Moreover it is stated that the members of the new order should be bound by a vow of special obedience to the pope and should hold themselves ready at his behest to propagate the faith among Turks, infidels, heretics or schismatics, or to minister to believers.
[Sidenote: April 1547]
Ignatius was chosen first general of the order. The pope then cancelled the previous limitation of the number of Jesuits to 60 [Sidenote: 1544] and later issued a large charter of privileges for them. [Sidenote: 1549] They were exempted from taxes and episcopal jurisdiction; no member was to be allowed to accept any dignity without the general's consent, nor could any member be assigned to the spiritual direction of women. Among many other grants was one to the effect that the faithful might confess to them and receive communion without permission of their parish priests. A confirmation of all privileges and a grant of others was made in a bull of July 21, 1550.
[Sidenote: Organization of the Society of Jesus, 1550]
The express end of the order being the world-domination of the church, its constitution provided a marvellously apt organization for this purpose. Everything was to be subordinate to efficiency. Detachment from the world went only so far as necessary for the completer conquest of the world. Asceticism, fasting, self-discipline were to be moderate so as not to interfere with health. No special dress was prescribed, for it might be a hindrance rather than a help. The purpose being to win over the classes rather than the masses, the Jesuits were particular to select as members only robust men of agreeable appearance, calm minds and {404} eloquence. That an aspirant to the order should also be rich and of good family was not requisite but was considered desirable. Men of bad reputation, intractible, choleric, or men who had ever been tainted with heresy, were excluded. No women were recruited.
After selection, the neophyte was put on a probation of two years. He was then assigned to the class of scholars for further discipline. He was later placed either as a temporal coadjutor, a sort of lay brother charged with inferior duties, or as a spiritual coadjutor, who took the three irrevocable vows. Finally, there was a class, to which admission was gained after long experience, the Professed of Four Vows, the fourth being one of special obedience to the pope. A small number of secret Jesuits who might be considered as another class, were charged with dangerous missions and with spying.
[Sidenote: General]
Over the order was placed a General who was practically, though not theoretically, absolute. On paper he was limited by the possibility of being deposed and by the election, independently of his influence, of an "admonitor" and some assistants. In practice the only limitations of his power were the physical ones inherent in the difficulties of administering provinces thousands of miles away. From every province, however, he received confidential reports from a multitude of spies.
The spirit of the order was that of absolute, unquestioning, blind obedience. The member must obey his superior "like a corpse which can be turned this way or that, or a rod that follows every impulse, or a ball of wax that might be moulded in any form." The ideal was an old one; the famous perinde ac cadaver itself dates back to Francis of Assisi, but nowhere had the ideal been so completely realized as by the companions of Ignatius. In fact, in this as in other respects, the {405} Jesuits were but a natural culmination of the evolution of monasticism. More and more had the orders tended to become highly disciplined, unified bodies, apt to be used for the service of the church and of the pope.
[Sidenote: Growth]