History of the Jesuits: Their origin, progress, doctrines, and designs

by G. B. Nicolini

The character of the Western and Eastern missions differ widely, both in the means employed and the results obtained. In East India and China, the principal feature of the missions is the idolatry with which the Jesuits polluted the Christian religion. Having to deal with populations in possession already of more or less civilisation, and deeply imbued with the prejudices of their religion, the Jesuits thought of humouring them in their belief, and sometimes shewed themselves more inclined to idolatry than the pagans they were labouring to convert. Besides, having on one side to contend with the pagan priests, who wanted themselves to work the ignorance and prejudices of the Indians to their own account, and being harassed on the other by the chief of their own religion, who would not admit of any other idolatry than that which was approved by himself, the Jesuits could not obtain in the East Indies any great and permanent result.

Of a quite different character are the missions of America. The Jesuits found there a barbarous and savage population, zealous of their vagabond independence, fierce in their enmities, without any positive notion of a peculiar religion, and, consequently, easy to be subjected to any superior intelligence who should undertake to inculcate upon them no matter what new creed. The chief difficulty there lay in the impossibility of having any intercourse with the persons whose conversion was desired. The Indians, simple and kind when first discovered, had now become ferocious and excessively cunning, having been driven to extremities by the cruel and merciless treatment they had experienced from the rapacious Spaniards, a treatment which had inspired them with mortal hatred against all Christians, and against the very name of Christ, which had been sacrilegiously employed in the massacre of their kinsmen. Yet it was among the same savages, who avoided Europeans more than a ferocious beast, that the Jesuits, without arms or any compulsory means, simply by persuasion and kindness, succeeded in erecting an empire, all the laws of which were based upon the first principles of Christianity. Let us see how they performed such real prodigies.

The Spanish adventurers had brought into conquered America all the vices and the ferocious passions of their Inquisition. It might be said that South America had been transformed into a large inquisitorial tribunal, and that every soldier was an inquisitor and an executioner at the same time. The adventurers, to palliate their crimes, when they murdered the poor, inoffensive Indians, gave out that they did so to honour Christ, whom these obdurate pagans refused to worship. It is not our intention to detail all the crimes of those most Christian assassins, and we shall be contented with saying, that while they butchered tens of thousands of inoffensive people, in endeavouring to convert them to their religion, they succeeded with but very few; and those who, to avoid tortures and death, submitted to be baptized, hated still more than their pagan brethren the very name of Christians.

Ranke gives a very prosperous picture of the state of religion in America, and says, “In the beginning of the sixteenth century we find the proud fabric of the Catholic Church completely erected in South America. It possessed five archbishoprics, twenty-seven bishoprics, four hundred monasteries, and doctrines innumerable.”[289] Now, with all deference to so great a historian, we venture to say, that we admit the veracity of the statement as to the number of monks and monasteries, archbishoprics and bishoprics; but we believe that these establishments were in proportion to the extent of the country, not to the number of Christian inhabitants. Indeed, in every tract of land of which the Europeans had taken possession, there was erected a church, if not for the accommodation of these same Europeans, at least to furnish priests and monks with a pretext to claim a share in the spoils and wealth of the country; but we doubt much that many Indians frequented these churches. The swarms of monks who had flocked to America, finding in the climate a still greater stimulus to their usual propensity to indolence and luxury, indulged in all their vices, and thought only of making converts as far as was necessary to procure some subjects who might enrich their patrons, the soldiers, as well as their monasteries.[290] Such, however, was not the conduct of the Jesuits. There, as in Europe, they wished to be distinguished from other brotherhoods, and affected a more saintly and pious course of life. Concealing their ultimate purposes under the cloak of religion and piety, they spoke of nothing else but of converting infidels, and opposed, in the name of Christ, the sanguinary measures adopted by the conquerors, and approved by other religious communities. Perhaps we are not far from the truth when we assert that the Jesuits adopted a more humane and Christian policy, as well for their private purpose, as to set themselves in opposition to other religious communities. Because, it is a remarkable fact in the history of the Church of Rome, that while every other brotherhood has both friends and foes in the other bodies, the Jesuits alone have none but enemies. However it was, they set themselves to work; and, overlooking for a moment the greater or less holiness of the end they proposed, we repeat, that the means they made use of to acquire a standing among the savages of South America are deserving of the highest encomium. The conquerors of this unfortunate part of the globe, as Robertson remarks, had no other object in view than to rob, to enslave, to exterminate, while the Jesuits established themselves there in the view of humanity. They overran the country to a great extent, and wherever they could find an Indian, they overwhelmed him with so much kindness, shewed him so much affection, spoke so indignantly of the cruelty and avarice of the ferocious conquerors, with so much unction of the mercies of God, that these injured men yielded by degrees to the fascination, and accustomed themselves to look upon a Jesuit as a protector from the oppressions of the other Europeans. And protectors they were, and proved to be. Father Valdiva went purposely to Madrid to obtain from Philip III. orders enjoining officers to treat the poor Indians with a little more humanity, and brought back a decree, that those Indians who had settled within certain precincts ruled by the Jesuits, should neither be reduced to servitude, nor be forced to embrace the Christian religion.[291] In the Tucuman, in Paraguay, in Chili, the Jesuits in their wanderings were making many and devout proselytes, but with no other material advantage to the order except the envy of the other brotherhoods, and the hatred of the Spaniards, whose interests they were damaging. The sagacious and politic Acquaviva perceived at once that this state of things must be mended; and, in consequence, he sent to America, in 1602, a commissioner, who, re-uniting in Salta all the Jesuits dispersed in different countries, apprised them that the General thought it expedient to trace a plan to moderate the eccentricities (écarts) of zeal, and to direct its impetuosity;[292] in other words, to turn such zeal to account. In consequence, it was determined to concentrate all, or at least their greatest efforts, upon a point, and fix there the seat of their power in the New World. After having provided that a sufficient number of the order should remain at the stations throughout all South America, to keep up their schools and colleges, and their commercial establishments, Acquaviva wished that his disciples should employ all their energies in creating a new kingdom which they could call their own.

Paraguay, an immense and most fertile region, was chosen for a site on which to erect this principality, far from any rivalry, and with the view that the subject should know no other master, no other religion, no other God, than those presented to them by the fathers. The undertaking was difficult, and required a great deal of courage, patience, and intrepidity; but the Jesuits proved equal to the task. By degrees, they succeeded in bringing some tribes to listen to them. The Guaranis were the first who had friendly intercourse with the Jesuits, and who were persuaded by them to renounce their wandering and adventurous life, and to taste the sweets of a well-regulated society. Some houses were built under the direction of the fathers. The lay brothers, or temporal coadjutors, were the artisans who supplied them with what was most essential to render life pleasant and comfortable. Above all, the power of music was brought to bear on the vivid mind of those savages, who were charmed by the melody of the sacred songs repeated by the fathers.

The knowledge the Jesuits had of the art of healing wounds and bodily diseases, contributed also in great measure to procure them friends and admirers. Curiosity further favoured their efforts, while it brought the Indians to view what appeared to them such strange things in the Jesuit settlements, after they were sure that they should meet with nothing but kindness and presents. Where at first stood a few isolated houses, soon sprung up a village, which subsequently became a neat and regular little town. The plan traced for these towns was uniform, and very simple. The streets, of one breadth, extended in straight lines, and met in a central square. The church was built in the most conspicuous situation of the village, and was by far the most handsome and decorated building in the town. Near the church were the house of the fathers, the arsenal, and the storehouses. In every village there was also a workhouse, or a sort of penitentiary for bad women.

These villages were known under the general appellation of Reductions, but each of them was distinguished by a proper name. The first which was established was dedicated to the Madonna of Loretto; the second, to St Ignatius; and others to other saints and Madonnas. As early as the year 1632, the Jesuits possessed twenty Reductions, each containing a thousand families. Two Jesuits, the curate and the vicar, were appointed to the management of each Reduction, which they governed with absolute and unquestioned authority. They were the sovereigns, the friends, the physicians, the gods, of those barbarians who consented to live in the Reductions. They partook of their labours, of their amusements, of their joys, of their sorrows. They visited daily every house in which lay a sick person, whom they served as the kindest nurse, and to whom they seemed to be ministering genii. By such conduct they brought this primitive population to idolise them.

It must not be supposed, however, that the Jesuits obtained at once over the ferocious adult Indians a general and absolute power. Even those who had consented to receive baptism, and to live for some time in the Reduction, often deserted it, and disdaining to live that peaceful and comparatively effeminate life, returned to their forests, and to their former life of constant warfare, in search of their enemies, in order to gratify their cannibal appetites. Often they rebelled against the Jesuits’ authority, and not seldom menaced them with utter destruction. But the second generation—those children who were born within the Reduction, and had been brought up by the fathers—shewed themselves the most submissive and devoted of all subjects. Gratitude for the kindness they had experienced, admiration for the superior intelligence and acquirements of their masters, awe for the religion they were taught, fear of punishment and disgrace—all combined to render them faithful and submissive to the fathers.

When once the Jesuits had raised up a generation so devoted and obedient, they then brought into operation their system of government, and made a successful attempt to realise that republic preconceived of old by Plato, and which, with perhaps more interested views, is held out to us by the Socialists of our own day. In fact, their form of a republic was nothing else than that Communism which the famous Cabet is now trying to establish in nearly the same regions; the only difference being, that the Jesuits substituted themselves for the state or community.

The most perfect equality reigned in the Reductions. No mark of distinction, no difference of dress, of house accommodation, or of food, rendered one envious of the lot of another. In every Reduction there were workshops in which were exercised the most useful arts. The moment the boys were able to work, they were sent there to learn the trade to which they felt most strongly inclined, according to a principle to which the Jesuits invariably adhered—“that the art must be guided by nature.” The Jesuit lay brothers, or temporal coadjutors, were the artisans who instructed the youth, and they and the professed members themselves put their hand to the plough, to encourage the Indians in conquering their repugnance to labour the soil. Every family was assigned a portion of ground, which they were obliged to cultivate; and a severe vigilance insured a good cultivation. The women had also their occupations. Every Monday morning they received a certain quantity of wool or cotton, and every Saturday they were required to bring it back ready for the loom. All the produce, of whatever sort, was deposited in large storehouses, and distributed, by the Jesuits, in equal portions to every individual. Even meat was portioned from the public slaughter-houses in the same manner. In the distribution, the greatest attention was paid to the orphan, the helpless, and the superannuated. The surplus of the produce was exported, and partly exchanged for European wares which were wanted in the Reduction; and the remainder, after having paid a piastra (four shillings) for each individual from eighteen to fifty years of age, as a sort of tribute to the King of Spain, remained at the disposal of the fathers. No coin of whatever sort was permitted or known at the Reduction. A spot of ground attached to every house may be said to have constituted the only property belonging to the individual; and this was done to encourage and recompense industry: for, if he made it productive, he reaped all the profits himself, without diminishing the portion he received from the common store. The daily occupations were minutely regulated. There were fixed hours for work, for amusement, for prayers, and an hour was even fixed in the evening after which every person was obliged to return within the wall of his own habitation. Any transgression of any of the established rules met with public corporal punishment; but, in general, the transgressor feared more the anger of the father, than the castigation that awaited him. General suffrage was exercised in its fullest extent; and it was the people who elected their magistrates, and their civil and military officers. All these public functionaries were invariably chosen from the Indians; but, to flatter the pride, or lull the jealousy, of the Spanish king, they were distinguished by the Spanish appellations, Corregidor, Alcalde, &c. The choice of the people was submitted, pro forma at least, to the approval of the Spanish authorities, who, not knowing either electors or candidates, could not but approve of it; but, in reality, the sanction of the Jesuits was indispensable to the validity of the election.