Their progress. 10. In 1551 Ferdinand established a college of Jesuits at Vienna; in 1556 they obtained one, through the favour of the duke of Bavaria, at Ingolstadt, and in 1559 at Munich. They spread rapidly into other Catholic states of the empire, and some time later into Poland. In France their success was far more equivocal; the Sorbonne declared against them as early as 1554, and they had always to encounter the opposition of the parliament of Paris. But they established themselves at Lyons in 1569, and afterwards at Bordeaux, Toulouse, and other cities. Their three duties were preaching, confession, and education; the most powerful levers that religion could employ. Indefatigable and unscrupulous, as well as polite and learned, accustomed to consider veracity and candour, when they weakened an argument, in the light of treason against the cause (language which might seem harsh, were it not almost equally applicable to so many other partisans), they knew how to clear their reasonings from scholastic pedantry and tedious quotation for the simple and sincere understandings whom they addressed; yet, in the proper field of controversial theology, they wanted nothing of sophistical expertness or of erudition. The weak points of Protestantism they attacked with embarrassing ingenuity; and the reformed churches did not cease to give them abundant advantage by inconsistency, extravagance, and passion.[988]
[988] Hospinian, Hist. Jesuitarum. Ranke, vol. ii. p. 32, et post. Tiraboschi, viii. 116. The first of these works is entirely on one side, and gives no credit to the Jesuits for their services to literature. The second is of a very different class, philosophical and profound, and yet with much more learning, that is, with a more extensive range of knowledge than any writer of Hospinian’s age could possess.
Their colleges. 11. At the death of Ignatius Loyola in 1556, the order he had founded was divided into thirteen provinces, besides the Roman; most of which were in the Spanish peninsula or its colonies. Ten colleges belonged to Castile, eight to Aragon, five to Andalusia. Spain was for some time the fruitful mother of the disciples, as she had been of the master. The Jesuits who came to Germany were called “Spanish priests.” They took possession of the universities: “they conquered us,” says Ranke, “on our own ground, in our own homes, and stripped us of a part of our country.” This, the acute historian proceeds to say, sprung certainly from the want of understanding among the Protestant theologians, and of sufficient enlargement of mind to tolerate unessential differences. The violent opposition among each other left the way open to these cunning strangers, who taught a doctrine not open to dispute.
Jesuit seminary at Rome. 12. But though Spain for a time supplied the most active spirits in the order, its central point was always at Rome. It was there that the general to whom they had sworn resided; and from thence issued to the remotest lands the voice, which, whatever secret councils might guide it, appeared that of a single, irresponsible, irresistible will. The Jesuits had three colleges at Rome; one for their own novices, another for German, and a third for English students. Possevin has given us an account of the course of study in Jesuit seminaries, taking that of Rome as a model. It contained nearly 2000 scholars, of various descriptions. “No one,” he says, “is admitted without a foundation of grammatical knowledge. The abilities, the dispositions, the intentions for future life, are scrupulously investigated in each candidate; nor do we open our doors to any who do not come up in these respects to what so eminent a school of all virtue requires. They attend divine service daily; they confess every month. The professors are numerous; some teaching the exposition of Scripture, some scholastic theology, some the science of controversy with heretics, some casuistry; many instruct in logic and philosophy, in mathematics, or rhetoric, polite literature, and poetry; the Hebrew and Greek, as well as Latin, tongues are taught. Three years are given to the course of philosophy, four to that of theology. But if any are found not so fit for deep studies, yet likely to be useful in the Lord’s vineyard, they merely go through two years of practical, that is, casuistical theology. These seminaries are for youths advanced beyond the inferior classes or schools; but in the latter also religious and grammatical learning go hand in hand.”[989]
[989] Possevin, Bibliotheca Selecta, lib. i. c. 39.
Patronage of Gregory XIII. 13. The popes were not neglectful of such faithful servants. Under Gregory XIII., whose pontificate began in 1772, the Jesuit college at Rome had twenty lecture-rooms and 360 chambers for students; a German college was restored, after a temporary suspension; and an English one founded by his care; perhaps there was not a Jesuit seminary in the world which was not indebted to his liberality. Gregory also established a Greek college (not of Jesuits), for the education of youths, who there learned to propagate the Catholic faith in their country.[990] No earlier pope had been more alert and strenuous in vindicating his claims to universal allegiance; nor, as we may judge from the well-known pictures of Vasari in the vestibule of the Sistine chapel, representing the massacre of St. Bartholomew, more ready to sanction any crime that might be serviceable to the church.
[990] Ranke, i. 419, et post. Ginguéné, vii. 12. Tiraboschi, viii. 34.
Conversions in Germany and France. 14. The resistance made to this aggressive warfare was for some time considerable. Protestantism, so late as 1578, might be deemed preponderant in all the Austrian dominions except the Tyrol.[991] In the Polish diets the dissidents, as they were called, met their opponents with vigour and success. The ecclesiastical principalities were full of Protestants; and even in the chapters some of them might be found. But the contention was unequal, from the different character of the parties: religious zeal and devotion, which fifty years before had overthrown the ancient rites in northern Germany, were now more invigorating sentiments in those who rescued them from further innovation. In religious struggles, where there is anything like an equality of forces, the question soon comes to be which party will make the greater sacrifice for its own faith. And while the Catholic self-devotion had grown far stronger, there was much more of secular cupidity, lukewarmness, and formality in the Lutheran church. In a very few years the effects of this were distinctly visible. The Protestants of the Catholic principalities went back into the bosom of Rome. In the bishopric of Wurtzburg alone 62,000 converts are said to have been received in the year 1586.[992] The emperor Rodolph and his brother archdukes, by a long series of persecutions and banishment, finally, though not within this century, almost outrooted Protestantism from the hereditary provinces of Austria. It is true that these violent measures were the proximate cause of so many conversions; but if the reformed had been ardent and united, they were much too strong to have been thus subdued. In Bohemia, accordingly, and Hungary, where there was a more steady spirit, they kept their ground. The reaction was not less conspicuous in other countries. It is asserted that the Huguenots had already lost more than two-thirds of their number in 1580;[993] comparatively, I presume, with twenty years before; and the change in their relative position is manifest from all the histories of this period. In the Netherlands, though the seven United Provinces were slowly winning their civil and religious liberties at the sword’s point, yet West Flanders, once in great measure Protestant, became Catholic before the end of the century; while the Walloon Provinces were kept from swerving by some bishops of great eloquence and excellent lives, as well as by the influence of the Jesuits planted at St. Omar and Douay. At the close of this period of fifty years the mischief done to the old church in its first decennium was very nearly repaired; the proportions of the two religions in Germany coincided with those which had existed at the Pacification of Passau. The Jesuits, however, had begun to encroach a little on the proper domain of the Lutheran church; besides private conversions, which, on account of the rigour of the laws, not certainly less intolerant than in their own communion, could not be very prominent, they had sometimes hopes of the Protestant princes, and had once, in 1578, obtained the promise of John king of Sweden to embrace openly the Romish faith, as he had already done in secret to Possevin, an emissary dispatched by the Pope on this important errand. But the symptoms of an opposition, very formidable in a country which has never allowed its kings to trifle with it, made this wavering monarch retrace his steps. His successor, Sigismund, went farther, and fell a victim to his zeal, by being expelled from the kingdom.
[991] Ranke, ii. 78.
[992] Ranke, ii. 121. The number seems rather startling.