See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.
JERBA, OR GELVES, The disaster at.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.
JERSEY AND GUERNSEY, The Isles of.
"Jersey, Guernsey, and their fellows are simply that part of
the Norman duchy which clave to its dukes when the rest fell
away. Their people are those Normans who remained Normans
while the rest stooped to become Frenchmen. The Queen of Great
Britain has a perfect right, if she will, to call herself
Duchess of the Normans, a title which, in my ears at least,
sounds better than that of Empress of India."
_E. A. Freeman,
Practical Bearings of General European History
(Lectures to American Audiences), lecture 4._
ALSO IN:
_D. T. Ansted and R. G. Latham,
The Channel Islands._
JERSEY PRISON SHIP, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777.
PRISONERS AND EXCHANGES.
JERSEYS, The.
East and West New Jersey.
See NEW JERSEY.
----------JERUSALEM: Start----------
JERUSALEM:
Early history.
"The first site of Jerusalem was the hill now erroneously
called Sion, and which we shall designate … as Pseudo-Sion,
the plateau of rock at the southwest, surrounded on all sides
by ravines, viz., by the Valley of Hinnom on the west and
south, and by the Tyropœon, or Cheesemakers' Valley, on the
north and east. Parallel to this lay the real Sion, the less
elevated eastern hill, shut in on the west by the Tyropœon
Valley, which divided it from Pseudo-Sion, and on the east by
the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and ending southward in a
wedge-like point opposite to the south-east corner of
Pseudo-Sion. The town on the western-most of these two ridges
was known first as Jebus, and afterwards as the High Town, or
Upper Market; and the accretion to it on the eastern hill was
anciently called Salem, and subsequently the Low Town and
Acra. In the days of lawless violence, the first object was
safety; and, as the eastern hill was by nature exposed on the
north, it was there protected artificially by a citadel and
fosse. The High Town and Low Town were originally two distinct
cities, occupied by the Amorites and Hittites, whence the
taunt of the prophet to Jerusalem: 'Thy birth and thy nativity
is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite and thy
mother a Hittite.' Hence, also, the dualistic form of the name
Jerusalem in Hebrew, signifying 'Twin-Jerusalem.' Indeed the
opinion has been broached that Jerusalem is the compound of
the two names, Jebus and Salem, softened 'euphoniæ gratiâ'
into Jerusalem. It is remarkable that to the very last the
quarter lying between the High Town and Low Town, though in
the very heart of the city when the different parts were
united into one compact body, was called the Suburb. The first
notice of Jerusalem is in the time of Abraham. The king of
Shinar and his confederates captured Sodom and Gomorrah, and
carried away Lot, Abraham's brother's son; when Abraham,
collecting his trainbands, followed after the enemy and
rescued Lot; and on his return 'at the valley of Shaveh, which
is the king's vale, Melchizedek, king of Salem—the priest of
the Most High God—blessed Abram.' The king's vale was the
Valley of Jehoshaphat: and Salem was identical with the
eastern hill, the real Zion as we learn from the Psalms, 'In
Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion;'
where Salem and Zion are evidently used as synonymous. Whether
Moriah, on which Abram offered his sacrifice, was the very
mount on which the Temple was afterwards built, must be left
to conjecture. But when the Second Book of Chronicles was
written, the Jews had at least a tradition to that effect, for
we read that 'Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at
Jerusalem in Mount Moriah.' On the exodus of the Israelites
from Egypt, we find distinct mention made of Jerusalem by that
very name; for after Joshua's death, 'the children of Judah
fought against Jerusalem, and took it … and set the city on
fire.' But Josephus is probably right in understanding this to
apply to the Low Town only, i. e., the eastern hill, or Sion,
as opposed to the western hill, the High Town, or Pseudo-Sion.
The men of Judah had only a temporary occupation even of the
Low Town, for it was not until the time of David that
Jerusalem was brought permanently under the dominion of the
Israelites."
_T. Lewin,
Jerusalem,
chapter 1._
{1881}
JERUSALEM:
Conquest and occupation by David.
"David had reigned seven years and a half in Hebron over the
tribe of Judah alone.
See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.
He was now solemnly installed as king by the elders of all
Israel, and 'made a league with them before Jehovah in
Hebron.' This was equivalent to what we now call a 'coronation
oath,' and denoted that he was a constitutional, not an
arbitrary monarch. The Israelites had no intention to resign
their liberties, but in the sequel it will appear, that, with
paid foreign troops at his side, even a most religious king
could be nothing but a despot. Concerning David's military
proceedings during his reign at Hebron, we know nothing in
detail, though we read of Joab bringing in a large spoil,
probably from his old enemies the Amalekites. David had an
army to feed, to exercise, and to keep out of mischief; but it
is probable that the war against Abner generally occupied it
sufficiently. Now however he determined to signalize his new
power by a great exploit. The strength of Jerusalem had been
sufficiently proved by the long secure dwelling of Jebusites
in it, surrounded by a Hebraized population. Hebron was no
longer a suitable place for the centre of David's
administration; but Jerusalem, on the frontier of Benjamin and
Judah, without separating him from his own tribe, gave him a
ready access to the plains of Jericho below, and thereby to
the eastern districts; and although by no means a central
position, it was less remote from Ephraim than Hebron. Of this
Jebusite town he therefore determined to possess himself. …
The Jebusites were so confident of their safety, as to send to
David an enigmatical message of defiance; which may be
explained,—that a lame and blind garrison was sufficient to
defend the place. David saw in this an opportunity of
displacing Joab from his office of chief captain,—if indeed
Joab formally held that office as yet, and had not merely
assumed authority as David's eldest nephew and old comrade in
arms. The king however now declared, that whoever should first
scale the wall and drive off its defenders, should be made
chief captain; but his hopes were signally disappointed. His
impetuous nephew resolved not to be outdone, and triumphantly
mounting the wall, was the immediate means of the capture of
the town. … Jerusalem is henceforth its name in … history;
in poetry only, and not before the times of king Hezekiah, is
it entitled Salem, or peace; identifying it with the city of
the legendary Melchisedek. David's first care was to provide
for the security of his intended capital, by suitable
fortifications. Immediately to the north of Mount Zion, and
separated from it by a slighter depression which we have
named, was another hill, called Millo in the Hebrew. … In
ancient times this seems to have been much loftier than now;
for it has been artificially lowered. David made no attempt to
include Millo (or Acra) in his city, but fortified Mount Zion
separately; whence it was afterwards called, The city of
David."
_F. W. Newman,
A History of the Hebrew Monarchy,
chapter 3._
"The Jebusite city was composed of the fortress of Sion, which
must have been situated where the mosque of El Akasa now
stands, and of a lower town (Ophel) which runs down from there
to the well which they called Gihon. David took the fortress
of Sion, and gave the greater portion of the neighbouring
lands to Joab, and probably left the lower town to the
Jebusites. That population, reduced to an inferior situation,
lost all energy, thanks to the new Israelitish influx, and
played no important part in the history of Jerusalem. David
rebuilt the upper town of Sion, the citadel or millo, and all
the neighbouring quarters. This is what they called the city
of David. … David in reality created Jerusalem."
_E. Renan,
History of the People of Israel,
book 2, chapter 18 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 2, section 1, B._
JERUSALEM:
Early sieges.
Jerusalem, the ancient stronghold of the Jebusites, which
remained in the hands of that Canaanite people until David
reduced it and made it the capital of his kingdom, was the
object of many sieges in its subsequent history and suffered
at the hands of many ruthless conquerors. It was taken, with
no apparent resistance, by Shishak, of Egypt, in the reign of
Rehoboam, and Solomon's temple plundered. Again, in the reign
of Amaziah, it was entered by the armies of the rival kingdom
of Israel and a great part of its walls thrown down. It was
besieged without success by the tartan or general of
Sennacherib, and captured a little later by Pharaoh Necho. In
B. C. 586 the great calamity of its conquest and destruction
by Nebuchadnezzar befell, when the survivors of its chief
inhabitants were taken captive to Babylon. Rebuilt at the
return from captivity, it enjoyed peace under the Persians;
but in the troubled times which followed the dissolution of
Alexander's Empire, Jerusalem was repeatedly pillaged and
abused by the Greeks of Egypt and the Greeks of Syria. Its
walls were demolished by Ptolemy I. (B. C. 320) and again by
Autiochus Epiphanes (B. C. 168), when a great part of the city
was likewise burned.
_Josephus,
Antiquity of the Jews._
ALSO IN:
_H. H. Milman,
History of the Jews._
See, also, JEWS.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 171-169.
Sack and massacre by Antiochus Epiphanes.
See JEWS: B. C. 332-167.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 63.
Siege and capture by Pompeius.
See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 40.
Surrendered to the Parthians.
See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.
JERUSALEM: B. C. 37.
Siege by Herod and the Romans.
See Jews: B. C. 40—A. D. 44.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 33-100.
Rise of the Christian Church.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 33-100.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 70.-Siege and destruction by Titus.
See JEWS: A. D. 66-70.
THE GREAT REVOLT.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 130-134.
Rebuilt by Hadrian.
Change of name.
The revolt of Bar-Kokheba.
See JEWS: A. D. 130-134.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 615.
Siege, sack and massacre by the Persians.
In the last of the wars of the Persians with the Romans, while
Heraclius occupied the throne of the Empire, at
Constantinople, and Chosroës II. filled that of the
Sassanides, the latter (A. D. 614) "sent his general,
Shahr-Barz, into the region east of the Antilibanus and took
the ancient and famous city of Damascus. From Damascus, in the
ensuing year, Shahr-Barz advanced against Palestine, and,
summoning the Jews to his aid, proclaimed a Holy War against
the Christian misbelievers, whom he threatened to enslave or
exterminate. Twenty-six thousand of these fanatics flocked to
his standard; and having occupied the Jordan region and
Galilee, Shahr-Barz in A. D. 615 invested Jerusalem, and after
a siege of eighteen days forced his way into the town and gave
it over to plunder and rapine.
{1882}
The cruel hostility of the Jews had free vent. The churches of
Helena, of Constantine, of the Holy Sepulchre, of the
Resurrection, and many others, were burnt or ruined; the
greater part of the city was destroyed; the sacred treasuries
were plundered; the relics scattered or carried off; and a
massacre of the inhabitants, in which the Jews took the chief
part, raged throughout the whole city for some days. As many
as 17,000, or, according to another account, 90,000, were
slain. Thirty-five thousand were made prisoners. Among them
was the aged patriarch, Zacharias, who was carried captive
into Persia, where he remained till his death. The Cross found
by Helena, and believed to be 'the True Cross,' was at the
same time transported to Ctesiphon; where it was preserved
with care and duly venerated by the Christian wife of
Chosroës."
_G. Rawlinson,
The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 24._
See, also, ROME: A. D. 565-628.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 637.
Surrender to the Moslems.
In the winter of 637, the Arabs, then masters of the greater
part of Syria, laid siege to Jerusalem. After four months of
vigorous attack and defense, the Christian Patriarch of
Jerusalem held a parley from the walls with the Arab general,
Abu Obeidah. "'Do you not know,' said he, 'that this city is
holy, and that whoever offers violence to it draws upon his
head the vengeance of heaven?' 'We know it,' replied Abu
Obeidah, 'to be the house of the prophets, where their bodies
lie interred; we know it to be the place whence our prophet
Mahomet made his nocturnal ascent to heaven; and we know that
we are more worthy of possessing it than you are, nor will we
raise the siege until Allah has delivered it into our hands,
as he has done many other places.' Seeing there was no further
hope, the patriarch consented to give up the city, on
condition that the Caliph would come in person to take
possession and sign the articles of surrender." This proposal
being communicated to Omar, the Caliph, he consented to make
the long journey from Medina to Jerusalem, and, in due time,
he entered the Holy City, not like a conqueror, but on foot,
with his staff in his hand and wearing his simple,
much-patched Arab garb. "The articles of surrender were drawn
up in writing by Omar, and served afterwards as a model for
the Moslem leaders in other conquests. The Christians were to
build no new churches in the surrendered territory. The church
doors were to be set open to travellers, and free ingress
permitted to Mahometans by day and night. The bells should
only toll, and not ring, and no crosses should be erected on
the churches, nor shown publicly in the streets. The
Christians should not teach the Koran to their children; nor
speak openly of their religion; nor attempt to make
proselytes; nor hinder their kinsfolk from embracing Islam.
They should not assume the Moslem dress, either caps,
slippers, or turbans, nor part their hair like Moslems, but
should always be distinguished by girdles. They should not use
the Arabian language in inscriptions on their signets, nor
salute after the Moslem manner, nor be called by Moslem
surnames. They should rise on the entrance of a Moslem, and
remain standing until he should be seated. They should
entertain every Moslem traveller three days gratis. They
should sell no wine, bear no arms, and use no saddle in
riding; neither should they have any domestic who had been in
Moslem service. … The Christians having agreed to surrender
on these terms, the Caliph gave them, under his own hand, an
assurance of protection in their lives and fortunes, the use
of their churches, and the exercise of their religion."
_W. Irving,
Mahomet and His Successors,
volume 2, chapter 18._
See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 908-1171.
In the Moslem civil wars.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST and EMPIRE: A. D. 908-1171.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1064-1076.
Great revival of pilgrimages from western Europe.
See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &c.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1076.
Taken by the Seljuk Turks.
See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &c.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1094.
Visit of Peter the Hermit.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1094-1095.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099.
The Blood "Deliverance" of the Holy City by the Crusaders.
The armies of the First Crusade (see CRUSADES: A. D.
1096-1099)—the surviving remnant of them—reached Jerusalem
in June, A. D. 1099. They numbered, it is believed, but 20,000
fighting men, and an equal number of camp followers,—women,
children, non-militant priests, and the like. "Immediately
before the arrival of the Crusaders, the Mohammedans
deliberated whether they should slaughter all the Christians
in cold blood, or only fine them and expel them from the city.
It was decided to adopt the latter plan; and the Crusaders
were greeted on their arrival not only by the flying squadrons
of the enemy's cavalry, but also by exiled Christians telling
their piteous tales. Their houses had been pillaged, their
wives kept as hostages; immense sums were required for their
ransom; the churches were desecrated; and, even worse still,
the Infidels were contemplating the entire destruction of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This last charge, at least, was
not true. But it added fuel to a fire which was already beyond
any control, and the chiefs gave a ready permission to their
men to carry the town, if they could, by assault." They were
repulsed with heavy loss, and driven to the operations of a
regular siege, for which their resources were limited in the
extreme. But overcoming all difficulties, and enduring much
suffering from lack of water, at the end of little more than a
month they drove the Moslems from the walls and entered the
city—on Friday, the 15th of July, A. D. 1099. "The city was
taken, and the massacre of its defenders began. The Christians
ran through the streets slaughtering as they went. At first
they spared none, neither man, woman, nor child, putting all
alike to the sword; but when resistance had ceased, and rage
was partly appeased, they began to bethink them of pillage,
and tortured those who remained alive to make them discover
their gold. As for the Jews within the city, they had fled to
their synagogue, which the Christians set on fire, and so
burned them all. The chroniclers relate, with savage joy, how
the streets were encumbered with heads and mangled bodies, and
how in the Haram Area, the sacred enclosure of the Temple, the
knights rode in blood up to the knees of their horses. Here
upwards of ten thousand were slaughtered, while the whole
number of killed amounted, according to various estimates, to
forty, seventy, and even a hundred thousand. …
{1883}
Evening fell, and the clamour ceased, for there were no more
enemies to kill, save a few whose lives had been promised by
Tancred. Then from their hiding-places in the city came out
the Christians who still remained in it. They had but one
thought, to seek out and welcome Peter the Hermit, whom they
proclaimed as their liberator. At the sight of these
Christians, a sudden revulsion of feeling seized the soldiers.
They remembered that the city they had taken was the city of
the Lord, and this impulsive soldiery, sheathing swords
reeking with blood, followed Godfrey to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, where they passed the night in tears and prayers
and services. In the morning the carnage began again. Those
who had escaped the first fury were the women and children. It
was now resolved to spare none. Even the three hundred to whom
Tancred had promised life were slaughtered in spite of him.
Raymond alone managed to save the lives of those who
capitulated to him from the tower of David. It took a week to
kill the Saracens, and to take away their dead bodies. Every
Crusader had a right to the first house he took possession of,
and the city found itself absolutely cleared of its old
inhabitants, and in the hands of a new population. The true
Cross, which had been hidden by the Christians during the
siege, was brought forth again, and carried in joyful
procession round the city, and for ten days the soldiers gave
themselves up to murder, plunder—and prayers! And the first
Crusade was finished."
_W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,
Jerusalem,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_C. Mills,
History of the Crusades,
volume 1, chapter 6._
_J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 4._
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099-1144.
The Founding of the Latin kingdom.
Eight days after their bloody conquest of the Holy City had
been achieved, "the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of
a king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh
the Great [count of Vermandois] and Stephen of Chartres had
retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove to
regain by a second crusade and an honourable death. Baldwin
was established at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch; and two
Roberts—the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Flanders—
preferred their fair inheritance in the West to a doubtful
competition or a barren sceptre. The jealousy and ambition of
Raymond [of Toulouse] were condemned by his own followers; and
the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army proclaimed
Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the champions
of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of
danger as of glory; but in the city where his Saviour had been
crowned with thorns the devout pilgrim rejected the name and
ensigns of royalty, and the founder of the kingdom of
Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender
and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single
year, too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in
the first fortnight by a summons to the field by the approach
of the vizir or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to
prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of
Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed
the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and signalized the
valour of the French princes, who in this action bade a long
farewell to the holy wars. … After suspending before the
Holy sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new
king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing
companions, and could retain only, with the gallant Tancred,
300 knights and 2,000 foot soldiers, for the defence of
Palestine."
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 58._
Godfrey lived not quite a year after his election, and was
succeeded on the throne of Jerusalem by his brother Baldwin,
the prince of Edessa, who resigned that Mesopotamian lordship
to his cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, and made haste to secure the
more tempting sovereignty. Godfrey, during his short reign,
had permitted himself to be made almost a vassal and
subordinate of the patriarch of Jerusalem—one Daimbert, a
domineering prelate from Italy. But Baldwin matched the priest
in his own grasping qualities and soon established the
kingship on a more substantial footing. He reigned eighteen
years, and when he died, in 1118, the fortunate cousin,
Baldwin du Bourg, received his crown, surrendering the
principality of Edessa to another. This Baldwin II. died in
1131, and was succeeded by Fulk or Foulque, count of Anjou,
who had lately arrived in Palestine and married Baldwin's
daughter. "The Latin dominions in the East attained their
greatest extent in the reign of King Baldwin II. … The
entire sea-coast from Tarsus in Cilicia to El-Arish on the
confines of Egypt was, with the exception of Ascalon and Gaza,
in the possession of the Franks. In the north their dominions
extended inland to Edessa beyond the Euphrates; the mountains
of Lebanon and their kindred ranges bounded them on the east
as they ran southwards; and then the Jordan and the desert
formed their eastern limits. They were divided into four
states, namely, the kingdom of Jerusalem, the county of
Tripolis, the principality of Antioch, and the county of
Edessa; the rulers of the three last held as vassals under the
king." King Fulk died in 1143 or 1144, and was succeeded by
his son, Baldwin III. Edessa was lost in the following year.
_T. Keightley,
The Crusaders
chapter 2._
See, also,
CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099-1291.
The constitution of the kingdom.
"Godfrey was an elected king; and we have seen that his two
immediate successors owed their crowns rather to personal
merit and intrigue than to principles of hereditary
succession. But after the death of Baldwin du Bourg, the
foundation of the constitution appears to have been settled;
and the Latin state of Jerusalem may be regarded as a feudal
hereditary monarchy. There were two chief lords of the
kingdom, namely, the patriarch and the king, whose cognizance
extended over spiritual and temporal affairs. … The great
officers of the crown were the seneschal, the constable, the
marshal, and the chamberlain. … There were four chief
baronies of the kingdom, and many other lordships which had
the privileges of administering justice, coining money, and,
in short, most of those powers and prerogatives which the
great and independent nobility of Europe possessed. The first
great barony comprised the counties of Jaffa and Ascalon, and
the lordships of Ramula, Mirabel, and Ibelin. The second was
the principality of Galilee. The third included the lordships
of Sajetta, Cesarea, and Nazareth; and the fourth was the
county of Tripoli. …
{1884}
But the dignity of these four great barons is shewn by the
number of knights which they were obliged to furnish, compared
with the contributions of other nobles. Each of the three
first barons was compelled to aid the king with five hundred
knights. The service of Tripoli was performed by two hundred
knights; that of the other baronies by one hundred and
eighty-three Knights. Six hundred and sixty-six knights was
the total number furnished by the cities of Jerusalem,
Naplousa, Acre, and Tyre. The churches and the commercial
communities of every part of the kingdom provided five
thousand and seventy-five serjeants or serving men."
_C. Mills,
History of the Crusades,
volume 1, chapter 8._
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 58.
See, also, ASSIZE OF JERUSALEM.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1147-1149.
The note of alarm and the Second Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187.
Decline and fall of the kingdom.
The Rise of Saladin and his conquest of the Holy City.
King Fulk was succeeded in 1144 by his son, a boy of thirteen,
who took the title of Baldwin III. and with whom his mother
associated herself on the throne. It was early in this reign
of the boy-king that Edessa was taken by Zenghi, sultan of
Aleppo, and an appeal made to Europe which called out the
miserably abortive Second Crusade. The crusade "did nothing
towards the maintenance of the waning ascendency of the
Latins. Even victories brought with them no solid result, and
in not a few instances victory was misused with a folly
closely allied to madness. … The interminable series of
wars, or rather of forays and reprisals, went on; and amidst
such contests the life of Baldwin closed [A. D. 1162] in early
manhood. … He died childless, and although some opposition
was made to his choice, his brother Almeric [or Amaury] was
elected to fill his place. Almost at the beginning of his
reign the affairs of the Latin kingdom became complicated with
those of Egypt; and the Christians are seen fighting by the
side of one Mahomedan race, tribe, or faction against
another." The Fatimite caliphs of Egypt had become mere
puppets in the hands of their viziers, and when one grand
vizier, Shawer, deposed by a rival, Dargham, appealed to the
sultan of Aleppo (Noureddin, son of Zenghi), the latter
embraced eagerly the opportunity to stretch his strong hand
towards the Fatimite throne. Among his generals was Shiracouh,
a valiant Koord, and he sent Shiracouh to Egypt to restore
Shawer to power. With Shiracouh went a young nephew of the
Koordish soldier, named Salah-ud-deen—better known in history
as Saladin. Shawer, restored to authority, quickly quarrelled
with his protectors, and endeavored to get rid of them—which
proved not easy. He sought and obtained help from the Latin
king of Jerusalem, in whose mind, too, there was the ambition
to pluck this rotten-ripe plum on the Nile. After a war of
five years duration, in which king Almeric was encouraged and
but slightly helped by the Byzantine emperor, while Noureddin
was approved and supported by the caliph of Bagdad,
Noureddin's Koord general, Shiracouh, secured the prize. Grand
vizier Shawer was put to death, and the wretched Fatimite
caliph made young Saladin his vizier, fancying he had chosen a
young man too fond of pleasure to be dangerously ambitious. He
was speedily undeceived. Saladin needed only three years to
make himself master of Egypt, and the caliph, then dying, was
stripped of his title and his sovereignty. The bold Koord took
the throne in the name of the Abbasside Caliph, at Bagdad,
summarily ending the Fatimite schism. He was still nominally
the servant of the sultan of Aleppo; but when Noureddin died,
A. D. 1178, leaving his dominions to a young son, Saladin was
able, with little resistance, to displace the latter and to
become undisputed sovereign of Mahometan Syria, Egypt, and a
large part of Mesopotamia. He now resolved to expel the Latins
from Palestine and to restore the authority of the prophet
once more in the holy places of Jerusalem. King Almeric had
died in 1173, leaving his crown to a son, Baldwin IV., who was
an unfortunate leper. The leper prince died in 1185, and the
only makeshift for a king that Jerusalem found in this time of
serious peril was one Guy of Lusignan, a vile and despised
creature, who had married the last Baldwin's sister. The Holy
Land, the Holy City and the Holy Sepulchre had this pitiful
kinglet for their defender when the potent Saladin led his
Moslems against them. The decisive battle was fought in July,
A. D. 1187, near the city of Tiberias, and is known generally
in Christian history as the Battle of Tiberias, but was called
by Mahometan annalists the Battle of Hittin. The Christians
were defeated with great slaughter; the miserable King Guy was
taken prisoner—but soon released, to make trouble; the "true
cross," most precious of all Christian relics, fell into
Saladin's irreverent hands. Tiberias, Acre, Cæsarea, Jaffa,
Berytos, Ascalon, submitted to the victor. Jerusalem was at
his mercy; but he offered its defenders and inhabitants
permission to depart peacefully from the place, having no
wish, he said, to defile its hallowed soil with blood. When
his offer was rejected, he made a vow to enter the city with
his sword and to do as the Christians had done when they waded
to their knees in blood through its streets. But when, after a
short siege of fourteen days, Jerusalem was surrendered to
him, he forgot his angry oath, and forgot the vengeance which
might not have seemed strange in that age and that place. The
sword of the victor was sheathed. The inhabitants were
ransomed at a stipulated rate, and those for whom no ransom
was paid were held as slaves. The sick and the helpless were
permitted to remain in the city for a year, with the Knights
of the Hospital—conspicuous among the enemies of Saladin and
his faith—to attend upon them. The Crescent shone
Christian-like as it rose over Jerusalem again. The Cross—the
Crusaders' Cross—was shamed. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem
was now nearly extinct; Tyre alone held out against Saladin
and constituted the most of the kingdom of King Guy of
Lusignan.
_G. W. Cox,
The Crusades,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,
Jerusalem,
chapters 12-16._
_J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 7._
_Mrs. W. Busk,
Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings and Crusaders,
book 2, chapters 10-11 (volume 2)._
See, also,
SALADIN, THE EMPIRE OF.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1188-1192.
Attempted recovery.
The Third Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.
{1885}
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1192-1229.
The succession of nominal kings.
Guy de Lusignan, the poor creature whom Sybille, daughter of
King Amaury, married and made king of Jerusalem, lost his
kingdom fairly enough on the battle-field of Tiberias. To win
his freedom from Saladin, moreover, he renounced his claims by
a solemn oath and pledged himself to quit the soil of
Palestine forever. But oaths were of small account with the
Christian Crusaders, and with the priests who kept their
consciences. Guy got easy absolution for the trifling perjury,
and was a king once more,—waiting for the Crusaders to
recover his kingdom. But when, in 1190, his queen Sybille and
her two children died, King Guy's royal title wore a faded
look to most people and was wholly denied by many. Presently,
Conrad of Montferrat, who held possession of Tyre—the best
part of what remained in the actual kingdom of
Jerusalem—married Sybille's sister, Isabella, and claimed the
kingship in her name. King Richard of England supported Guy,
and King Philip Augustus of France, in sheer contrariness,
took his side with Conrad. After long quarreling it was
decided that Guy should wear the crown while he lived, and
that it should pass when he died to Conrad and Conrad's
children. It was Richard's wilfulness that forced this
settlement; but, after all, on quitting Palestine, in 1192,
the English king did not dare to leave affairs behind him in
such worthless hands. He bought, therefore, the abdication of
Guy de Lusignan, by making him king of Cyprus, and he gave the
crown of Jerusalem to the strong and capable Conrad. But
Conrad was murdered in a little time by emissaries of the Old
Man of the Mountain (see ASSASSINS), who accused Richard of
the instigation of the deed, and Count Henry of Champagne,
Richard's nephew, accepted his widow and his crown. Henry
enjoyed his titular royalty and his little hand-breadth of
dominion on the Syrian coast for four years, only. Then he was
killed, while defending Jaffa, and his oft-widowed widow,
Isabella, brought the Lusignans back into Palestinian history
again by marrying, for her fourth husband, Amaury de Lusignan,
who had succeeded his brother Guy, now deceased, as king of
Cyprus. Amaury possessed the two crowns, of Cyprus and
Jerusalem, until his death, when the latter devolved on the
daughter of Isabella, by her second husband, Conrad. The young
queen accepted a husband recommended by the king of France,
and approved by her barons, thus bringing a worthy king to the
worthless throne. This was John de Brienne, a good French
knight, who came to Palestine (A. D. 1210) with a little
following of three hundred knights and strove valiantly to
reconquer a kingdom for his royally entitled bride. But he
strove in vain, and fragment after fragment of his crumbling
remnant of dominion fell away until he held almost nothing
except Acre. In 1217 the king of Hungary, the duke of Austria
and a large army of crusaders came, professedly, to his help,
but gave him none. The king of Hungary got possession of the
head of St. Peter, the right hand of St. Thomas and one of the
wine vessels of the marriage feast at Cana, and hastened home
with his precious relics. The other crusaders went away to
attack Egypt and brought their enterprise to a miserable end.
Then King John de Brienne married his daughter Yolante, or
Iolanta, to the German emperor, or King of the Romans,
Frederick II., and surrendered to that prince his rights and
claims to the kingship of Jerusalem. Frederick, at war with
the Pope, and under the ban of the Church, went to Palestine,
with 600 knights, and contrived by clever diplomacy and
skilful pressure to secure a treaty with the sultan of Egypt
(A. D. 1229), which placed Jerusalem, under some conditions,
in his hands, and added other territory to the kingdom which
he claimed by right of his wife. He entered Jerusalem and
there set the crown on his own head; for the patriarch, the
priests, and the monk-knights, of the Hospital and the Temple,
shunned him and refused recognition to his work. But Frederick
was the only "King of Jerusalem" after Guy de Lusignan, who
wore a crown in the Holy City, and exercised in reality the
sovereignty to which he pretended. Frederick returned to Italy
in 1229 and his kingdom in the East was soon as shadowy and
unreal as that of his predecessors had been.
_W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,
Jerusalem,
chapters 15 and 18._
ALSO IN:
_J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
books 8-12._
See, also,
CRUSADES: 1188-1192, and 1216-1229;
and CYPRUS: A. D. 1192-1489.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1242.
Sack and massacre by the Carismians.
After the overthrow of the Khuarezmian (Korasmian or
Carismian) empire by the Mongols, its last prince, Gelaleddin,
or Jalalu-d-Din, implacably pursued by those savage
conquerors, fought them valiantly until he perished, at last,
in Kurdistan. His army, made up of many mercenary bands,
Turkish and other, then scattered, and two, at least, among
its wandering divisions played important parts in subsequent
history. Out of one of those Khuarezmian squadrons rose the
powerful nation of the Ottoman Turks. The other invaded Syria.
"The Mussulman powers of Syria several times united in a
league against the Carismians, and drove them back to the
other side of the Euphrates. But the spirit of rivalry which
at all times divided the princes of the family of Saladin,
soon recalled an enemy always redoubtable notwithstanding
defeats. At the period of which we are speaking, the princes
of Damascus, Carac, and Emessa had just formed an alliance
with the Christians of Palestine; they not only restored
Jerusalem, Tiberias, and the principality of Galilee to them,
but they promised to join them in the conquest of Egypt, a
conquest for which the whole of Syria was making preparations.
The sultan of Cairo, to avenge himself upon the Christians who
had broken the treaties concluded with him, to punish their
new allies, and protect himself from their invasion,
determined to apply for succour to the hordes of Carismia; and
sent deputies to the leaders of these barbarians, promising to
abandon Palestine to them, if they subdued it. This
proposition was accepted with joy, and 20,000 horsemen,
animated by a thirst for booty and slaughter, hastened from
the further parts of Mesopotamia, disposed to be subservient
to the vengeance or anger of the Egyptian monarch. On their
march they ravaged the territory of Tripoli and the
principality of Galilee, and the flames which everywhere
accompanied their steps announced their arrival to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem. Fortifications scarcely commenced,
and the small number of warriors in the holy city, left not
the least hope of being able to repel the unexpected attacks
of such a formidable enemy.
{1886}
The whole population of Jerusalem resolved to fly, under the
guidance of the knights of the Hospital and the Temple. There
only remained in the city the sick and a few inhabitants who
could not make their minds up to abandon their homes and their
infirm kindred. The Carismians soon arrived, and having
destroyed a few intrenchments that had been made in their
route, they entered Jerusalem sword in hand, massacred all
they met, and … had recourse to a most odious stratagem to
lure back the inhabitants who had taken flight. They raised
the standards of the cross upon every tower, and set all the
bells ringing." The retreating Christians were deceived. They
persuaded themselves that a miracle had been wrought; "that
God had taken pity on his people, and would not permit the
city of Christ to be defiled by the presence of a sacrilegious
horde. Seven thousand fugitives, deceived by this hope,
returned to Jerusalem and gave themselves up to the fury of
the Carismians, who put them all to the sword. Torrents of
blood flowed through the streets and along the roads. A troop
of nuns, children, and aged people, who had sought refuge in
the church of the Holy Sepulchre, were massacred at the foot
of the altars. The Carismians finding nothing among the living
to satisfy their fury, burst open the sepulchres, and gave the
coffins and remains of the dead up to the flames; the tomb of
Christ, that of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sacred relics of the
martyrs and heroes of the faith,—nothing was respected, and
Jerusalem then witnessed within its walls such cruelties and
profanations as had never taken place in the most barbarous
wars, or in days marked by the anger of God." Subsequently the
Christians of Palestine rallied, united their forces with
those of the Moslem princes of Damascus and Emessa, and gave
battle to the Carismians on the plains of Gaza; but they
suffered a terrible defeat, leaving 30,000 dead on the field.
Nearly all Palestine was then at the mercy of the savages, and
Damascus was speedily subjugated. But the sultan of Cairo,
beginning to fear the allies he had employed, turned his arms
sharply against them, defeated them in two successive battles,
and history tells nothing more of the career of these last
adventurers of the Carismian or Khuarezmian name.
_J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 13._
ALSO IN:
_C. G. Addison,
The Knights Templars,
chapter 6._
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1291.
The end of the Christian kingdom.
The surviving title of "King of Jerusalem."
"Since the death of the Emperor Frederic II. [A. D. 1250], the
baseless throne of Jerusalem had found a claimant in Hugh de
Lusignan, King of Cyprus, who, as lineally descended from
Alice, daughter of Queen Isabella, was, in fact, the next
heir, after failure of issue by the marriage of Frederic and
Iolanta de Brienne. His claims were opposed by the partisans
of Charles of Anjou, King of the Sicilies,—that wholesale
speculator in diadems. … He rested his claim upon the double
pretensions of a papal title to all the forfeited dignities of
the imperial house of Hohenstauffen, and of a bargain with
Mary of Antioch; whose rights, although she was descended only
from a younger sister of Alice, he had eagerly purchased. But
the prior title of the house of Cyprus was more generally
recognised in Palestine; the coronation of Hugh had been
celebrated at Tyre; and the last idle pageant of regal state
in Palestine was exhibited by the race of Lusignan. At length
the final storm of Mussulman war broke upon the phantom king
and his subjects. It was twice provoked by the aggressions of
the Latins themselves, in plundering the peaceable Moslem
traders, who resorted, on the faith of treaties, to the
Christian marts on the Syrian coast. After a vain attempt to
obtain redress for the first of these violations of
international law, Keladun, the reigning sultan of Egypt and
Syria, revenged the infraction of the existing ten years'
truce by a renewal of hostilities with overwhelming force;
yearly repeated his ravages of the Christian territory; and at
length, tearing the city and county of Tripoli—the last
surviving great fief of the Latin kingdom—from its
dilapidated crown, dictated the terms of peace to its
powerless sovereign (A. D. 1289)." Two years later, a
repetition of lawless outrages on Moslem merchants at Acre
provoked a last wrathful and implacable invasion. "At the head
of an immense army of 200,000 men, the Mameluke prince entered
Palestine, swept the weaker Christian garrisons before him,
and encamped under the towers of Acre (A. D. 1291). That city,
which, since the fall of Jerusalem, had been for a century the
capital of the Latin kingdom, was now become the last refuge
of the Christian population of Palestine. Its defences were
strong, its inhabitants numerous; but any state of society
more vicious, disorderly, and helpless than its condition, can
scarcely be imagined. Within its walls were crowded a
promiscuous multitude, of every European nation, all equally
disclaiming obedience to a general government, and enjoying
impunity for every crime under the nominal jurisdiction of
independent tribunals. Of these there were no less than
seventeen; in which the papal legate, the king of Jerusalem,
the despoiled great feudatories of his realm, the three
military orders, the colonies of the maritime Italian
republics, and the representatives of the princes of the West,
all arrogated sovereign rights, and all abused them by the
venal protection of offenders. … All the wretched
inhabitants who could find such opportunities of escape,
thronged on board the numerous vessels in the harbour, which
set sail for Europe; and the last defence of Acre was
abandoned to about 12,000 men, for the most part the soldiery
of the three military orders. From that gallant chivalry, the
Moslems encountered a resistance worthy of its ancient renown
and of the extremity of the cause for which its triple
fraternity had sworn to die. But the whole force of the
Mameluke empire, in its yet youthful vigour, had been
collected for their destruction." After a fierce siege of
thirty-three days, one of the principal defensive works,
described in contemporary accounts as "the Cursed Tower," was
shattered, and the besiegers entered the city. The cowardly
Lusignan had escaped by a stolen flight the night before. The
Teutonic Knights, the Templars and the Hospitallers stood
their ground with hopeless valor. Of the latter only seven
escaped. "Bursting through the city, the savage victors
pursued to the strand the unarmed and fleeing population, who
had wildly sought a means of escape, which was denied not less
by the fury of the elements than by the want of sufficient
shipping.
{1887}
By the relentless cruelty of their pursuers, the sands and the
waves were dyed with the blood of the fugitives; all who
survived the first horrid massacre were doomed to a hopeless
slavery; and the last catastrophe of the Crusades cost life or
liberty to 60,000 Christians. … The Christian population of
the few maritime towns which had yet been retained fled to
Cyprus, or submitted their necks, without a struggle, to the
Moslem yoke; and, after a bloody contest of two hundred years,
the possession of the Holy Land was finally abandoned to the
enemies of the Cross. The fall of Acre closes the annals of
the Crusades."
_Colonel G. Procter,
History of the Crusades,
chapter 5, section 5._
_J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 15 (volume 3)._
Actual royalty in the legitimate line of the Lusignan family
ends with a queen Charlotte, who was driven from Cyprus in
1464 by her bastard brother James. She made over to the house
of Savoy (one of the members of which she had married) her
rights and the three crowns she wore,—the crown of Armenia
having been added to those of Jerusalem and Cyprus in the
family. "The Dukes of Savoy called themselves Kings of Cyprus
and Jerusalem from the date of Queen Charlotte's settlement;
the Kings of Naples had called themselves Kings of Jerusalem
since the transfer of the rights of Mary of Antioch [see
above], in 1277, to Charles of Anjou; and the title has run on
to the present day in the houses of Spain and Austria, the
Dukes of Lorraine, and the successive dynasties of Naples. …
The Kings of Sardinia continued to strike money as Kings of
Cyprus and Jerusalem, until they became Kings of Italy. There
is no recognized King of Cyprus now; but there are two or
three Kings of Jerusalem; and the Cypriot title is claimed, I
believe, by some obscure branch of the house of Lusignan,
under the will of King James II."
_W. Stubbs,
Seventeen Lectures on the
Study of Medieval and Modern History,
lecture 8._
ALSO IN:
_C. G. Addison,
The Knights Templars,
chapter 6._
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1299.
The Templars once more in the city.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1299.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1516.
Embraced in the Ottoman conquests of Sultan Selim.
See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.
JERUSALEM: A. D. 1831.
Taken by Mehemed Ali, Pasha of Egypt.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
----------JERUSALEM: End----------
JERUSALEM TALMUD, The.
See TALMUD.
JESUATES, The.
"The Jesuates, so called from their custom of incessantly
crying through the streets, 'Praised be Jesus Christ,' were
founded by John Colombino, … a native of Siena. … The
congregation was suppressed … by Clement IX., because some
of the houses of the wealthy 'Padri dell' acqua vite,' as they
were called, engaged in the business of distilling liquors and
practising pharmacy (1668)."
_J. Alzog,
Manual of Universal Church History,
volume 3, page 149._
----------JESUITS: Start--------
JESUITS: A. D. 1540-1556.
Founding of the Society of Jesus.
System of its organization.
Its principles and aims.
"Experience had shown that the old monastic orders were no
longer sufficient. … About 1540, therefore, an idea began to
be entertained at Rome that a new order was needed; the plan
was not to abolish the old ones, but to found new ones which
should better answer the required ends. The most important of
them was the Society of Jesus. But in this case the moving
cause did not proceed from Rome. Among the wars of Charles V.
we must recur to the first contest at Navarra, in 1521. It was
on this occasion, in defending Pamplona against the French,
that Loyola received the wound which was to cause the monkish
tendency to prevail over the chivalrous element in his nature.
A kind of Catholicism still prevailed in Spain which no longer
existed anywhere else. Its vigour may be traced to the fact
that during the whole of the Middle Ages it was always in
hostile contact with Islam, with the Mohammedan infidels. The
crusades here had never come to an end. … As yet untainted
by heresy, and suffering from no decline, in Spain,
Catholicism was as eager for conquest as it had been in all
the West in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was from
the nation possessing this temperament that the founder of the
order of the Jesuits sprang. Ignatius Loyola (born 1491) was a
Spanish knight, possessing the two-fold tendencies which
distinguish the knighthood of the Middle Ages. He was a
gallant swordsman, delighting in martial feats and romantic
love adventures; but he was at the same time animated by a
glowing enthusiasm for the Church and her supremacy, even
during the early period of his life. These two tendencies were
striving together in his character, until the event took place
which threw him upon a bed of suffering. No sooner was he
compelled to renounce his worldly knighthood, than he was sure
that he was called upon to found a new order of spiritual
knighthood, like that of which he had read in the chivalrous
romance, 'Amadis.' Entirely unaffected by the Reformation,
what he understood by this was a spiritual brotherhood in the
true mediæval sense, which should convert the heathen in the
newly-discovered countries of the world. With all the zeal of
a Spaniard he decided to live to the Catholic Church alone; he
chastised his body with penances and all kinds of privations,
made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and, in order to complete his
defective education, he visited the university of Paris; it
was among his comrades there that he formed the first
associations out of which the order was afterwards formed.
Among these was Jacob Lainez; he was Loyola's
fellow-countryman, the organizing head who was to stamp his
impress upon the order. … Then came the spread of the new
doctrines, the mighty progress of Protestantism. No one who
was heartily attached to the old Church could doubt that there
was work for such an association, for the object now in hand
was not to make Christians of the aboriginal inhabitants of
Central America, but to reconquer the apostate members of the
Romish Church. About 1539 Loyola came with his fraternity to
Rome. He did not find favour in all circles; the old orders
regarded the new one with jealousy and mistrust; but Pope Paul
III. (1534-49) did not allow himself to be misled, and in 1540
gave the fraternity his confirmation, thus constituting
Loyola's followers an order, which, on its part, engaged 'to
obey in all things the reigning Pope—to go into any country,
to Turks, heathen, or heretics, or to whomsoever he might send
them, at once, unconditionally, without question or reward.'
It is from this time that the special history of the order
begins.
{1888}
During the next year Loyola was chosen the first general of
the order, an office which he held until his death (1541-56).
He was succeeded by Lainez. He was less enthusiastic than his
predecessor, had a cooler head, and was more reasonable; he
was the man for diplomatic projects and complete and
systematic organization. The new order differed in several
respects from any previously existing one, but it entirely
corresponded to the new era which had begun for the Romish
Church. … The construction of the new order was based and
carried out on a monarchical-military system. The territories
of the Church were divided into provinces; at the head of each
of these was a provincial; over the provincials, and chosen by
them, the general, who commanded the soldiers of Christ, and
was entrusted with dictatorial power, limited only by the
opinions of three judges, assistants or admonitors. The
general has no superior but the Pope, with whom he
communicates directly; he appoints and dismisses all
officials, issues orders as to the administration of the
order, and rules with undisputed sway. The absolute monarchy
which was assigned to the Pope by the Council of Trent, was
conferred by him on the general of the Jesuits. Among the four
vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and subjection to the
Pope, obedience was the soul of all. To learn and practise
this physically and mentally, up to the point where, according
to the Jesuit expression, a man becomes 'tanquam lignum et
cadaver,' was the ruling principle of the institution. …
Entire renunciation of the will and judgment in relation to
everything commanded by the superior, blind obedience,
unconditional subjection, constitute their ideal. There was
but one exception, but even in this there was a reservation.
It was expressly stated that there can be no obligation 'ad
peccatum mortale vel veniale,' to sinful acts of greater or
less importance, 'except when enjoined by the superior, in the
name of Jesus Christ,' 'vel in virtute obedientiæ,'—an
elastic doctrine which may well be summed up in the dictum
that 'the end justifies the means.' Of course, all the members
of this order had to renounce all ties of family, home, and
country, and it was expressly enjoined. … Of the vow of
poverty it is said, in the 'Summarium' of the constitution of
the order, that it must be maintained as a 'murus religionis.
No one shall have any property; everyone must be content with
the meanest furniture and fare, and, if necessity or command
require it, he must be ready to beg his bread from door to
door ('ostiatim mendicare'). The external aspect of members of
the order, their speech and silence, gestures, gait, garb, and
bearing shall indicate the prescribed purity of soul. … On
all these and many other points, the new order only laid
greater stress on the precepts which were to be found among
the rules of other orders, though in the universal
demoralisation of the monastic life they had fallen into
disuse. But it decidedly differed from all the others in the
manner in which it aimed at obtaining sway in every sphere and
every aspect of life. Himself without home or country, and not
holding the doctrines of any political party, the disciple of
Jesus renounced everything which might alienate him among
varying nationalities, pursuing various political aims. Then
he did not confine his labours to the pulpit and the
confessional; he gained an influence over the rising
generation by a systematic attention to education, which had
been shamefully neglected by the other orders. He devoted
himself to education from the national schools up to the
academic chair, and by no means confined himself to the sphere
of theology. This was a principle of immense importance. …
It is a true saying, that 'he who gains the youth possesses
the future'; and by devoting themselves to the education of
youth, the Jesuits secured a future to the Church more surely
than by any other scheme that could have been devised. What
the schoolmasters were for the youth, the confessors were for
those of riper years; what the clerical teachers were for the
common people, the spiritual directors and confidants were for
great lords and rulers—for the Jesuits aspired to a place at
the side of the great, and at gaining the confidence of kings.
It was not long before they could boast of astonishing
success."
_L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation,
chapter 20._
"The Society, in 1556, only 16 years after its commencement,
counted as many as twelve provinces, 100 houses, and upwards
of 1,000 members, dispersed over the whole known world. Their
two most conspicuous and important establishments were the
Collegio Romano and the German College. They already were in
possession of many chairs, and soon monopolised the right of
teaching, which gave them a most overwhelming influence."
_G. B. Nicolini,
History of the Jesuits,
page 90._
ALSO IN:
_I. Taylor,
Loyola and Jesuitism in its Rudiments._
S_. Rose,
Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits._
_T. Hughes,
Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits._
See, also, EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE.
JESUITS: A. D. 1542-1649.
The early Jesuit Missionaries and their labors.
"In 1542, Xavier landed at Goa, the capital of the Portuguese
colony, on the western coast of Hindostan. He took lodgings at
the hospital, and mingled with the poor. He associated also
with the rich, and even played with them at cards, acting
piously upon the motto of the order, 'Ad majorem Dei gloriam.'
Having thus won good-will to himself, he went into the
streets, with his hand-bell and crucifix, and, having rung the
one, he held up the other, exhorting the multitudes to accept
that religion of which it was the emblem. His great facility
in acquiring foreign languages helped him much. He visited
several times the pearl-fisheries on the Malabar coast,
remaining at one time thirteen months, and planting forty-five
churches. Cape Comorin, Travancore, Meliapore, the Moluccas,
Malacca, and other ports of India, and finally the distant
island of Japan—where Christianity was [accepted—see JAPAN:
A. D. 1540-1686] … —received his successive visits. Leaving
two Jesuits on the island, he returned to settle some matters
at Goa, which done, he sailed for China, but died at the
island of Sancian, a few leagues from the city of Canton, in
1552—ten years only after his arrival in India. He had in
this time established an inquisition and a college at Goa.
Numbers of the society, whom he had wisely distributed, had
been sent to his aid; and the Christians in India were
numbered by hundreds of thousands before the death of this
'Apostle of the Indies.' It has even been said, that he was
the means of converting more persons in Asia than the church
had lost by the Reformation in Europe.
{1889}
The empire of China, which Xavier was not allowed to enter,
was visited, half a century later, by the Jesuit Matthew
Ricci, who introduced his religion by means of his great skill
in science and art, especially mathematics and drawing [see
CHINA: A. D. 1294-1882]. He assumed the garb of a mandarin
—associated with the higher classes—dined with the
Emperor—allowed those who received Christianity to retain any
rites of their own religion to which they were attached—and
died in 1610, bequeathing and recommending his policy to
others. This plan of accommodation was far more elaborately
carried out by Robert Nobili, who went to Madura, in southern
Hindostan, as a missionary of the order in 1606. He had
observed the obstacle which caste threw in the way of
missionary labor, and resolved to remove it. He presented
himself as a foreign Brahmin, and attached himself to that
class. They had a tradition, that there once had been four
roads to truth in India, one of which they had lost. This he
professed to restore. He did no violence to their existing
ideas or institutions, but simply gave them other
interpretations, and in three years he had seventy converted
Brahmins about him. From this time he went on gathering crowds
of converts, soon numbering 150,000. This facile policy,
however, attracted the notice of the other religious orders,
was loudly complained of at Rome, and, after almost an entire
century of agitation, was condemned in 1704 by a special
legation, appointed by Clement XI. to inquire into the matter
of complaint. … The attention of the society was early
directed to our own continent, and its missions everywhere
anticipated the settlements. The most remarkable missions were
in South America. Missionaries had been scattered over the
whole continent, everywhere making converts, but doing nothing
for the progress of the order. Aquaviva was general. This
shrewd man saw the disadvantage of the policy, and at once
applied the remedy. He directed, that, leaving only so many
missionaries scattered over the continent as should be
absolutely necessary, the main force should be concentrated
upon a point. Paraguay was chosen. The missionaries formed
what were called reductions—that is, villages into which the
Indians were collected from their roving life, taught the
ruder arts of civilization, and some of the rites and duties
of the Christian religion. These villages were regularly laid
out with streets, running each way from a public square,
having a Church, work-shops and dwellings. Each family had a
small piece of land assigned for cultivation, and all were
reduced to the most systematic habits of industry and good
order. … The men were trained to arms, and all the elements
of an independent empire were fast coming into being. In 1632,
thirty years after the starting of this system, Paraguay had
twenty reductions, averaging 1,000 families each, which at a
moderate estimate, would give a population of 100,000, and
they still went on prospering until three times this number
are, by some, said to have been reached. The Jesuits started,
in California, in 1642, the same system, which they fully
entered upon in 1679. This, next to Paraguay, became their
most successful mission."
_A Historical Sketch of the Jesuits
(Putnam's Magazine, September, 1856)._
In 1632 the Jesuits entered on their mission work in Canada,
or New France, where they supplanted the Récollet friars. "In
1640 Montreal, the site of which had been already indicated by
Champlain in 1611, was founded, that there might be a nearer
rendezvous than Quebec for the converted Indians. At its
occupation a solemn mass was celebrated under a tent, and in
France itself the following February a general supplication
was offered up that the Queen of Angels would take the Island
of Montreal under her protection. In the August of this year a
general meeting of French settlers and Indians took place at
Montreal, and the festival of the Assumption was solemnised at
the island. The new crusading spirit took full possession of
the enthusiastic French people, and the niece of Cardinal
Richelieu founded a hospital for the natives between the
Kennebec and Lake Superior, to which young and nobly-born
hospital nuns from Dieppe offered their services. Plans were
made for establishing mission posts, not only on the north
amongst the Algonkins, but to the south of Luke Huron, in
Michigan and at Green Bay, and so on as far as the regions to
the west. The maps of the Jesuits prove that before 1660 they
had traced the waters of Lake Erie and Lake Superior and had
seen Lake Michigan. The Huron mission embraced principally the
country lying between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, building
its stations on the rivers and shores. But the French
missionaries, however much they might desire it, could not
keep outside the intertribal strifes of the natives around
them. Succeeding to Champlain's policy, they continued to aid
the Algonkins and Hurons against their inveterate enemies the
Iroquois. The Iroquois retaliated by the most horrible cruelty
and revenge. There was no peace along the borders of this wild
country, and missionaries and colonists carried their lives in
their hands. In 1648 St. Joseph, a Huron mission town on the
shores of Lake Simcoe, was burned down and destroyed by the
Iroquois, and Père Daniel, the Jesuit leader, killed under
circumstances of great atrocity. In 1649 St. Ignace, a station
at the corner of Georgian Bay, was sacked, and there the pious
Brebeuf met his end, after having suffered the most horrible
tortures the Indians could invent. Brebeuf, after being hacked
in the face and burnt all over the body with torches and
red-hot iron, was scalped alive, and died after three hours'
suffering. His companion, the gentle Gabriel Lallemand,
endured terrible tortures for seventeen hours."
_W. P. Greswell,
History of the Dominion of Canada,
chapter 6. _
The Hurons were dispersed and their nation destroyed by these
attacks of the Iroquois. "With the fall of the Hurons fell the
best hope of the Canadian mission. They, and the stable and
populous communities around them, had been the rude material
from which the Jesuit would have formed his Christian empire
in the wilderness; but, one by one, these kindred peoples were
uprooted and swept away, while the neighboring Algonquins, to
whom they had been a bulwark, were involved with them in a
common ruin. The land of promise was turned to a solitude and
a desolation. There was still work in hand, it is true,—vast
regions to explore, and countless heathens to snatch from
perdition; but these, for the most part, were remote and
scattered hordes, from whose conversion it was vain to look
for the same solid and decisive results. In a measure, the
occupation of the Jesuits was gone.
{1890}
Some of them went home, 'well resolved,' writes the Father
Superior, 'to return to the combat at the first sound of the
trumpet'; while of those who remained, about twenty in number,
several soon fell victims to famine, hardship, and the
Iroquois. A few years more, and Canada ceased to be a mission;
political and commercial interests gradually became ascendant,
and the story of Jesuit propagandism was interwoven with her
civil and military annals."
_F. Parkman,
The Jesuits in North America,
chapter 34._
See, also,
CANADA: A. D. 1634-1652.
JESUITS: A. D. 1558.
Mission founded in Abyssinia.
See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 15TH-19TH CENTURIES.
JESUITS: A. D. 1572-1603.
Persecution in England under Elizabeth.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603.
JESUITS: A. D. 1573-1592.
Change in the statutes of the Order on demands from Spain.
"At the first establishment of the Order, the elder and
already educated men, who had just entered it, were for the
most part Spaniards; the members joining it from other nations
were chiefly young men, whose characters had yet to be formed.
It followed naturally that the government of the society was,
for the first ten years, almost entirely in Spanish hands. The
first general congregation was composed of twenty-five
members, eighteen of whom were Spaniards. The first three
generals belonged to the same nation. After the death of the
third, Borgia, in the year 1573, it was once more a Spaniard,
Polanco, who had the best prospect of election. It was however
manifest that his elevation would not have been regarded
favourably, even in Spain itself. There were many new converts
in the society who were Christianized Jews. Polanco also
belonged to this class, and it was not thought desirable that
the supreme authority in a body so powerful, and so
monarchically constituted, should be confided to such hands.
Pope Gregory XIV., who had received certain intimations on
this subject, considered a change to be expedient on other
grounds also. When a deputation presented itself before him
from the congregation assembled to elect their general,
Gregory inquired how many votes were possessed by each nation;
the reply showed that Spain held more than all the others put
together. He then asked from which nation the generals of the
order had hitherto been taken. He was told that there had been
three, all Spaniards. 'It will be just, then,' replied
Gregory, 'that for once you should choose one from among the
other nations.' He even proposed a candidate for their
election. The Jesuits opposed themselves for a moment to this
suggestion, as a violation of their privileges; but concluded
by electing the very man proposed by the pontiff. This was
Eberhard Mercurianus. A material change was at once perceived,
as the consequence of this choice. Mercurianus, a weak and
irresolute man, resigned the government of affairs, first
indeed to a Spaniard again, but afterwards to a Frenchman, his
official admonitor; factions were formed, one expelling the
other from the offices of importance, and the ruling powers of
the Order now began to meet occasional resistance from its
subordinate members. But a circumstance of much higher moment
was, that on the next vacancy—in the year 1581—this office
was conferred on Claudius Acquaviva, a Neapolitan, belonging
to a house previously attached to the French party, a man of
great energy, and only thirty-eight years old. The Spaniards
then thought they perceived that their nation, by which the
society had been founded and guided on its early path, was now
to be forever excluded from the generalship. Thereupon they
became discontented and refractory, and conceived the design
of making themselves less dependent on Rome. … They first
had recourse to the national spiritual authority of their own
country—the Inquisition. … One of the discontented Jesuits,
impelled, as he affirmed, by a scruple of conscience, accused
his order of concealing, and even remitting, transgressions of
the kind so reserved, when the criminal was one of their
society. The Inquisition immediately caused the Provincial
implicated, together with his most active associates, to be
arrested. Other accusations being made in consequence of these
arrests, the Inquisition commanded that the statutes of the
order should be placed before it, and proceeded to make
further seizures of parties accused. … The Inquisition was,
however, competent to inflict a punishment on the criminal
only: it could not prescribe changes in the regulations of the
society. When the affair, therefore, had proceeded thus far,
the discontented members applied to the king also, assailing
him with long memorials, wherein they complained of the
defects in their constitution. The character of this
constitution had never been agreeable to Philip II.; he used
to say that he could see through all the other orders, but
that the order of Jesuits he could not understand. … He at
once commanded Manrique, bishop of Carthagena, to subject the
Order to a visitation, with particular reference to these
points. … The character of Sixtus V. made it particularly
easy for Acquaviva to excite the antipathies of that pontiff
against the proceedings of the Spaniards. Pope Sixtus had
formed the hope, as we know, of rendering Rome, more decidedly
than it ever yet was, the metropolis of Christendom. Acquaviva
assured him, that the object really laboured for in Spain was
no other than increased independence of Rome. Pope Sixtus
hated nothing so much as illegitimate birth; and Acquaviva
caused him to be informed that Manrique, the bishop selected
as 'Visitator' of the Jesuits, was illegitimate. These were
reasons sufficient to make Sixtus recall the assent he had
already given to the visitation. He even summoned the case of
the provincial before the tribunals of Rome. From his
successor, Gregory XIV., the general succeeded in obtaining a
formal confirmation of the rule of the order. But his
antagonists also were unyielding and crafty. They perceived
that the general must be attacked in the court of Rome itself.
They availed themselves of his momentary absence. … In the
summer of 1592, at the request of the Spanish Jesuits and
Philip II., but without the knowledge of Acquaviva, the
pontiff commanded that a general congregation should be held.
Astonished and alarmed, Acquaviva hastened back. To the
generals of the Jesuits these 'Congregations' were no less
inconvenient than were the Convocations of the Church to the
popes; and if his predecessors were anxious to avoid them, how
much more cause had Acquaviva, against whom there prevailed so
active an enmity! But he was soon convinced that the
arrangement was irrevocable; he therefore resumed his
composure and said, 'We are obedient sons; let the will of the
holy father be done.' …
{1891}
Philip of Spain had demanded some changes, and had
recommended others for consideration. On two things he'
insisted: the resignation of certain papal privileges; those
of reading forbidden books, for example, and of granting
absolution for the crime of heresy; and a law, by virtue of
which every novice who entered the order should surrender
whatever patrimonial rights he might possess, and should even
resign all his benefices. These were matters in regard to
which the order came into collision with the Inquisition and
the civil government. After some hesitation, the demands of
the king were complied with, and principally through the
influence of Acquaviva himself. But the points recommended by
Philip for consideration were of much higher moment. First of
all came the questions, whether the authority of the superiors
should not be limited to a certain period; and whether a
general congregation should not be held at certain fixed
intervals? The very essence and being of the institute, the
rights of absolute sovereignty, were here brought into
question. Acquaviva was not on this occasion disposed to
comply. After an animated discussion, the congregation
rejected these propositions of Philip; but the pope, also, was
convinced of their necessity. What had been refused to the
king was now commanded by the pope. By the plenitude of his
apostolic power, he determined and ordained that the superiors
and rectors should be changed every third year; and that, at
the expiration of every sixth year, a general congregation
should be assembled. It is, indeed, true that the execution of
these ordinances did not effect so much as had been hoped from
them. … It was, nevertheless, a very serious blow to the
society, that it had been compelled, by internal revolt and
interference from without, to a change in its statutes."
_L. Ranke,
History of the Popes,
book 6, section 9 (volume 2)._
JESUITS: A. D. 1581-1641.
Hostility of the Paulistas of Brazil.
Opposition to enslavement of the Indians.
See BRAZIL: A. D. 1531-1641.
JESUITS: A. D. 1595.
Expulsion from Paris.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.
JESUITS: A. D. 1606.
Exclusion from Venice for half a century.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.
JESUITS: A. D. 1653-1660.
First controversy and conflict with the Jansenists.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1602-1660.
JESUITS: A. D. 1702-1715.
The renewed conflict with Jansenism in France.
The Bull Unigenitus.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.
JESUITS: A. D. 1757-1773.
Suppression of the Society in Portugal and the Portuguese
dominions.
In 1757, a series of measures intended to break the power, if
not to end the existence, of the Society of Jesus, in Portugal
and the Portuguese dominions, was undertaken by the great
Portuguese minister, Carvalho, better known by his later title
as the Marquis of Pombal. "It is not necessary to speculate on
the various motives which induced Carvalho to attack the
Jesuits, but the principal cause lay in the fact that they
were wealthy and powerful, and therefore a dangerous force in
an absolutist monarchy. It must be remembered that the Jesuits
of the 18th century formed a very different class of men to
their predecessors. They were no longer intrepid missionary
pioneers, but a corporation of wealthy traders, who made use
of their spiritual position to further the cause of their
commerce. They had done a great work in America by opening up
the interior of Brazil and converting the natives, and their
administration of Paraguay, one of the most interesting
achievements in the whole history of Christianity, was without
doubt a blessing to the people. But by the middle of the 18th
century they had gone too far. It was one thing to convert the
natives of Brazil, and another to absorb much of the wealth of
that country, in doing which they prejudiced not only the
Crown but the Portuguese people, whom they kept from settling
in the territory under their rule. Whether it was a sufficient
reason for Carvalho to attack the order, because it was
wealthy and powerful, and had departed from its primitive
simplicity, is a question for everyone to decide for
themselves, but that this was the reason, and that the various
excuses alleged by the admirers of the great minister are
without foundation, is an undoubted fact. On September 19,
1757, the first important blow was struck, when the king's
Jesuit confessor was dismissed, and all Jesuits were forbidden
to come to Court. Carvalho, in the name of the King of
Portugal, also formally denounced the order at Rome, and
Benedict XIV., the then Pope, appointed the Cardinal de
Saldanha, a friend of the minister, Visitor and Reformer of
the Society of Jesus. The cardinal did not take long in making
up his mind, and May 15, 1758, he forbade the Jesuits to
engage in trade. An attempt upon the king's life, which
shortly followed this measure, gave the minister the
opportunity he wanted for urging the suppression of the famous
society. The history of the Tavora plot, which culminated in
this attempt, is one of the most mysterious affairs in the
whole history of Portugal. … The three leaders of the plot
were the Duke of Aveiro, a descendant of John II., and one of
the greatest noblemen in Portugal, the Marquis of Tavora, who
had filled with credit the post of Governor-general of India,
and the Count of Atouguia, a descendant of the gallant Dom
Luis de Athaide, the defender of Goa; but the heart and soul
of the conspiracy was the Marchioness of Tavora, a beautiful
and ambitious woman, who was bitterly offended because her
husband had not been made a duke. The confessor of this lady
was a Jesuit named Gabriel Malagrida. … The evidence on all
sides is most contradictory, and all that is certain is that
the king was fired at and wounded on the night of September 3,
1758; and that in the following January, the three noblemen
who have been mentioned, the Marchioness of Tavora, Malagrida
with seven other Jesuits, and many other individuals of all
ranks of life, were arrested as implicated in the attempt to
murder. The laymen had but a short trial and, together with
the marchioness, were publicly executed ten days after their
arrest. King Joseph certainly believed that the real culprits
had been seized, and in his gratitude he created Carvalho
Count of Oeyras, and encouraged him to pursue his campaign
against the Jesuits. On January 19, 1759, the estates
belonging to the society were sequestrated; and on September
3rd, all its members were expelled from Portugal, and
directions were sent to the viceroys of India and Brazil to
expel them likewise. The news of this bold stroke was received
with admiration everywhere, except at Rome, and it became noised
abroad that a great minister was ruling in Portugal. …
{1892}
In 1764 the Jesuit priest Malagrida was burnt alive, not as a
traitor but as a heretic and imposter, on account of some
crazy tractates he had written. The man was regarded as a
martyr, and all communication between Portugal and the Holy
See was broken off for two years, while the Portuguese
minister exerted all his influence with the Courts of France
and Spain to procure the entire suppression of the society
which he hated. The king supported him consistently, and after
another attempt upon his life in 1769, which the minister as
usual attributed to the Jesuits, King Joseph created his
faithful servant Marquis of Pombal, by which title he is best
known to fame. The prime ministers of France and Spain
cordially acquiesced in the hatred of the Jesuits, for both
the Duc de Choiseul and the Count d'Aranda had something of
Pombal's spirit in them, and imitated his policy; in both
countries the society, which on its foundation had done so
much for Catholicism and Christianity, was proscribed, and the
worthy members treated with as much rigour as the unworthy;
and finally in 1773 Pope Clement XIV. solemnly abolished the
Society of Jesus. King Joseph did not long survive this
triumph of his minister, for he died on February 24, 1777, and
the Marquis of Pombal, then an old man of 77, was at once
dismissed from office."
_H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapter 16._
ALSO IN:
_G. B. Nicolini,
History of the Jesuits,
chapter 15._
_T. Griesinger,
The Jesuits,
book 6, chapter 4 (volume 2)._
JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
Proceedings against the Order in the Parliament of Paris.
Suppression in France, Spain, Bavaria, Parma, Modena, Venice.
Demands on the Pope for the abolition of the Society.
"Father Antoine Lavalette, 'procureur' of the Jesuit Missions
in the Antilles, resided in that capacity at St. Pierre in the
island of Martinique. He was a man of talent, energy, and
enterprise; and, following an example by no means uncommon in
the Society, he had been for many years engaged in mercantile
transactions on an extensive scale, and with eminent success.
It was an occupation expressly prohibited to missionaries; but
the Jesuits were in the habit of evading the difficulty by
means of an ingenious fiction. Lavalette was in correspondence
with the principal commercial firms in France, and
particularly with that of Lioncy Brothers and Gouffre, of
Marseilles. He made frequent consignments of merchandise to
their house, which were covered by bills of exchange, drawn in
Martinique and accepted by them. For a time the traffic
proceeded prosperously; but it so happened that upon the
breaking out of the Seven Years' War, several ships belonging
to Lavalette, richly freighted with West Indian produce, were
captured by the English cruisers, and their cargoes
confiscated. The immediate loss fell upon Lioncy and Gouffre,
to whom these vessels were consigned," and they were driven to
bankruptcy, the General of the Society of Jesus refusing to be
responsible for the obligations of his subordinate, Father
Lavalette. "Under these circumstances the creditors determined
to attack the Jesuit community as a corporate body," and the
latter were so singularly unwary, for once, as not only to
contest the claim before the Parliament of Paris, but to
appeal to the constitutions of their Society in support of
their contention, that each college was independent in the
matter of temporal property, and that no corporate
responsibility could exist. "The Parliament at once demanded
that the constitutions thus referred to should he examined.
The Jesuits were ordered to furnish a copy of them; they
obeyed. … The compulsory production of these mysterious
records, which had never before been inspected by any but
Jesuit eyes, was an event of crucial significance. It was the
turning-point of the whole affair; and its consequences were
disastrous." As a first consequence, "the court condemned the
General of the Jesuits, and in his person the whole Society
which he governed, to acquit the bills of exchange still
outstanding, together with interest and damages, within the
space of a year from the date of the 'arrêt.' In default of
payment the debt was made recoverable upon the common property
of the Order, excepting only the endowments specially
restricted to particular colleges. The delight of the public,
who were present on the occasion in great numbers, 'was
excessive,' says Barbier, 'and even indecent.'" As a second
consequence, the Parliament, on the 6th of August, 1761,
"condemned a quantity of publications by the Jesuits, dating
from the year 1590 downwards, to be torn and burnt by the
executioner and the next day this was duly carried out in the
court of the Palais de Justice. Further, the 'arrêt'
prohibited the king's subjects from entering the said Society;
forbade the fathers to give instruction, private or public, in
theology, philosophy, or humanity; and ordered their schools
and colleges to be closed. The accusation brought against
their books was … that of teaching 'abominable and murderous
doctrine,' of justifying sedition, rebellion, and regicide.
… The Government replied to these bold measures by ordering
the Parliament to suspend the execution of its 'arrêts' for
the space of a year. The Parliament affected to obey, but
stipulated, in registering the letters-patent, that the delay
should not extend beyond the 1st of April, 1762, and made
other provisions which left them virtually at liberty to
proceed as they might think proper. The Jesuits … relied too
confidently on the protection of the Crown. … But the
prestige of the monarchy was now seriously impaired, and it
was no longer wise or safe for a King of France to undertake
openly the defence of any institution which had incurred a
deliberate sentence of condemnation from the mass of his
people." In November, 1761, a meeting of French prelates was
summoned by the Royal Council to consider and report upon
several questions relative to the utility of the Society of
Jesus, the character of its teaching and conduct, and the
modifications, if any, which should be proposed as to the
extent of authority exercised by the General of the Society.
The bishops, by a large majority, made a report favorable to
the Jesuits, but recommended, "as reasonable concessions to
public opinion, certain alterations in its statutes and
practical administration. … This project of compromise was
forwarded to Rome for the consideration of the Pope and the
General; and Louis gave them to understand, through his
ambassador, that upon no other conditions would it be possible
to stem the tide of opposition, and to maintain the Jesuits as
a body corporate in France.
{1893}
It was now that the memorable reply was made, either by the
General Ricci, or, according to other accounts, by Pope
Clement XIII. himself—Sint ut sunt, aut non sint'; 'Let them
remain as they are, or let them exist no longer.'" Even had
the proposed reform been accepted, "its success was
problematical; but its rejection sealed the fate of the Order.
Louis, notwithstanding the ungracious response from Rome,
proposed his scheme of conciliation to the Parliament in
March, 1762, and annulled at the same time all measures
adverse to the Jesuits taken since the 1st of August
preceding. The Parliament, secretly encouraged by the Duc de
Choiseul, refused to register this edict; the king, after some
hesitation, withdrew it; and no available resource remained to
shield the Order against its impending destiny. The
Parliaments, both of Paris and the Provinces, laid the axe to
the root without further delay. By an 'arrêt' of the 1st of
April, 1762, the Jesuits were expelled from their 84 colleges
in the ressort of the Parliament of Paris, and the example was
followed by the provincial tribunals of Rouen, Rennes, Metz,
Bordeaux, and Aix. The Society was now assailed by a general
chorus of invective and execration. … The final blow was
struck by the Parliament of Paris on the 6th of August, 1762.
… The sentence then passed condemned the Society as
'inadmissible, by its nature, in any civilized State, inasmuch
as it was contrary to the law of nature, subversive of
authority spiritual and temporal, and introduced, under the
veil of religion, not an Order sincerely aspiring to
evangelical perfection, but rather a political body, of which
the essence consists in perpetual attempts to attain, first,
absolute independence, and in the end, supreme authority.' …
The decree concludes by declaring the vows of the Jesuits
illegal and void, forbidding them to observe the rules of the
Order, to wear its dress, or to correspond with its members.
They were to quit their houses within one week, and were to
renounce, upon oath, all connection with the Society, upon
pain of being disqualified for any ecclesiastical charge or
public employment. The provincial Parliaments followed the
lead of the capital, though in some few instances the decree
of suppression was opposed, and carried only by a small
majority; while at Besançon and Douai the decision was in
favour of the Society. In Lorraine, too, under the peaceful
government of Stanislas Leczinski, and in Alsace, where they
were powerfully protected by Cardinal de Rohan, Bishop of
Strasburg, the Jesuits were left unmolested. … The
suppression of the Jesuits—the most important act of the
administration of the Duc de Choiseul—was consummated by a
royal ordonnance of November, 1764, to which Louis did not
give his consent without mistrust and regret. It decreed that
the Society should cease to exist throughout his Majesty's
dominions; but it permitted the ex-Jesuits to reside in France
as private citizens, and to exercise their ecclesiastical
functions under the jurisdiction of the diocesans. … Almost
immediately afterwards, on the 7th of January, 1765. appeared
the bull 'Apostolicum,' by which Clement XIII. condemned, with
all the weight of supreme and infallible authority, the
measure which had deprived the Holy See of its most valiant
defenders. … The only effect of the intervention of the
Roman Curia was to excite further ebullitions of hostility
against the prostrate Order. Charles III. of Spain, yielding,
as it is alleged, to the exhortations of the Duc de Choiseul,
abolished it throughout his dominions by a sudden mandate of
April 2, 1767. … The Pope precipitated the final catastrophe
by a further act of imprudence. The young Duke of Parma, a
prince of the house of Bourbon, had excluded the Jesuits from
his duchy, and had published certain ecclesiastical
regulations detrimental to the ancient pretensions of the
Roman See. Clement XIII., reviving an antiquated title in
virtue of which Parma was claimed as a dependent fief of the
Papacy, was rash enough to launch a bull of excommunication
against the Duke, and deprived him of his dominions as a
rebellious vassal. All the Bourbon sovereigns promptly
combined to resent this insult to their family. The Papal Bull
was suppressed at Paris, at Madrid, at Lisbon, at Parma, at
Naples. The Jesuits were expelled from Venice, from Modena,
from Bavaria. The Pontiff was summoned to revoke his
'monitorium'; and on his refusal French troops took possession
of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, while the King of Naples
seized Benevento and Pontecorvo. On the 16th of January, 1769,
the ambassadors of Spain, France, and Naples presented a joint
note to the Holy Father, demanding that the Order of Jesus
should be secularised and abolished for ever. Clement, who had
suffered severely from the manifold humiliations and reverses
of his Pontificate, was overwhelmed by this last blow, from
the effects of which he never rallied. He expired almost
suddenly on the 2nd of February, 1769."
_W. H. Jervis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 2, chapter 10._
ALSO IN:
_T. Griesinger,
The Jesuits,
book 6, chapter 6,
and book 7, chapter 1._
JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871
Papal suppression and restoration of the Order.
"The attitude of the Roman Catholic Courts was so threatening,
and their influence with the Conclave so powerful, that
Lorenzo Ganganelli was selected [1769] for the triple crown,
as the man best suited for their purposes. Belonging to the
Franciscans, who had ever been antagonistic to the Jesuits, he
had been a follower of the Augustinian theology, and was not
altogether free from Jansenism. The Jesuits even went so far
as to pray publicly in their churches for the conversion of
the Pope. The pontificate of Clement XIV. has been rendered
memorable in history by the Papal decree of July 21, 1773,
which in its policy adopted the maxim of Lorenzo Ricci, the
inflexible General of the Jesuits, 'Sint ut sunt, aut non
sunt'—Let us be as we are, or let us not be! That decree
declared that, from the very origin of the Order, sorrow,
jealousies, and dissensions arose, not only among its own
members but between them and the other religious orders and
their colleges. After further declaring that, urged as its
head by a sense of duty to restore the harmony of the Church,
and feeling convinced that the Society could no longer
subserve the uses for which it was created, and on other
grounds of prudence and governmental wisdom, he by his decree
abolished the Order of Jesuits, its offices, houses, and
institutes. … The other religious orders at Rome were
jealous that Jesuits should have been the confessors of
Sovereigns at Westminster, Madrid, Vienna, Versailles, Lisbon,
and Naples. The influences of the Dominicans, the
Benedictines, and the Oratorians were accordingly exercised
for their suppression. … The Papal Bull 'Dominus Redemptor
noster' was at first resisted by the Jesuits, and their
General, Lorenzo Ricci, was sent to the Castle of St. Angelo.
{1894}
Bernardine Renzi, a female Pythoness, having predicted the
death of the Pope, two Jesuits, Coltrano and Venissa, who were
suspected of having instigated her prophecies, were consigned
to the same prison. All that follows relating to the fate of
Ganganelli is of mere historic interest; his end is shrouded
in mystery, which has been as yet, and is likely to continue,
impenetrable. According to the revelations of Cardinal de
Bernis, Ganganelli was himself apprehensive of dying by
poison, and a sinister rumour respecting a cup of chocolate
with an infusion of 'Aqua de Tofana,' administered by a pious
attendant, was generally prevalent throughout Europe; but the
time has long since passed for an inquest over the deathbed of
Clement XIV."
_The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany
(Fraser's' Magazine, May, 1873)._
"All that follows the publication of the brief—the death of
Ganganelli, the fierce and yet unexhausted disputes about the
last year of his life, and the manner of his death—are to us
indescribably melancholy and repulsive. … We have
conflicting statements, both of which cannot be
true—churchman against churchman—cardinal against
cardinal—even, it should seem, pope against pope. On the one
side there is a triumph, hardly disguised, in the terrors, in
the sufferings, in the madness, which afflicted the later days
of Clement; on the other, the profoundest honour, the deepest
commiseration, for a wise and holy Pontiff, who, but for the
crime of his enemies, might have enjoyed a long reign of peace
and respect and inward satisfaction. There a protracted agony
of remorse in life and anticipated damnation—that damnation,
if not distinctly declared, made dubious or averted only by a
special miracle:—here an apotheosis—a claim, at least, to
canonization. There the judgment of God pronounced in language
which hardly affects regret; here more than insinuations, dark
charges of poison against persons not named, but therefore
involving in the ignominy of possible guilt a large and
powerful party. Throughout the history of the Jesuits it is
this which strikes, perplexes, and appals the dispassionate
student. The intensity with which they were hated surpasses
even the intensity with which they hated. Nor is this depth of
mutual animosity among those or towards those to whom the
Jesuits were most widely opposed, the Protestants, and the
adversaries of all religion; but among Roman Catholics—and
those not always Jansenists or even Gallicans—among the most
ardent assertors of the papal supremacy, monastics of other
orders, parliaments, statesmen, kings, bishops, cardinals.
Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as
feeling is concerned, the Roman Catholic world, with a schism
deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant
against Protestant, Episcopacy and Independency, Calvinism and
Arminianism, Puseyism and Evangelicism. The two parties
counterwork each other, write against each other in terms of
equal acrimony, misunderstand each other, misrepresent each
other, accuse and recriminate upon each other, with the same
reckless zeal, in the same unmeasured language—each
inflexibly, exclusively identifying his own cause with that of
true religion, and involving its adversaries in one sweeping
and remorseless condemnation. To us the question of the death
of Clement XIV. is purely of historical interest. It is
singular enough that Protestant writers are cited as alone
doing impartial justice to the Jesuits and their enemies: the
Compurgators of the 'Company of Jesus' are Frederick II. and
the Encyclopedists. Outcast from Roman Catholic Europe, they
found refuge in Prussia, and in the domains of Catherine II.,
from whence they disputed the validity and disobeyed the
decrees of the Pope."
_Clement XIV. and the Jesuits
(Quarterly Review, September, 1848.)_
"The Jesuit Order remained in abeyance for a period of
forty-two years, until Pius VII. on his return to Rome, after
his liberation from the captivity he endured under Napoleon I.
at Fontainebleau, issued his brief of August 7, 1814,
'solicitudo omnium,' by which he authorised the surviving
members of the Order again to live according to the rules of
their founder, to admit novices, and to found colleges. With
singular fatuity the Papal Edict for the restoration of the
Jesuits, contradicting its own title, assigns on the face of
the document as the principal reason for its being issued the
recommendation contained in the gracious despatch of August
11, 1800, received from Paul, the then reigning Emperor of the
Russias. We have the histories of all nations concurring that
Paul was notoriously mad, and within six months from the date
of that gracious despatch he was strangled in his palace by
the members of his own Court, as the only possible means, as
they conceived, of rescuing the Empire from his insane and
vicious despotism. In return probably for the successful
intercession of Paul, Thadeus Brzozowski, a Pole by birth but
a Russian subject, was elected the first General of the
restored order. We find a striking comment on his
recommendation in the Imperial Ukase of his successor, the
Emperor Alexander, by which, in June 1817, he banished the
Jesuits from all his dominions. Spain, the scene of their
former ignominious treatment, was, under the degraded rule of
the Ferdinandian dynasty, the first country to which they were
recalled; but they were soon again expelled by the National
Cortes. Our limits here confine us to a simple category of
their subsequent expulsions from Roman Catholic States: from
France in 1831, from Saxony in the same year, from Portugal
again in 1834, from Spain again in 1835, from France again in
1845, from the whole of Switzerland, including the Roman
Catholic Cantons, in 1847, and in 1848 from Bavaria and other
German States. In the Revolution of 1848, they were expelled
from every Italian State, even from the territories of the
Pope; but on the counter Revolution they returned, to be again
expelled in 1859 from Lombardy, Parma, Modena and the
Legations. They have had to endure even a more recent
vicissitude, for, in December 1871, a measure relating to the
vexed question, the Union of Church and State, received the
sanction of the National Council (Bundesrath) of Switzerland,
by which the Jesuits were prohibited from settling in the
country, from interfering even in education, or from founding
or re-establishing colleges throughout the Federal
territories. They have thus within a recent period received
sentence of banishment from almost every Roman Catholic
Government, but they still remain in Rome."
_The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany
(Fraser's Magazine, May, 1873)._
{1895}
JESUITS: A. D. 1847.
The question of Expulsion in Switzerland.
The Sonderbund and the war of religions.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.
JESUITS: A. D. 1880.
The law against Jesuit schools in the French Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.
----------JESUITS: End--------
JESUS, Uncertainty of, the date of the birth of.
See JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.
JEU-DE-PAUME, The Oath at the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JUNE).
JEUNESSE DOREE, of the Anti-Jacobin reaction in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).
----------JEWS: Start--------
JEWS.
The National Names.
There have been two principal conjectures as to the origin of
the name Hebrews, by which the descendants of Abraham were
originally known. One derives the name from a progenitor,
Eber; the other finds its origin in a Semitic word signifying
"over," or "crossed over." In the latter view, the name was
applied by the Canaanites to people who came into their
country from beyond the Euphrates. Ewald, who rejects this
latter hypothesis, says: "While there is nothing to show that
the name emanated from strangers, nothing is more manifest
than that the nation called themselves by it and had done so
as long as memory could reach; indeed this is the only one of
their names that appears to have been current in the earliest
times. The history of this name shows that it must have been
most frequently used in the ancient times, before that branch
of the Hebrews which took the name of Israel became dominant,
but that after the time of the Kings it entirely disappeared
from ordinary speech, and was only revived in the period
immediately before Christ, like many other names of the
primeval times, through the prevalence of a learned mode of
regarding antiquity, when it came afresh into esteem through
the reverence then felt for Abraham."
_H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
volume 1, page 284._
After the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian
captivity—the returned exiles being mostly of the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin—"the name of Judah took the predominant
place in the national titles. As the primitive name of
'Hebrew' had given way to the historical name of Israel, so
that of Israel now gave way to the name of 'Judæan' or 'Jew,'
so full of praise and pride, of reproach and scorn. 'It was
born,' as their later historian [Josephus] truly observes, 'on
the day when they came out from Babylon.'"
_A. P. Stanley,
Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church,
volume 3, page 101._
JEWS:
The early Hebrew history.
"Of course, in the abstract, it is possible that such persons
as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have existed. One can
imagine that such and such incidents in the accounts regarding
them really took place, and were handed down by tradition. …
But our present investigation does not concern the question
whether there existed men of those names, but whether the
progenitors of Israel and of the neighbouring nations who are
represented in Genesis are historical personages. It is this
question which we answer in the negative. Must we then deny
all historical value to the narratives of the patriarchs? By
no means. What we have to do is to make proper use of them.
They teach us what the Israelites thought as to their
affinities with the tribes around them, and as to the manner
of their own settlement in the land of their abode. If we
strip them of their genealogical form, and at the same time
take into consideration the influence which Israel's self-love
must have exercised over the representation of relationships
and facts, we have an historical kernel left. … The
narratives in Genesis, viewed and used in this way, lead us to
the following conception of Israel's early history. Canaan was
originally inhabited by a number of tribes—of Semitic origin,
as we shall perceive presently—who applied themselves to the
rearing of cattle, to agriculture, or to commerce, according
to the nature of the districts in which they were established.
The countries which were subsequently named after Edom, Ammon,
and Moab, also had their aboriginal inhabitants, the Horites,
the Zamzummites, and the Emites. Whilst all these tribes
retained possession of their dwelling-places, and the
inhabitants of Canaan especially had reached a tolerably high
stage of civilization and development, there occurred a
Semitic migration, which issued from Arrapachitis (Arphacsad,
Ur Casdim), and moved on in a south-westerly direction. The
countries to the east and the south of Canaan were gradually
occupied by these intruders, the former inhabitants being
either expelled or subjugated; Ammon, Moab, Ishmael, and Edom
became the ruling nations in those districts. In Canaan the
situation was different. The tribes which—at first closely
connected with the Edomites, but afterwards separated from
them—had turned their steps towards Canaan, did not find
themselves strong enough either to drive out, or to exact
tribute from, the original inhabitants; they continued their
wandering life among them, and lived upon the whole at peace
with them. But a real settlement was still their aim. When,
therefore, they had become more numerous and powerful, through
the arrival of a number of kindred settlers from
Mesopotamia—represented in tradition by the army with which
Jacob returns to Canaan—they resumed their march in the same
south-westerly direction, until at length they took possession
of fixed habitations in the land of Goshen, on the borders of
Egypt."
_A. Kuenen,
The Religion of Israel,
chapter 2 (volume 1)._
"In the oldest extant record respecting Abraham, Genesis xiv.,
… we see him acting as a powerful domestic prince, among
many similar princes, who like him held Canaan in possession;
not calling himself King, like Melchizedek, the priest-king of
Salem, because he was the father and protector of his house,
living with his family and bondmen in the open country, yet
equal in power to the petty Canaanite kings. …
{1896}
Detached as this account may be, it is at least evident from
it that the Canaanites were at that time highly civilised,
since they had a priest-king like Melchizedek, whom Abraham
held in honour, but that they were even then so weakened by
endless divisions and by the emasculating influence of that
culture itself, as either to pay tribute to the warlike
nations of the northeast (as the five kings of the cities of
the Dead Sea had done for twelve years before they rebelled,
ver. 4), or to seek for some valiant descendants of the
northern lands living in their midst, who in return for
certain concessions and services promised them protection and
defence. … This idea furnishes the only tenable historical
view of the migration of Abraham and his kindred. They did not
conquer the land, nor at first hold it by mere force of arms,
like the four north-eastern kings from whose hand Abraham
delivered Lot, Genesis xiv. They advanced as leaders of small
bands, with their fencible servants and the herds, at first
rather sought or even invited by the old inhabitants of the
land, as good warriors and serviceable allies, than forcing
themselves upon them. Thus they took up their abode and
obtained possessions among them, but were always wishing to
migrate farther, even into Egypt. … Little as we are able to
prove all the details of that migration from the north towards
Egypt, which probably continued for centuries, it may with
great certainty be conceived as on the whole similar to the
gradual advance of many other northern nations; as of the
Germans towards Rome, and of the Turks in these same regions
in the Middle Ages. … We now understand that Abraham's name
can designate only one of the most important and oldest of the
Hebrew immigrations. But since Abraham had so early attained a
name glorious among the Hebrews advancing towards the south,
and since he was everything especially to the nation of Israel
which arose out of this immigration, and to their nearest
kindred, his name came to be the grand centre and
rallying-point of all the memory of those times."
_H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 1, section 1, C, part 3._
JEWS:
The Children of Israel in Egypt.
"It has been very generally supposed that Abraham's visit to
Egypt took place under the reign of one of the kings of the
twelfth dynasty [placed by Brugsch B. C. 2466-2266], but which
king has not yet been satisfactorily made out. … Some
Biblical critics have considered that Amenemha III. was king
of Egypt when Abraham came there, and others that Usertsen I.
was king, and that Amenemha was the Pharaoh of the time of
Joseph. … It is generally accepted now that Joseph was sold
into Egypt at the time when the Hyksos were in power [and
about 1750 B. C.]; and it is also generally accepted that the
Exodus took place after the death of Rameses II. and under the
reign of Merenptah, or Meneptah. Now the children of Israel
were in captivity in Egypt for 400 or 430 years; and as they
went out of Egypt after the death of Rameses II., it was
probably some time about the year 1350 B. C. There is little
doubt that the Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites so
shamefully was Rameses II."
_E. A. W. Budge,
The Dwellers on the Nile,
chapter 4._
"It is stated by George the Syncellus, a writer whose
extensive learning and entire honesty are unquestionable, that
the synchronism of Joseph with Apepi, the last king of the
only known Hyksos dynasty, was 'acknowledged by all.' The best
modern authorities accept this view, if not as clearly
established, at any rate as in the highest degree probable,
and believe that it was Apepi who made the gifted Hebrew his
prime minister, who invited his father and his brethren to
settle in Egypt with their households, and assigned to them
the land of Goshen for their residence."
_G. Rawlinson,
History of Ancient Egypt,
chapter 19 (volume 2)._
"The new Pharaoh, 'who knew not Joseph,' who adorned the city
of Ramses, the capital of the Tanitic nome, and the city of
Pithom, the capital of what was afterwards the Sethroitic
nome, with temple-cities, is no other, can be no other, than
Ramessu II. or Rameses—the Sesostris of the Greeks, B. C.
1350, of whose buildings at Zoan the monuments and the
papyrus-rolls speak in complete agreement. … Ramessu is the
Pharaoh of the oppression, and the father of that unnamed
princess, who found the child Moses exposed in the bulrushes
on the bank of the river. … If Ramses-Sesostris … must be
regarded beyond all doubt as the Pharaoh under whom the Jewish
legislator Moses first saw the light, so the chronological
relations—having regard to the great age of the two
contemporaries, Ramses II. and Moses—demand that Mineptah
[his son] should in all probability be acknowledged as the
Pharaoh of the Exodus."
_H. Brugsch-Bey,
History of Egypt under the Pharaohs,
chapter 14._