[ [2] See Ribadeneira's Historia Ecclesiastica del Scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra (1588), L. ii. ch. xxii.
EARLY STORMS
For the events of the next ten years, which will be narrated in this chapter, we still rely almost entirely on Jesuit writers. The statement may sound like an insinuation of dishonesty, but it is merely a reminder that our authorities are panegyrists rather than historians. Their purpose was wholly different from that of the modern historian, and their selection and treatment of documents correspondingly differed. It would be ingenuous to imagine that they loaded the scales of good and evil, success and failure, with impartial hand. Here and there, however, some scandal was so widely known in their day, and so eagerly pressed by their opponents, that it were wiser to put a bold gloss upon it than to ignore it, and thus we of the later date can just discern the human form under the thick veil of panegyric. It becomes more and more apparent after the death of Ignatius. Father Sacchini, who takes up the pen laid down by Orlandini, is just as loyal to his order, but it becomes more frequently necessary to excuse and explain, and at times he candidly censures. The Society is shaken by "very fierce storms," and one of these breaks upon it in his earliest pages.
The Constitutions provided that at the death of a General there should be a Vicar-General appointed, and he should proceed to summon the leading fathers of every province for the election. Now, Ignatius had appointed a Vicar to assist him in his last years, and it was generally felt that this Father Natalis would be Vicar-General and control the election. Natalis was in Spain, however, and Lainez, although very ill, was in Rome. We remember Lainez as the learned and masterful Castilian who had once provoked Ignatius to use very plain speech. There were only five fathers at Rome, including Lainez, who were entitled to vote for the Vicar-General, and Lainez helped to simplify the issue by casting a blank vote, like Ignatius, or "leaving the matter to God." He was appointed, and he fixed the more important election for November. For this he had to summon the Provincials, Assistants, and two Prefects from each of the twelve provinces of the Society. One imagines a large and varied body, but in point of fact there were only about twenty voters; those in Brazil and the Indies could not be expected, while the "province of Ethiopia" (or Abyssinia) existed only on paper. It happened, moreover, that as the Pope was at war with Spain, the Spanish fathers could not come, and Lainez dare not proceed without them. They were of opinion that Natalis ought to have been recognised as Vicar-General.
Thus the election had to be postponed for two years, and Lainez continued, on the strength of four votes, to act as General. The remarkable events of those two years are of great importance in studying the character of the early Society. Two very serious conflicts arose, one between the Jesuits themselves, and one with the Pope, and it is in such conflicts that the real character appears. Crétineau-Joly suppresses the one altogether and grossly mis-states the other; he is not only less candid, but far less truthful, even than the original Jesuit authorities. If we wish to form a just estimate of the early Jesuits, not merely to admire the many virtues they possessed, we must consider these conflicts with care, as they are recorded by Sacchini in the "Historia Societatis."
Lainez at once presented himself, as temporary head of the Society, to the Pope, and prepared for a struggle. Ranke's fine picture of Caraffa, who had now become Paul IV., will be remembered. A dark and stormy Neapolitan, an ardent Italian patriot, he would, as he sat over his fiery southern wine, express the fiercest disdain of the Spaniards, and trust to see them swept out of the Italian peninsula. He had disliked Ignatius and, Sacchini says, spoken slightingly of him after his death. On the other hand, he was a deeply religious man and sincere reformer, and he recognised that there was precious stuff, from the Church's point of view, in this new Society. Should he fuse it with the Theatines, or merely clip its outrageous privileges, and bring it nearer the common level of the religious orders? He was known to hesitate between the two policies, and Lainez was determined to resist both, implacably, and teach the papacy the real value of the famous fourth vow. And Lainez was a cold, resolute, clear-headed man of forty-five: Caraffa a nervous and impetuous old man of eighty. The conflict was postponed, however, until the Society had a properly constituted authority. Paul was content to warn Lainez that the Jesuits must be careful of their ways, and to remind him that what a Pope had given a Pope might take away.
A few months later the domestic conflict opened. The spirited Bobadilla protested that Diego Lainez had usurped authority over the Society; the proper thing to do in these unforeseen circumstances was to divide the leadership between the five survivors of the ten original Jesuits. Rodriguez, who still smarted under his humiliation, Sacchini says, was persuaded to take this view; Cogordan a "stiff-necked" brother whom Lainez had ventured to correct, joined them; and even the meek and gentle Brouet was drawn into the revolt. For many months the austere silence of the Roman house was enlivened with the singular quarrel. The rebels wrote lengthy indictments of Lainez and secretly circulated them among the brethren; and somehow, says the historian, copies of their libelli always reached the hands of Lainez, while he himself wrote nothing. Then Cogordan told two cardinals, who were to tell the Pope, that Lainez proposed to hold the election in Spain, so that they might pass their Constitutions without the Pope's interference. The idea was certainly entertained, and we can easily believe that Lainez favoured it. Paul angrily ordered that no Jesuit was to quit Rome, and closed his door against Lainez. A union of this powerful and casuistic body with the King of Spain was one of the last things Paul wished to see; and he looked forward to the passing of their Constitutions as his opportunity to clip their wings. At last Lainez severed Rodriguez and Brouet from the rebels, and Bobadilla made a direct application to the Pope for his share in the administration of the Society. To the scandal or the entertainment of Rome, Cardinal Carpi was appointed to arbitrate on the domestic quarrels of the children of St. Ignatius. His decision—that Lainez should remain Vicar-General, but consult the older fathers—did not put an end to the unseemly quarrelling, and Lainez in turn appealed to the Pope, secured the appointment of another cardinal, and silenced the rebels. We can imagine the feelings of Paul IV. When a cardinal told him that Lainez had charged Bobadilla with an honourable mission at Foligno, and had sentenced the wicked Cogordan to say one Pater and Ave, he crossed himself: as a Neapolitan does when the spirit of evil is about. He was astonished at the obstinacy of the rebels, says Sacchini; but there are those who fancy that what really impressed him was the astuteness of Lainez. He was to have more painful experience of it anon.