The Jesuits had to find their principal work in the world and in direct and immediate contact with mankind. To seek spiritual perfection in a retired life of contemplation and prayer did not seem to Ignatius to be the best way of reforming the evils which had brought about the revolt from Rome. He withdrew his followers from this sort of retirement, except as a mere temporary preparation for later activity; he made habitual intercourse with the world a prime duty; and to this end he rigidly suppressed all such external peculiarities of dress or rule as tended to put obstacles in the way of his followers acting freely as emissaries, agents or missionaries in the most various places and circumstances. Another change he introduced even more completely than did the founders of the Friars. The Jesuit has no home: the whole world is his parish. Mobility and cosmopolitanism are of the very essence of the Society. As Ignatius said, the ancient monastic communities were the infantry of the Church, whose duty was to stand firmly in one place on the battlefield; the Jesuits were to be her light horse, capable of going anywhere at a moment’s notice, but especially apt and designed for scouting and skirmishing. To carry out this view, it was one of his plans to send foreigners as superiors or officers to the Jesuit houses in each country, requiring of these envoys, however, invariably to use the language of their new place of residence and to study it both in speaking and writing till entire mastery of it had been acquired—thus by degrees making all the parts of his system mutually interchangeable, and so largely increasing the number of persons eligible to fill any given post without reference to locality. But subsequent experience has, in practice, modified this interchange, as far as local government goes, though the central government of the Society is always cosmopolitan.
Next we must consider the machinery by which the Society is constituted and governed so as to make its spirit a living energy and not a mere abstract theory. The Society is distributed into six grades: novices, scholastics, temporal coadjutors (lay brothers), spiritual coadjutors, professed of the three vows, and professed of the four vows. No one can become a postulant for admission to the Society until fourteen years old, unless by special dispensation. The novice is classified according as his destination is the priesthood or lay brotherhood, while a third class of “indifferents” receives such as are reserved for further inquiry before a decision of this kind is made. The novice has first to undergo a strict retreat, practically in solitary confinement, during which he receives from a director the Spiritual Exercises and makes a general confession of his whole life; after which the first novitiate of two years’ duration begins. In this period of trial the real character of the man is discerned, his weak points are noted and his will is tested. Prayer and the practices of asceticism, as means to an end, are the chief occupations of the novice. He may leave or be dismissed at any time during the two years; but at the end of the period if he is approved and destined for the priesthood, he is advanced to the grade of scholastic and takes the following simple vows in the presence of certain witnesses, but not to any person:—
“Almighty Everlasting God, albeit everyway most unworthy in Thy holy sight, yet relying on Thine infinite kindness and mercy and impelled by the desire of serving Thee, before the Most Holy Virgin Mary and all Thy heavenly host, I, N., vow to Thy divine Majesty Poverty, Chastity and Perpetual Obedience to the Society of Jesus, and promise that I will enter the same Society to live in it perpetually, understanding all things according to the Constitutions of the Society. I humbly pray from Thine immense goodness and clemency, through the Blood of Jesus Christ, that Thou wilt deign to accept this sacrifice in the odour of sweetness; and as Thou hast granted me to desire and to offer this, so wilt Thou bestow abundant grace to fulfil it.”
The scholastic then follows the ordinary course of an undergraduate at a university. After passing five years in arts he has, while still keeping up his own studies, to devote five or six years more to teaching the junior classes in various Jesuit schools or colleges. About this period he takes his simple vows in the following terms:—
“I, N., promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the whole heavenly host, and to thee, Reverend Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and to thy successors (or to thee, Reverend Father M. in place of the General of the Society of Jesus and his successors holding the place of God), Perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to it a peculiar care in the education of boys, according to the manner expressed in the Apostolic Letter and Constitutions of the said Society.”
The lay brothers leave out the clause concerning education. The scholastic does not begin the study of theology until he is twenty-eight or thirty, and then passes through a four or six years’ course. Only when he is thirty-four or thirty-six can he be ordained a priest and enter on the grade of a spiritual coadjutor. A lay brother, before he can become a temporal coadjutor for the discharge of domestic duties, must pass ten years before he is admitted to vows. Sometimes after ordination the priest, in the midst of his work, is again called away to a third year’s novitiate, called the tertianship, as a preparation for his solemn profession of the three vows. His former vows were simple and the Society was at liberty to dismiss him for any canonical reason. The formula of the famous Jesuit vow is as follows:—
“I, N., promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the whole heavenly host, and to all standing by; and to thee, Reverend Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and to thy successors (or to thee, Reverend Father M. in place of the General of the Society of Jesus and his successors holding the place of God), Perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to it a peculiar care in the education of boys according to the form of life contained in the Apostolic Letters of the Society of Jesus and in its Constitutions.”
Immediately after the vows the Jesuit adds the following simple vows: (1) that he will never act nor consent that the provisions in the constitutions concerning poverty should be changed; (2) that he will not directly nor indirectly procure election or promotion for himself to any prelacy or dignity in the Society; (3) that he will not accept or consent to his election to any dignity or prelacy outside the Society unless forced thereunto by obedience; (4) that if he knows of others doing these things he will denounce them to the superiors; (5) that if elected to a bishopric he will never refuse to hear such advice as the general may deign to send him and will follow it if he judges it is better than his own opinion. The professed is now eligible to certain offices in the Society, and he may remain as a professed father of the three vows for the rest of his life. The highest class, who constitute the real core of the Society, whence all its chief officers are taken, are the professed of the four vows. This grade can seldom be reached until the candidate is in his forty-fifth year, which involves a probation of thirty-one years in the case of those who have entered on the novitiate at the earliest legal age. The number of these select members is small in comparison with the whole Society; the exact proportion varies from time to time, the present tendency being to increase the number. The vows of this grade are the same as the last formula, with the addition of the following important clause:—
“Moreover I promise the special obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff concerning missions, as is contained in the same Apostolic Letter and Constitutions.”
These various members of the Society are distributed in its novitiate houses, its colleges, its professed houses and its mission residences. The question has been hotly debated whether, in addition to these six grades, there be not a seventh answering in some degree to the tertiaries of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, but secretly affiliated to the Society and acting as its emissaries in various lay positions. This class was styled in France “Jesuits of the short robe,” and there is some evidence in support of its actual existence under Louis XV. The Jesuits themselves deny the existence of any such body, and are able to adduce the negative disproof that no provision for it is to be found in their constitutions. On the other hand there are clauses therein which make the creation of such a class perfectly feasible if thought expedient. An admitted instance is the case of Francisco Borgia, who in 1548, while still duke of Gandia, was received into the Society. What has given colour to the idea is that certain persons have made vows of obedience to individual Jesuits; as Thomas Worthington, rector of the Douai seminary, to Father Robert Parsons; Ann Vaux to Fr. Henry Garnet, who told her that he was not indeed allowed to receive her vows, but that she might make them if she wished and then receive his direction. The archaeologist George Oliver of Exeter was, according to Foley’s Records of the English Province, the last of the secular priests of England who vowed obedience to the Society before its suppression.