CHAPTER VI.
1548-56.
THE FIRST OPPOSITION TO THE ORDER, AND DEATH OF LOYOLA.
The order of Jesuits, which had hitherto progressed so favourably, was now surrounded with difficulties and enemies. While the rapid increase of the Society, the influence it had acquired, and the wealth which it had already accumulated, combined to render the Jesuits less cautious and more authoritative, they caused also a great deal of envy, especially among those classes menaced by the company in some of their privileges. At the first opportunity an attempt was made to crush the order in the bud.
This opportunity was offered by the emperor, Charles V., who had at no time been very favourable to the institution, and who, no matter how bigoted a Catholic he may have become in his latter days, was then just as much Catholic as was necessary to extend his dominions and to consolidate his despotic power.
In 1548, Charles, indignant at the cunning policy of Paul III., who set the emperor to war with the Reformers, and who deserted him when he feared that, being master of the Protestant league, he would also become his dictator—Charles, we say, when the Pope recalled his troops, not wishing to drive the Protestant princes to extremities, published the famous Interim, a sort of compromise between the two creeds, and a tacit acquiescence in the more commonly received doctrines of the Reformers, leaving, besides, in their hands, the confiscated ecclesiastical properties. Paul became furious at the audacity of a layman mingling in matters of faith, and loudly exclaimed against the prince. Cardinal Farnese, the Pope’s legate and nephew, told the emperor that his book contained at least ten propositions which were heretical, and for which he might be called to account. Besides his legate, the Pope had in Germany a staunch and faithful partisan in the person of Bobadilla. Bobadilla was a bold and thorough Jesuit. He went to the war, and attached himself as a sort of commissary to the troops which the Pope’s grandson had led into Germany. At the battle of Mulberg he received a wound, but this gave him little concern. Some days afterwards, he was to be seen at Passau, a Protestant town, preaching the Catholic tenets, and announcing a day of thanksgiving for the victory that the Catholics had gained over the Protestants.
You may well believe that such a man would not hesitate to attack the Interim. In fact, by writing, by preaching publicly and privately, Bobadilla boldly denounced the book, and that even in the presence of the emperor himself, as a sacrilegious composition. The emperor, frustrating the Jesuit’s desire to gain renown by means of persecution, simply expelled him from all his estates.
Bobadilla hastened to Rome to receive, he hoped, the deserved ovation. But, alas! how bitterly was he deceived! Ignatius, “fearing that Bobadilla in impugning the Interim may have gone beyond due bounds, thought it better at first not to receive him into the house.”[67] So Orlandini. Our Mr Crétineau, who generally transcribes literally, here, with more zeal than prudence, thus reports the passage of the Jesuit writer:—“Loyola seized hold of this circumstance to revenge the majesty of kings, which, even in the height of the dispute, one ought never to attain.”[68] We understand you well, Mr Crétineau! you have lost much of your influence over the people, too well educated to repose much faith, either in your sanctity or your miracles, and you intend to preserve some of your domineering influence, by clinging to these same kings against whom, when they were adverse to you, you directed the poniard of the assassin!
Bobadilla’s expulsion seemed to have been the signal for the outburst of a violent war against the order, especially in Spain. The fight began at Salamanca. Three Jesuits, Sanci, Capella, and Turrian, arrived there in 1548, for the purpose of establishing their Society. They entered the town in the most pitiable condition, and were so poor, that, “having no image to adorn the altar of their private chapel with, they in its stead put a piece of paper, upon which was delineated, I do not know what figure—‘Impressam nescio,’ says Orlandini, ‘quam in papyro figuram, pro scite picta tabula collocarent.’”[69] And Crétineau thus translates it:—“In consequence” (of having no picture), “one of them simply sketched on a piece of paper an image of the Virgin, and this paper, stuck on the wall, was the only ornament of the high altar.”[70]
I must say I feel surprised at their candour! You confess, then, that you worship a dirty scrap of paper, upon which you do not know what sort of figure was represented, or you scratch four lines and make it the object of your cultus—the indispensable ornament of your altar, upon which you are going to renew the sacrifice of the Cross! Ah! we already knew that your religion only consisted in externalities—in blind and absurd superstitions. Yet we register this other example to prove your own idolatry, and your constant practice, to represent Christ the Lord in the background, while adoring images and statues which you have made according to your hearts’ wishes, as our great poet says, of gold and silver—
“Fatto v’avete Dio d’oro e, d’argento.”—Dante, Inferno, cant. xix.
However, there lived at that time at Salamanca a Dominican friar, famous for his eloquence, his learning, and particularly for his uprightness of purpose—Melchior Cano. He had known Loyola, and formed a bad opinion of him, because he never ceased speaking of his revelations, his visions, his virtues, his undeserved persecutions.