoted to composing the Constitutions of his Order.

These were founded on the principle of uniting spiritual meditation with active habits of practical piety; so that, while, on the one hand, he enjoined mental prayer, frequent self-examination, and religious retirement; on the other, he engaged his disciples to use every exertion for the instruction and sanctification of the rest of mankind. He commanded them to be perpetually exercised in preaching and missions, in the conversion of infidels and heretics, in the inspection of prisons and hospitals, in the direction of consciences, and the instruction of youth. To this end, he discouraged every severity of mortification, and all superfluity both in their public and private devotions. He prohibited the possession of property by any of his establishments, except colleges, which he permitted to be endowed for the advantage of necessitous students; and he closed, as far as he was able, all the various sources of ecclesiastical emolument. Similar professions of disinterested devotion and perfect self-denial had laid the foundations of the enormous wealth, power, and luxury of more ancient Orders; and if Ignatius had been actuated by ambition, he could have devised no better means of raising his society to affluence and importance, than by laying the same snare for the credulity of mankind.

In this mere sketch of the life of Loyola, it would be absurd to attempt any account of the internal constitution of his Order, of the particular laws by which it was regulated, of the gradual development of its principles, and the general evils which flowed from them. It is enough to give some faint notion of its earliest progress. Six years after the confirmation of the Order of Jesuits, a college was opened to them in Spain (it was the first of these establishments), by Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, and endowed with the same privileges as those of Alcala and Salamanca. Its statutes were composed by Loyola. In the same year, to give some pledge for the sincerity of his vow of self-denial, and to secure his followers against one of the commonest temptations of ambition, he prevailed upon the Pope to exclude them and their successors, by a perpetual edict, from the possession of bishoprics, abbeys, and every description of benefice. This restriction not only stamped them with a peculiar character, and recommended them to popular favour as singular instances of self-devotion, but also left them, for the furtherance of the especial objects of the society, the leisure, talents, and industry which might otherwise have been employed in the pursuit of ecclesiastical dignities, or the performance of pastoral duties. But it was not faithfully observed, even during the lifetime of Ignatius.

The Spiritual Exercises, the great work of the founder of the Jesuits, is asserted to have been composed by him, aided by the inspiration of the Holy Virgin, very soon after his return from Jerusalem. His capacity for such a composition, at that period of his life, has been disputed by many, and various doubts have been thrown on its genuineness. Howbeit, the book passed for his during the infancy of the society, and in 1548 the Archbishop of Toledo took great pains to suppress it. Loyola turned this attempt into an advantage to himself. He caused the merits of the work to be strongly represented to Paul III., and obtained a bull in praise and confirmation of all contained in it. Thus recommended by the apostolical authority to the meditations of the faithful, it attracted more general attention on its author, and on the institution which he had founded.

After the first step had been taken, the progress of the Company of Jesus surpassed in rapidity all that is recorded of the infancy of the older establishments. It was scarcely planted in Spain before it spread to Ferrara, and other parts of Italy. In 1548 it got footing at Messina and Palermo. In 1550 it was introduced into Bavaria; and in the same year it was still further confirmed by a bull of Julius III., and enriched, as it had previously been, by abundant benefactions from the apostolic treasury. Two years afterwards, it founded a Germanic college at Rome, and by this time it could boast of similar institutions in many of the most civilized cities of Europe. And not in Europe only: its missionaries had already penetrated into India, Africa, and America. In the year 1553 they presented themselves in Cyprus, at Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and were carried by the same impulse into Abyssinia and China. France alone avowed her suspicion of their principles, and refused them admission: nor were the utmost endeavours of Loyola himself able to achieve this object. Howbeit, the perseverance of his followers, supported by their general success, succeeded even there, and in February, 1564, they opened their celebrated college in the Rue St. Jacques at Paris.

Cheered by this sudden and most rapid prosperity, Loyola, whom his disciples represent as the only spring of all the movements of the Company, and the sole spirit of the mighty body which was already spread over all the quarters of the world—whom his enemies describe as a vain, illiterate enthusiast, without talents, without knowledge, a mere machine in the hands of a crafty and worldly hierarchy—peaceably expired at Rome, July 31, 1566, surrounded by his disciples, and animated (as they relate) with the deepest feelings of piety, and gratitude to Providence for the blessing which had been vouchsafed upon his mission.