Nor is this all. The Ratio Studiorum, devised by Acquaviva and still obligatory in the colleges of the Society, lays down rules which are incompatible with all breadth and progress in the higher forms of education. True to the anti-speculative and traditional side of the founder’s mind, it prescribes that, even where religious topics are not in question, the teacher is not to permit any novel opinions or discussions to be mooted; nor to cite or allow others to cite the opinions of an author not of known repute; nor to teach or suffer to be taught anything contrary to the prevalent opinions of acknowledged doctors current in the schools. Obsolete and false opinions are not to be mentioned at all, even for refutation, nor are objections to received teaching to be dwelt on at any length. The result is that the Jesuit emerges from his schools without any real knowledge of any other method of thought than that which his professors have instilled into him. The professor of Biblical Literature is always to support and defend the Vulgate and can never prefer the marginal readings from the Hebrew and Greek. The Septuagint, as far as it is incorrupt, is to be held not less authentic than the Vulgate. In philosophy Aristotle is always to be followed, and St Thomas Aquinas generally, care being taken to speak respectfully of him even when abandoning his opinions, though now it is customary for the Jesuit teachers to explain him in their own sense. De vera mente D. Thomas is no unfamiliar expression in their books. It is not wonderful, under such a method of training, fixed as it has been in minute detail for more than three hundred years, that highly cultivated commonplaces should be the inevitable average result; and that in proportion as Jesuit power has become dominant in Christendom, especially in ecclesiastical circles, the same doom of intellectual sterility and consequent loss of influence with the higher and thoughtful classes, has separated the part from the whole. The initial mistake in the formation of character is that the Jesuits have aimed at educating lay boys in the same manner as they consider advisable for their own novices, for whom obedience and direction is the one thing necessary; whereas for lay people the right use of liberty and initiative are to be desired.
The second cause which has blighted the efforts of the Society is the lesson, too faithfully learnt and practised, of making its corporate interests the first object at all times and in all places. Men were quick to see that Jesuits did not aim at co-operation with the other members of the Church but directly or indirectly at mastery. The most brilliant exception to this rule is found in some of the missions of the Society and notably in that of St Francis Xavier (q.v.). But he quitted Europe in 1541 before the new society, especially under Laynez, had hardened into its final mould; and he never returned. His work, so far as can be gathered from contemporary accounts, was not done on true Jesuit lines as they afterwards developed, though the Society has reaped all the credit; and it is even possible that, had he succeeded the founder as general, the institute might not have received that political and self-seeking turn which Laynez, as second general, gave at the critical moment.
It would almost seem that careful selection was made of the men of the greatest piety and enthusiasm, whose unworldliness made them less apt for diplomatic intrigues, to break new ground in the various missions where their success would throw lustre on the Society and their scruples need never come into play. But such men are not to be found easily; and, as they died off, the tendency was to fill their places with more ordinary characters, whose aim was to increase the power and resources of the body. Hence the condescension to heathen rites in Hindustan and China, and the attempted subjugation of the English Catholic clergy. The first successes of the Indian mission were entirely among the lower classes; but when in Madura, in 1606, Robert de Nobili, a nephew of Bellarmine, to win the Brahmins, adopted their dress and mode of life—a step sanctioned by Gregory XV. in 1623 and by Clement XI. in 1707—the fathers who followed his example pushed the new caste-feeling so far as absolutely to refuse the ministrations and sacraments to the pariahs, lest the Brahmin converts should take offence—an attempt which was reported to Rome and was vainly censured by the breves of Innocent X. in 1645, Clement IX. in 1669, Clement XII. in 1734 and 1739, and Benedict XIV. in 1745. The Chinese rites, assailed with equal unsuccess by one pope after another, were not finally put down until 1744 by a bull of Benedict XIV. For Japan, where their side of the story is that best known, we have a remarkable letter, printed by Lucas Wadding in the Annales minorum, addressed to Paul V. by Soleto, a Franciscan missionary, who was martyred in 1624, in which he complains to the pope that the Jesuits systematically postponed the spiritual welfare of the native Christians to their own convenience and advantage; while as regards the test of martyrdom, no such result had followed on their teaching, but only on that of the other orders who had undertaken missionary work in Japan. Yet soon many Jesuit martyrs in Japan were to shed a new glory on the Society (see [Japan]: Foreign Intercourse). Again, even in Paraguay, the most promising of all Jesuit undertakings, the evidence shows that the fathers, though civilizing the Guarani population just sufficiently to make them useful and docile servants, happier no doubt than they were before or after, stopped there. While the mission was begun on the rational principle of governing races still in their childhood by methods adapted to that stage in their mental development, yet for one hundred and fifty years the “reductions” were conducted in the same manner, and when the hour of trial came the Jesuit civilization fell like a house of cards.
These examples are sufficient to explain the final collapse of so many promising efforts. The individual Jesuit might be, and often was, a hero, saint and martyr, but the system which he was obliged to administer was foredoomed to failure; and the suppression which came in 1773 was the natural result of forces and elements they had set in antagonism without the power of controlling.
The influence of the Society since its restoration in 1814 has not been marked with greater success than in its previous history. It was natural after the restoration that an attempt should be made to pick up again the threads that were dropped; but soon they came to realize the truth of the saying of St Ignatius: “The Society shall adapt itself to the times and not the times to the Society.” The political conditions of Europe have completely changed, and constitutionalism is unfavourable to that personal influence which, in former times, the Jesuits were able to bring to bear upon the heads of states. In Europe they confine themselves mainly to educational and ecclesiastical politics, although both Germany and France have followed the example of Portugal and refuse, on political grounds, to allow them to be in these countries. It would appear as though some of the Jesuits had not, even yet, learnt the lesson that meddling with politics has always been their ruin. The main cause of any difficulty that may exist to-day with the Society is that the Jesuits are true to the teaching of that remarkable panegyric, the Imago primi saeculi Societatis (probably written by John Tollenarius in 1640), by identifying the Church with their own body, and being intolerant of all who will not share this view. Their power is still large in certain sections of the ecclesiastical world, but in secular affairs it is small. Moreover within the church itself there is a strong and growing feeling that the interests of Catholicism may necessitate a second and final suppression of the Society. Cardinal Manning, a keen observer of times and influences, was wont to say:—“The work of 1773 was the work of God: and there is another 1773 coming.” But, if this come, it will be due not to the pressure of secular governments, as in the 18th century, but to the action of the Church itself. The very nations which have cast out the Society have shown no disposition to accept its own estimate and identify it with the Church; while the Church itself is not conscious of depending upon the Society. To the Church the Jesuits have been what the Janissaries were to the Ottoman Empire, at first its defenders and its champions, but in the end its taskmasters.
History.—The separate article on Loyola tells of his early years, his conversion, and his first gathering of companions. It was not until November 1537, when all hope of going to the Holy Land was given up, that any outward steps were taken to form these companions into an organized body. It was on the eve of their going to Rome, for the second time, that the fathers met Ignatius at Vicenza and it was determined to adopt a common rule and, at the suggestion of Ignatius, the name of the Company of Jesus. Whatever may have been his private hopes and intentions, it was not until he, Laynez and Faber (Pierre Lefevre), in the name of their companions, were sent to lay their services at the feet of the pope that the history of the Society really begins.
On their arrival at Rome the three Jesuits were favourably received by Paul III., who at once appointed Faber to the chair of scripture and Laynez to that of scholastic theology in the university of the Sapienza. But they encountered much opposition and were even charged with heresy; when this accusation had been disposed of, there were still difficulties in the way of starting any new order. Despite the approval of Cardinal Contarini and the goodwill of the pope (who is said to have exclaimed on perusing the scheme of Ignatius, “The finger of God is here”), there was a strong and general feeling that the regular system had broken down and could not be wisely developed farther. Cardinal Guidiccioni, one of the commission of three appointed to examine the draft constitution, was known to advocate the abolition of all existing orders, save four which were to be remodelled and put under strict control. That very year, 1538, a commission of cardinals, including Reginald Pole, Contarini, Sadolet, Caraffa (afterwards Paul IV.), Fregoso and others, had reported that the conventual orders, which they had to deal with, had drifted into such a state that they should all be abolished. Not only so, but, when greater strictness of rule and of enclosure seemed the most needful reforms in communities that had become too secular in tone, the proposal of Ignatius, to make it a first principle that the members of his institute should mix freely in the world and be as little marked off as possible externally from secular clerical life and usages, ran counter to all tradition and prejudice, save that Caraffa’s then recent order of Theatines, which had some analogy with the proposed Society, had taken some steps in the same direction.
Ignatius and his companions, however, had but little doubt of ultimate success, and so bound themselves, on the 15th of April 1539, to obey any superior chosen from amongst their body, and added on the 4th of May certain other rules, the most important of which was a vow of special allegiance to the pope for mission purposes to be taken by all the members of the society. But Guidiccioni, on a careful study of the papers, changed his mind; it is supposed that the cause of this change was in large measure the strong interest in the new scheme exhibited by John III., king of Portugal, who instructed his ambassador to press it on the pope and to ask Ignatius to send some priests of his Society for mission work in Portugal and its Indian possessions. Francis Xavier and Simon Rodriguez were sent to the king in March 1540. Obstacles being cleared away, Paul III., on the 27th of September 1540, issued his bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae, by which he confirmed the new Society (the term “order” does not belong to it), but limited the members to sixty, a restriction which was removed by the same pope in the bull Injunctum nobis of the 14th of March 1543. In the former bull, the pope gives the text of the formula submitted by Ignatius as the scheme of the proposed society, and in it we get the founder’s own ideas: “... This Society, instituted to this special end, namely, to offer spiritual consolation for the advancement of souls in life and Christian doctrine, for the propagation of the faith by public preaching and the ministry of the word of God, spiritual exercises and works of charity and, especially, by the instruction of children and ignorant people in Christianity, and by the spiritual consolation of the faithful in Christ in hearing confessions....” In this original scheme it is clearly marked out “that this entire Society and all its members fight for God under the faithful obedience of the most sacred lord, the pope, and the other Roman pontiffs his successors”; and Ignatius makes particular mention that each member should “be bound by a special vow,” beyond that formal obligation under which all Christians are of obeying the pope, “so that whatsoever the present and other Roman pontiffs for the time being shall ordain, pertaining to the advancement of souls and the propagation of the faith, to whatever provinces he shall resolve to send us, we are straightway bound to obey, as far as in us lies, without any tergiversation or excuse, whether he send us among the Turks or to any other unbelievers in being, even to those parts called India, or to any heretics or schismatics or likewise to any believers.” Obedience to the general is enjoined “in all things pertaining to the institute of the Society ... and in him they shall acknowledge Christ as though present, and as far as is becoming shall venerate him”; poverty is enjoined, and this rule affects not only the individual but the common sustentation or care of the Society, except that in the case of colleges revenues are allowed “to be applied to the wants and necessities of the students”; and the private recitation of the Office is distinctly mentioned. On the other hand, the perpetuity of the general’s office during his life was no part of the original scheme.
On the 7th of April 1541, Ignatius was unanimously chosen general. His refusal of this post was overruled, so he entered on his office on the 13th of April; and two days after, the newly constituted Society took its formal corporate vows in the basilica of San Paolo fuori le mura. Scarcely was the Society launched when its members dispersed in various directions to their new tasks. Alfonso Salmeron and Pasquier-Brouet, as papal delegates, were sent on a secret mission to Ireland to encourage the native clergy and people to resist the religious changes introduced by Henry VIII.; Nicholas Bobadilla went to Naples; Faber, first to the diet of Worms and then to Spain; Laynez and Claude le Jay to Germany, while Ignatius busied himself at Rome in good works and in drawing up the constitutions and completing the Spiritual Exercises. Success crowned these first efforts; and the Society began to win golden opinions. The first college was founded at Coimbra in 1542 by John III. of Portugal and put under the rectorship of Rodriguez. It was designed as a training school to feed the Indian mission of which Francis Xavier had already taken the oversight, while a seminary at Goa was the second institution founded outside Rome in connexion with the Society. Both from the original scheme and from the foundation at Coimbra it is clear that the original idea of the colleges was to provide for the education of future Jesuits. In Spain, national pride in the founder aided the Society’s cause almost as much as royal patronage did in Portugal; and the third house was opened in Gandia under the protection of its duke, Francisco Borgia, a grandson of Alexander VI. In Germany, the Jesuits were eagerly welcomed as the only persons able to meet the Lutherans on equal terms. Only in France, among the countries which still were united with the Roman Church, was their advance checked, owing to political distrust of their Spanish origin, together with the hostility of the Sorbonne and the bishop of Paris. However, after many difficulties, they succeeded in getting a footing through the help of Guillaume du Prat, bishop of Clermont (d. 1560), who founded a college for them in 1545 in the town of Billom, besides making over to them his house at Paris, the hôtel de Clermont, which became the nucleus of the afterwards famous college of Louis-le-Grand, while a formal legalization was granted to them by the states-general at Poissy in 1561. In Rome, Paul III.’s favour did not lessen. He bestowed on them the church of St Andrea and conferred at the same time the valuable privilege of making and altering their own statutes; besides the other points, in 1546, which Ignatius had still more at heart, as touching the very essence of his institute, namely, exemption from ecclesiastical offices and dignities and from the task of acting as directors and confessors to convents of women. The former of these measures effectually stopped any drain of the best members away from the society and limited their hopes within its bounds, by putting them more freely at the general’s disposal, especially as it was provided that the final vows could not be annulled, nor could a professed member be dismissed, save by the joint action of the general and the pope. The regulation as to convents seems partly due to a desire to avoid the worry and expenditure of time involved in the discharge of such offices and partly to a conviction that penitents living in enclosure, as all religious persons then were, would be of no effective use to the Society; whereas the founder, against the wishes of several of his companions, laid much stress on the duty of accepting the post of confessor to kings, queens and women of high rank when opportunity presented itself. And the year 1546 is notable in the annals of the Society as that in which it embarked on its great educational career, especially by the annexation of free day-schools to all its colleges.
The council of Trent, in its first period, seemed to increase the reputation of the Society; for the pope chose Laynez, Faber and Salmeron to act as his theologians in that assembly, and in this capacity they had no little influence in framing its decrees. When the council reassembled under Pius IV., Laynez and Salmeron again attended in the same capacity. It is sometimes said that the council formally approved of the Society. This is impossible; for as the Society had received the papal approval, that of the council would have been impertinent as well as unnecessary. St Charles Borromeo wrote to the presiding cardinals, on the 11th of May 1562, saying that, as France was disaffected to the Jesuits whom the pope wished to see established in every country, Pius IV. desired, when the council was occupying itself about regulars, that it should make some honourable mention of the Society in order to recommend it. This was done in the twenty-fifth session (cap. XVI., d.r.) when the decree was passed that at the end of the time of probation novices should either be professed or dismissed; and the words of the council are: “By these things, however, the Synod does not intend to make any innovation or prohibition, so as to hinder the religious order of Clerks of the Society of Jesus from being able to serve God and His Church, in accordance with their pious institute approved of by the Holy Apostolic See.”