Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their effects on the civilization of Europe

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

It was necessary to advance with rapidity and never to remain behind: this the new institute does; it takes the lead in all sciences; it allows none to anticipate it. Men study the oriental languages; they produce great works on the Bible; they search the books of the ancient Fathers, the monuments of tradition and of ecclesiastical decisions: in the midst of this great activity, the Jesuits are at their posts; many supereminent works issue from their colleges. The taste for dogmatical controversy is spread over all Europe: many schools preserve and love the scholastic discussions: immortal works of controversy come from the hands of the Jesuits, at the same time that they yield to none in skill and penetration in the schools. The mathematics, astronomy, all the natural sciences, make great progress; learned societies are formed in the capitals of Europe to cultivate and encourage them: in these societies the Jesuits figure in the first rank. The spirit of time is naturally dissolvent: the institute of the Jesuits is interiorly armed against dissolution; in spite of the rapidity of its course, it advances in a compact order, like the mass of a powerful army. The errors, the eternal disputes, the multitude of the new opinions, even the progress of the sciences, by exciting men's minds, give a fatal inconstancy to the human intellect—an impetuous whirlwind, agitating and stirring up all things, carries them away. The order of the Jesuits appears in the midst of this whirlwind, but it partakes neither of its inconstancy nor of its variability; it pursues its career without losing itself; and while only irregularity and vacillation are seen among its adversaries, it advances with a sure step, tending towards its object, like a planet which performs its orbit according to fixed laws. The authority of the Pope, assailed with animosity by Protestants, was indirectly attacked by others with stratagem and dissimulation; the Jesuits showed themselves faithfully attached to that authority; they defend it wherever it is threatened; like vigilant sentinels, they constantly watch over the preservation of Catholic unity. Their knowledge, influence, and riches never affect their profound submission to the authority of the Popes—a submission which was ever their distinctive characteristic. In consequence of the discovery of the new countries in the east and west, a taste for travelling, for observing distant countries, for the knowledge of the language, manners, and customs of the recently discovered nations, was developed in Europe. The Jesuits, spread over the face of the globe, while preaching the Gospel to the nations, do not forget the study of the thousand things which may interest cultivated Europe; and at their return from their gigantic expeditions, they are seen adding their valuable treasures to the common fund of modern science.

How, then, can we be surprised that Protestants have been so violent against an institute in which they found so terrible an enemy; and, on the other hand, was there any thing more natural than to see all the other enemies of religion, enemies some of whom were wholly unmasked and some partially disguised, make common cause with Protestants on this point? The Jesuits were a wall of brass against the assaults upon the Catholic faith; it was resolved to undermine and overturn this rampart; which in the end was accomplished. Very few years had elapsed since the suppression of the Jesuits, and already the memory of the great crimes which were imputed to them was effaced by the ravages of an unexampled revolution. Men of good faith, whose excessive confidence had believed perfidious calumnies, could convince themselves that the riches, knowledge, influence, and the pretended ambition of the Jesuits, would never have been as fatal as the triumph of their enemies; these religious men would never have upset a throne or cut off the head of a king on the scaffold.

M. Guizot, in glancing at European civilization, necessarily encountered the Jesuits; and it must be acknowledged that he has not done them the justice to which they are entitled. After having lamented the inconsistency of the Protestant Reformation, and the narrow spirit which guided it, after having confessed that Catholics knew very well what they did and what they wished, and that they acted up to the principles of their conduct and avowed all their consequences, M. Guizot declares that there never was a more consistent government than that of Rome, and that the court of Rome, always having a fixed idea, has known how to pursue a consistent and regular line of conduct; he extols the strength which results from a full knowledge of what one does and what one wishes; he shows the advantage of a settled design, and of the complete and absolute adoption of a principle and system; that is to say, he makes a brilliant panegyric on, and a powerful apology for, the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, M. Guizot finds the Jesuits in his way, and unworthy as it is of such a mind as his, which, in order to require just renown, has no need of burning incense before vulgar prejudices or mean passions, he attempts, in passing, to throw a reproach upon them. "Every one knows," says M. Guizot, "that the principal power instituted to contend against the religious revolution, was the order of the Jesuits. Throw a glance over their history; they have failed everywhere; wherever they have interfered to any extent, they have brought misfortune to the cause in which they have engaged. In England they have destroyed kings, in Spain nations." M. Guizot had just told us of the superiority which is obtained over an adversary by regular and consistent conduct, by the complete and absolute adoption of a system, and by a fixed idea; as a proof of all this he showed us the Jesuits, he exhibited to us in them the expression of the system of the Church; and behold, without any explanation, if not without a motive, the writer suddenly changes his course; the advantages of the system which he has just praised disappear from his eyes; for those who follow this system, that is the Jesuits themselves, fail everywhere, and everywhere bring misfortunes on the cause which they embrace. How can such assertions be reconciled? The credit, influence, and sagacity of the Jesuits have passed into a proverb. The reproach against them was, of having extended their views too far, of having conceived ambitious plans, and obtained by their skill a decided ascendency in all the places where they succeeded in gaining entrance; Protestants themselves have openly confessed that the Jesuits were their most redoubtable adversaries; it was always thought that the foundation of the order had an immense result, and now we learn from M. Guizot, that the Jesuits have everywhere failed; that their support, far from being a great succour, always brought fatality and misfortune to the cause of which they declared themselves the advocates. If they were such fatal servants, why were their services sought with so much eagerness? If they always conducted affairs so ill, why have the most important ones in the end fallen into their hands? Adversaries so foolish or so unfortunate certainly ought not to have excited in the enemies' camp so much clamor as was raised at their approach.

"In England the Jesuits have destroyed kings, in Spain nations." Nothing is easier than these bold strokes of the pen; the whole of a great history is traced in a single line, and an infinity of facts, grouped and confounded, are made to pass under the eye of the reader with the rapidity of lightning; the eye has not even time to look at them, still less to analyze them as would be necessary. M. Guizot should have devoted some sentences to prove his assertion; he should have stated the facts and pointed out the reasons on which he builds, when he affirms that the influence of the Jesuits has had so fatal an effect. With respect to the kings of England here so boldly sacrificed, I cannot enter into an examination of the religious and political revolutions which agitated and desolated the three kingdoms for two centuries after the schism of Henry VIII. These revolutions, in their immense circle, have presented very different phases; disfigured and perverted by the Protestants, who have success in their favor, that decisive, if not convincing argument, they have made some men of little reflection believe that the disasters of England were in great part due to the imprudence of the Catholics, and, as an indispensable corollary, to the pretended intrigues of the Jesuits. In spite of this, the Catholic movement which England has witnessed for half a century, and the great works which every day carry on the restoration of Catholicity, will at last disperse the calumnies by which our faith has been stigmatized. Before long, the history of the last three centuries will be restored as it ought, and the truth will appear in its proper light. This observation relieves me from the necessity of entering into details on the subject of the first assertion of M. Guizot; but I must not leave without reply what he so gratuitously affirms on the subject of Spain.

"The Jesuits have destroyed nations in Spain," says M. Guizot; I wish that the publicist had explained to us to what great disaster he alluded. To what period does he refer? I have examined our history, and I do not find this destruction which was caused by the Jesuits; I cannot imagine whereon the historian fixed his eyes when he pronounced these words. Nevertheless, the antithesis between Spain and England, between nations and kings, leads us to suspect that M. Guizot alluded to the shipwreck of political liberty; we are not aware that there is any other better-founded or more legitimate interpretation. But then a new difficulty presents itself: how can we believe that a man so versed in the knowledge of history, composing a course of lectures which is particularly devoted to the general history of European civilization, should fall into a palpable error,—should commit an unpardonable anachronism? Indeed, whatever may be the judgments of publicists on the causes which have produced the loss of liberty in Spain, and on the important events of the days of the Catholic sovereigns, of Philippe le Beau, of Jeanne-la-Folle, and the regency of Cisneros, all are unanimous in saying that the war of the Commons was the critical moment, decisive of the liberty of Spain; all are agreed that the two parties played their last stake at that time, and that the battle of Villalar and the punishment of Padilla, by confirming and increasing the royal power, destroyed the last hopes of the partisans of the ancient liberties. Well, the battle of Villalar was fought in 1521; at that time the Jesuits did not exist, and St. Ignatius, their founder, was still a brilliant knight, battling like a hero under the walls of Pampeluna. To this there is no reply; all philosophy and eloquence are unable to efface these dates.

During the sixteenth century, the Cortes met more or less often, and with more or less influence, above all in the kingdom of Aragon; but it is as clear as daylight that the royal power had every thing under its domination, that nothing could resist it, and the unfortunate attempt of the Aragonese, at the time of the affair of Don Antonio Perez, sufficiently shows that there existed then no remains of ancient liberty which could oppose the will of kings. Some years after the war of the Commons, Charles V. gave the coup de grace to the Cortes of Castile, by excluding from it the clergy and the nobles, to leave only the Estamento de Procuradores, a feeble rampart against the exigencies, against the all-powerful attempts of a monarch on whose dominions the sun never set. This exclusion took place in 1538, at the time when St. Ignatius was still occupied with the foundation of his order; the Jesuits, therefore, could have had no influence therein.

Still more, the Jesuits, after their establishment in Spain, never employed their influence against the liberty of the people. From their pulpits they did not teach doctrines favorable to despotism; if they reminded the people of their duties, they also reminded kings of theirs; if they wished the rights of monarchs to be respected, they would not allow those of the people to be trodden under foot. To prove the truth of this, I appeal to the testimony of those who have read the writings of the Jesuits of that time on questions of public law. "The Jesuits," says M. Guizot, "were called to contend against the general course of events, against the development of modern civilization, against the liberty of the human mind." If the general course of events is nothing but the course of Protestantism, if the development of Protestantism is the development of modern civilization, if the liberty of the human mind consists only in the fatal pride, in the mad independence which the pretended reformers communicated to it, then nothing is more true than the assertion of the publicist; but if the preservation of Catholicity is a fact of any weight in the history of Europe, if her influence during the last three centuries has amounted to any thing, if the reigns of Charles V., Philip II., Louis XIV., do not deserve to be effaced from modern history, and if regard ought to be had to that immense counterpoise to which was owing the equilibrium of the two religions; in fine, if the faith of Descartes, Malebranche, Bossuet, and Fénélon, can make a dignified appearance in the picture of modern civilization, it is impossible to understand how the Jesuits, when intrepidly defending Catholicity, could be struggling against the general course of events, against the development of modern civilization, and against the freedom of human thought.

After having made this first false step, M. Guizot continues to slip in a deplorable manner. I particularly call the attention of my readers to the following evident contradictions: "With the Jesuits, there is no éclat, no grandeur. They have performed no brilliant exploits." The publicist entirely forgets what he has just advanced, or rather he directly retracts it, when he adds, a few lines further, "and yet, nothing is more certain than that they have had grandeur; a grand idea belongs to their names, to their influence, and to their history. It is because they knew what they did, and what they wished; it is because they had a clear and full knowledge of the principles on which they acted, and of the end towards which they tended; that is to say, because they have had grandeur of thought and of will." Is genius in its vastest enterprises, in the realization of its most gigantic projects, any thing more than a grand idea and a grand intention? The mind conceives, the will executes; this fashions the model, that makes the application; if there be grandeur in the model and in the application, how can the whole work fail to be grand?

Pursuing the task of lowering the Jesuits, M. Guizot makes a parallel between them and the Protestants; he confounds ideas in such a way, and so far forgets the nature of things, that one would hardly believe it, if the words themselves did not prove it beyond a doubt. Forgetting that it is necessary for the terms of a comparison not to be of a totally different kind, which renders all comparison impossible, M. Guizot compares a religious institute with whole nations; he goes so far as to reproach the Jesuits with not having raised the people en masse, and with not having changed the form and condition of states. Here is the passage: "They have acted in subterraneous, dark, and inferior ways; in ways which were not at all apt to strike the imagination, or to conciliate for them that public interest which attaches itself to great things, whatever may be their principle and end. The party against which they contended, on the contrary, not only conquered, but conquered with éclat; it has done great things and by great means; it has aroused nations; it has filled Europe with great men; it has changed the form and the lot of nations in the face of day. In a word, all has been against the Jesuits, both fortune and appearances." Without intending to offend M. Guizot, let us avow, that for the honor of his logic, one would desire to efface from his writings such phrases as we have just read. What! ought the Jesuits to have put the nations in motion, made them arise en masse, and changed the form and condition of states? Would they not have been extraordinary religious men, if they had been allowed to do such things? It was said of the Jesuits that they had unbounded ambition, and that they attempted to rule the world; and now they are compared with their adversaries in order to throw it in their faces that the latter have overturned the world; a distinguished merit, which must have been a disgrace to the Jesuits themselves. Indeed, the Jesuits have never attempted to imitate their adversaries on this point; with respect to the spirit of confusion and perturbation, they joyfully yield the palm to those to whom it rightly belongs.

As far as great men are concerned, if the question be with respect to the greatness of the enterprises which are becoming in a minister of the God of peace, then have the Jesuits had this kind of grandeur in an eminent degree. Whether it be in the most arduous affairs, or in the vastest projects in science and literature, whether it be in the most distant missions, or in the most redoubtable perils, the Jesuits have never remained behind; on the contrary, they have been seen to display a spirit so bold and enterprising, that they have thereby obtained the most distinguished renown. If the great men of whom M. Guizot speaks are restless tribunes, who, putting themselves at the head of an ungovernable people, violated the public peace, if they are the Protestant warriors whose names have shone in the wars of Germany, France, and England, the comparison is foolish, and has no meaning; for priests and warriors, religious and tribunes, are so distinct, so different in actions and character, that to compare them is impossible.