A History of the Reformation (Vol. 2 of 2)

by Thomas M. Lindsay

The Italian towns speedily saw in their midst a new kind of preachers, who had caught the habits of the well-known popular improvisatori. They stood on the kerb-stones at the corners of streets; they waved their hats; they called aloud to the passers-by. When a small crowd was gathered they began their sermons. They did not preach theology. They spoke of the simple commands of God set forth in the Ten Commandments, and insisted that all sins were followed by punishment here or hereafter. They set forth the prescriptions of the Church. They described the pains of hell and the joys of heaven. The crowds who gathered could only partially understand the quaint mixture of Italian and Spanish which they heard. But throughout the Middle Ages the Italian populace had always been easily affected by impassioned religious appeals, and the companions created something like a revival among the masses of the towns.

It was this experience which made Ignatius decide upon founding a Company of Jesus. It was the age of military companies in Italy, and the mind of Ignatius always responded to anything which suggested a soldier’s life, Other Orders might take the names of their founders; he resolved that his personality should be absorbed in that of his Crucified Lord. The thought of a new Order commended itself to his nine companions. They left their preaching, journeyed by various paths to Rome, each of them meditating on the Constitution which was to be drafted and presented to the Pope.

The associates speedily settled the outlines of their Constitution. Cardinal Contarini, ever the friend of Loyola, formally introduced them to the Pope. In audience, Ignatius explained his projects, presented the draft Constitution of the proposed new Order, showed how it was to be a militia vowed to perpetual warfare against all the enemies of the Papacy, and that one of the vows to be taken was: “That the members will consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the Lord and the Roman Pontiff as God’s Vicar upon earth, in such wise that they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation or excuse all that the reigning Pontiff or his successors may enjoin upon them for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or any other infidels, to the farthest Ind, as well as in the region of heretics, schismatics, or unbelievers of any kind.” Paul III. was impressed with the support that the proposed Order would bring to the Papacy in its time of stress. He is reported to have said that he recognised the Spirit of God in the proposals laid before him, and he knew that the associates were popular all over Italy and among the people of Rome. But all such schemes had to be referred to a commission of three Cardinals to report before formal sanction could be given.

Then Loyola’s troubles began. The astute politicians who guided the counsels of the Vatican were suspicious of the movement. They had no great liking for Spanish Mysticism organised as a fighting force; they disliked the enormous powers to be placed in the hands of the General of the “Company”; they believed that the Church had suffered from the multiplication of Orders; eight months elapsed before all these difficulties were got rid of. Ignatius has placed on record that they were the hardest months in his life.

During their prolonged audience Paul III. had recognised the splendid erudition of Lainez and Faber. He engaged them, and somewhat later Salmeron, as teachers of theology in the Roman University, where they won golden opinions. Ignatius meanwhile busied himself in perfecting his Exercises, in explaining them to influential persons, and in inducing many to try their effect upon their own souls. Contarini begged for and received a MS. copy. Dr. Ortiz, the Ambassador of Charles V. at Rome, submitted himself to the discipline, and became an enthusiastic supporter. “It was then,” says Ignatius, “that I first won the favour and respect of learned and influential men.” But the opposition was strong. The old accusations of heresy were revived. Ignatius demanded and was admitted to a private audience of the Pope. He has described the interview in one of his letters.[686] He spoke with His Holiness for more than an hour in his private room; he explained the views and intentions of himself and of his companions; he told how he had been accused of heresy several times in Spain and at Paris, how he had even been imprisoned at Alcala and Salamanca, and that in each case careful inquiry had established his innocence; he said he knew that men who wished to preach incurred a great responsibility before God and man, and that they must be free from every taint of erroneous doctrine; and he besought the Pope to examine and test him thoroughly.[687] On Sept. 27th, 1540, the Bull Regimini militantis ecclesiæ was published, and the Company of Jesus was founded. The student band of Montmartre, the association of revivalist preachers of Vicenza, became a new Order, a holy militia pledged to fight for the Papacy against all its assailants everywhere and at all costs. In the Bull the members of the Company were limited to sixty, whether as a concession to opponents or in accordance with the wishes of Ignatius, is unknown. It might have been from the latter cause. In times of its greatest popularity the number of members of full standing has never been very large—not more than one per cent of those who bear the name.[688] The limitation, from whatever motive it was inserted, was removed in a second Bull, Injunctum nobis, dated March 14th, 1543.

§ 5. The Society of Jesus.

On April 4th, 1541, six out of the ten original members of the Order (four were absent from Rome) met to elect their General; three of those at a distance sent their votes in writing; Ignatius was chosen unanimously. He declined the honour, and was again elected on April 7th. He gave way, and on April 22nd (1541) he received the vows of his associates in the church of San Paolo fuori le mura.

The new Order became famous at once; numbers sought to join it; and Ignatius found himself compelled to admit more members than he liked. He felt that the more his Society increased in numbers and the wider its sphere of activity, the greater the need for a strict system of laws to govern it. All other Orders of monks had their rules, which stated the duties of the members, the mode of their living together, and expressed the common sentiment which bound them to each other. The Company of Jesus, which from the first was intended to have a strict military discipline, and whose members were meant to be simply dependent units in a great machine moved by the man chosen to be their General, required such rules even more than any other. Ignatius therefore set himself to work on a Constitution. All we know of the first Constitution presented by the ten original members when they had their audience with Pope Paul III., is contained in the Bull of Foundation, and it is evident that it was somewhat vague. It did contain, however, four features, perhaps five, if the fourth vow of special obedience to the Pope be included, which were new. The Company was to be a fighting Order, a holy militia; it was to work for the propagation of the faith, especially by the education of the young; the members were not to wear any special or distinctive dress; and the power placed in the hands of the General was much greater than that permitted to the heads of any other of the monastic Orders. At the same time, constitutional limitations, resembling those in other Orders, were placed on the power of the General. There was to be a council, consisting of a majority of the members, whom the General was ordered to consult on all important occasions; and in less weighty matters he was bound to take the advice of the brethren near him. Proposed changes tending to free the General from these limitations were given effect to in the Bulls, Licet debitum pastoralis officii (Oct. 18th, 1549) and Exposcit pastoralis officii (July 21st, 1550); but the Bulls themselves make it clear that the Constitution had not taken final form even then. It is probable that the completed Constitution drafted by Ignatius was not given to the Society until after his death.

The way in which he went to work was characteristic of the man, at once sternly practical and wildly visionary. He first busied himself with arrangements for starting the educational work which the Company had undertaken to do; he assorted the members of his Society into various classes;[689] and then he turned to the Constitution. He asked four of his original companions, Lainez, Salmeron, Broet, and Jay, all of whom were in Rome, to go carefully over all the promises which had been made to the Pope, or what might be implied in them, and from this material to form a draft Constitution. He gave them one direction only to guide them in their work: they were to see that nothing was set down which might imply that it was a deadly sin to alter the rules of the Company in time to come. The fundamental aim of his Company was different from that of all other Orders. It was not to consist of societies of men who lived out of the world to save their own souls, as did the Benedictines; nor was it established merely to be a preaching association, like the Dominicans; it was more than a fraternity of love, like the Franciscans. It was destined to aid fellow-men in every way possible; and by fellow-men Ignatius meant the obedient children of the catholic hierarchical Church. It was to fight the enemies of God’s Vicar upon earth with every weapon available. The rules of other Orders could not help him much. He had to think all out for himself. During these months and years Ignatius kept a diary, in which he entered as in a ledger his moods of mind, the thoughts that passed through it, the visions he saw, and the hours at which they came to him.[690] Every possible problem connected with the Constitution of his Company was pondered painfully. It took him a month’s meditation ere he saw how to define the relation of the Society to property. Every solution came to him in a flash with the effect of a revelation, usually in the short hour before Mass. Once, he records, it took place “on the street as I returned from Cardinal Carpi.” It was in this way that the Constitution grew under his hands, and he believed that both it and the Exercises were founded on direct revelations from God.

This was the Constitution which was presented by Lainez to the assembly which elected him the successor of Loyola (July 2nd, 1558). The new General added a commentary or Directorium of his own, which was also accepted. It received papal sanction under Pius IV.