THE FIRST CENTURY OF JESUITISM
As the long reign of General Acquaviva was followed by the almost
equally long reign of General Vitelleschi, it will be convenient
once more to take his tenure of office as a stage in the history of
the Society, and consider the action of the fathers in their various
provinces. The death of Vitelleschi, in 1645, will then complete the
first century from the establishment of the Society, and we may pause
to deduce from the enormous mass of detail a few general truths in
regard to Jesuit character. From that point onward I propose to follow
the fortunes of the Society continuously in each province down to the
year of its suppression in the eighteenth century.
The election of Father Mutio Vitelleschi did not pass without incident.
The Spanish electors determined to make an effort to recover the
supreme office from the Italians, and their tactics were not edifying.
When they reached Rome, at an early date, they learned that Vitelleschi
was the favoured candidate, and they proceeded to describe him to the
various voters, as they arrived, in most uncomplimentary language. He
seems to have been a mild and inoffensive old man, of little ability
and no distinction, a Roman by birth. There is, doubtless, a good deal
of exaggeration in the rancorous charge of the Spaniards, that he was
worldly and ambitious and had hitherto been chiefly occupied with the
cultivation of wealthy ladies. When these statements did not seem to
affect his prospect of election, the Spanish fathers appealed to the
Spanish and French ambassadors; and, when the ambassadors declined to
assist them, they sought the Pope and confided to him the vices of
Father Vitelleschi. Paul V. genially dismissed them with an assurance
that, if he were such as they described him, he could have no hope of
securing the votes of forty of the shrewdest and most religious members
of the Society. In point of fact, he received thirty-nine votes, and he
wisely dissuaded the Congregation from inflicting on the Spaniards the
punishment which his admirers demanded. I may add that it now took more
than a hundred decrees of the Congregation to regulate the disorderly
life of the Society; though we shall still find it singularly
unaffected by this mass of stern legislation.
The long generalship of Mutio Vitelleschi (1615-1645) is, says
Crétineau-Joly, "a monotonous stretch of felicity." When, however,
we turn to the official Jesuit historian, Cordara, who continues
the _Historia Sociatatis_, we find that the year which immediately
followed the election was marked by serious disturbances or scandals
at Castellone, Genoa, Artois, Paris, Lyons, Freiburg, and Worms, and
in Sicily, Béarn, Castile, Poland, and Hesse-Cassel. We shall further
see that the monotony of the thirty years is relieved by a scandalous
bankruptcy of the fathers at Seville, a temporary expulsion from Malta,
Bohemia, and Hungary, a combined attack upon the Society by the leading
universities of Europe, the publication of the _Secret Instructions_,
the complete extinction of the great Japanese mission and the new
mission in Abyssinia, and a quite normal succession of scandals and
tribulations in France and Catholic Germany. The serious historian
cannot therefore dismiss the generalship of Vitelleschi with a short
assurance that it was a period of virtue, heroism, and prosperity. We
must, as before, carefully consider the life of the Society in each of
its provinces.
The record of the Society in Italy is an uninteresting chronicle of
small scandals and unobtrusive work. The former class may be briefly
illustrated by the adventures of the Neapolitan Jesuit, Father Onufrio
de Vermi, in the year 1623. The historian tells us that the honours
awarded him by his illustrious penitent the Count d'Elda so inflated
his spirit that he rebelled against his authorities. Passing over to
Spain, he contrived to secure a bishopric from the queen, and was
expelled from the Society on the charge of ambition. It is needless to
quote such trifles as these from the chronicles. The outstanding event
at Rome under the rule of Vitelleschi was the canonisation of Ignatius
and Xavier in 1622. Their place in the distinguished gallery it would
be invidious to question, but the curious student of such matters would
find it interesting to trace the appearance of the miracles which were
needed to secure canonisation for them. In the case of Xavier, whose
life was spent in the Far East, it would be easy to adduce evidence of
miracles, and difficult to examine it. The miracles of Ignatius are
more interesting. When Ribadeneira, who knew him, first wrote his life,
he seemed not to have heard of any miracles; when, however, forty years
later, the question of canonisation was mooted, Father Ribadeneira
corrected his defect by publishing a shorter life which shone with
miracles. As time went on, the monarchs of Europe--wherever the Jesuits
had influence--began to press the Pope to canonise Ignatius and Xavier,
and in 1622 the Jesuits obtained that supreme assurance of the sanctity
of their founders. It need hardly be said that they illuminated Europe
with their festivities, and made considerable profit by the honour,
which they represented as unsought by themselves.
The island of Malta was the scene of one of the storms which broke upon
the Society in this half-century. The fathers had established a college
at Lavaletta in 1592, and prospered there until 1632, when a sudden
and mysterious tempest swept them, for a time, out of the island. The
Jesuit version of the adventure is that the Grand Master Lascaris had
attempted to curb the well-known licence of the knights and had, at
their protest, thrown the responsibility of the reform on the Jesuits.
When the carnival arrived, and the knights were hampered in their
amusements, some of them took the revenge of masquerading as Jesuits in
the gay throng; and when the Master imprisoned them, at the entreaty of
the Jesuits, they forced the doors of the jail and compelled Lascaris
to exile the Jesuits. This story is not implausable, but we are equally
bound to notice the different version put forward by their opponents.
They say that the Jesuits had incurred general contempt by hiding great
stores of food in their house during a famine (as we have seen them do
in Paris) and by their indulgence in vice. One is disposed to think
that the former charge cannot be entirely devoid of foundation. It
is singular that, when the French king, at the request of the French
Jesuits, forced the knights to readmit the fathers, the two leading
Jesuits were not suffered to return to the island.
The most serious event of the half-century was, however, the bankruptcy
of one of the Jesuit houses at Seville, and in this case we have
serious independent evidence. The condition of the Spanish province
evidently remained unchanged in spite of "visitations" from Rome
and decrees of the Congregation. Their generous patron Philip III.,
whose dominion they had so materially helped to enlarge, died in 1621,
but his successor Philip IV. was even more generous to them. They
prospered, and continued to deteriorate. We may not be disposed to
admit implicitly all the sordid stories about them which we find in
the _Teatro Jesuitico_, one of the fiercest anti-Jesuit works of the
period,[18] but we have independent evidence of such episodes as the
murder of a Spanish Jesuit by an injured husband. Instead, however, of
wasting time on these isolated disorders, it will be enough to examine
the story of the famous bankruptcy.
One of the seven residences which the fathers had at Seville failed in
1644, and acknowledged a debt of two and a quarter million francs. The
Jesuit system, it may be recalled, was to place the administration of
the house in the hands of a "Lay Coadjutor" (or lay-brother, who had
not made a vow of poverty), and their defence in this singular case is
that Brother Villar, who held this charge at Seville, borrowed large
sums of money and invested them in shipping and other concerns, without
the knowledge of the fathers. His speculations proved disastrous, and
the fathers found themselves bankrupt. Crétineau-Joly genially closes
the episode with an assurance that the fathers found the money and
expelled the offending brother from the fraternity.
That the brother was expelled is quite certain, but I can find no
trace that the Jesuits, in spite of their great collective wealth in
Spain, ever paid more than a partial dividend, and the whole of the
circumstances merit consideration. That we should be asked to believe
that a community of Spanish Jesuits, the keenest business-men in the
whole Society, suffered a lay brother to conduct vast operations, and
to borrow large sums from their own followers in Seville, without their
having the least knowledge how he conducted their affairs, is little
short of impertinence. We have, however, positive knowledge that the
Jesuit version is most untruthful. Not only does Bishop Palafox, one
of their most conscientious adversaries, give a different version in
his second letter to Pope Innocent X., but a paper written by one of
the creditors and submitted to the King of Spain (who favoured the
Jesuits) has survived, and must command our confidence. From this
memoir or petition, which is reproduced in the _Annales de la Société
des soi-disans Jésuites_ (iii. 976), I propose to take the facts of the
scandal.
From communities of nuns and the pious laity of the town, both rich
and poor, Villar had borrowed sums amounting in all to 450,000 ducats,
and invested them in unwise speculations. Villar protested throughout
that he had acted under the directions of the fathers, and it would be
quite impossible for him to borrow so extensively among their admirers
without their knowing it; even if we could suppose that, contrary
to all custom, they left their affairs blindly in the hands of a
lay-brother. In 1644 the fathers summoned their creditors, declared
themselves bankrupt, and proposed a settlement. Some of the creditors
endeavoured to secure a payment in full by representing that the
Jesuits would suffer severely in credit if they did not draw on the
immense resources of their Society to discharge the debt. "The loss
of our credit does not trouble me," said the rector; "as the proverb
says, the raven cannot be blacker than its wings." The creditors,
however, refused to yield, and a receiver was appointed. The petition
to the king affirms that this official found among their papers certain
letters which plainly showed that they had directed Villar, and secret
instructions for the dishonest diversion of legacies they had received
on condition of paying out certain monies.
The next step of the Jesuits was to secure the appointment of a judge
who would favour themselves. Though there was grave distress among the
poorer creditors, this official declared that three-fourths of the
Jesuit assets were sacred funds, and that little remained for division.
The creditors appealed to the Royal Council, the judge was dismissed
for corrupt procedure, and the whole of the property was declared to be
"lay" for the purpose of the case. Indeed, the higher court declared
that the action of the Jesuits was "infamous," and would, on the part
of a private individual, merit a capital sentence. Yet in 1647 we
find this petitioner still appealing for a discharge of the debt, and
complaining that the Jesuits are trying to induce the more pious of
their creditors to agree to a composition.
The significance of this ugly episode does not consist in its
illustration of the conduct of a single community of Jesuits. As such
it would not be entitled to lengthy consideration in serious history.
The more unpleasant feature is that it involves the whole of the
Jesuits of Castile, and, in spite of the fact that--the petitioner
says--they owed a collective debt of two million ducats, they formed
one of the most numerous and wealthy provinces of the Society and
dwelt in most imposing establishments. They clearly trusted that their
colleagues would evade the discharge of a legitimate debt, and they
incurred a storm of anger and disdain. The Roman house itself had taken
vast sums from Spain, yet it permitted the local Jesuits to resist
their obligations for several years, relying on a purely legal and
worldly view of the local responsibility.
The Jesuits of Portugal, which was still under the dominion of Spain,
exhibit the same prosperity and worldly temper, and their behaviour in
connection with the revolution of 1640 was sinuous and unattractive. In
1635, when the agitation began for the restoration of the Portuguese
throne, they punished some of their number who sided with the
revolutionaries. As time went on, however, and the movement gathered
strength, they wavered and temporised in the most amusing fashion; and
so shrewdly did they follow the national movement that the successful
completion of the revolution in 1640 found them entirely on the side of
the Portuguese people.
When we survey the thirty years' life of the Society in France under
the rule of Vitelleschi, we get much the same impression of poor
character, or character warped by casuistry. Under so Catholic a
monarch as Louis XIII. and so powerful a statesman as Richelieu we do
not expect to find any of the large political intrigue in which they
had indulged in earlier years. We find no grave scandal, no exalted
virtue, no religious heroism. Their life is a chronicle of assiduous
teaching and ministration, punctuated by unworthy manoeuvres here
and there to obtain power or repress rivals, and never rising above
mediocrity. A few words on their relations to the court and Richelieu,
to the bishops and universities, and to new reformers like Cardinal de
Bérulle and St. Vincent de Paul, will suffice for our purpose.
The petty intrigues and successive dismissals of the Jesuit confessors
to the court are not of sufficient consequence for us to linger over
them. In 1624 Richelieu became first minister of France and put an end
to their political pretensions. In that year they had again incurred
the anger of the university. Henri de Bourbon, illegitimate son of
Henry IV., had been appointed bishop of Metz. He had been educated by
the Jesuits, and was induced to make his "act of theology" in their
college, instead of at the Sorbonne, as was customary, and the whole
court had been attracted to and entertained in the college. Richelieu
had, however, no idea of espousing the quarrel of the university;
he would quickly enough come into conflict with the Jesuits, as he
was determined to reverse at the first opportunity the pro-Spanish
policy of Marie de Medici and her clerical advisers. His first act
was to drive the Pope's troops out of the Valtelline and defy Spain,
and the Jesuits contented themselves with contributing anonymously
to the shower of violent ultramontane pamphlets which now fell on
the minister. Two of them especially, written (it seems) by Father
Keller, the Jesuit confessor of Maximilian of Bavaria, and entitled
_Mysteria Politica_ and _Admonitio ad Regem Christianissimum_, gave him
great annoyance. They were condemned and burned, together with Father
Santarelli's _De Hæresi_ (1626), but Richelieu was almost exhausted by
the violence of the first storm his policy brought upon him, and he did
not take the extreme measure against the Jesuits which he was said to
contemplate. It is clear that they realised his power and resolved to
be discreet. After a fruitless appeal to the young king against him,
they signed a series of propositions drawn up by the Sorbonne, and
resigned themselves to the patriotic policy of the great minister.
The position of the Jesuits during the next two decades was one of
great prosperity but acute dissatisfaction, on account of their
political impotence. They had (in 1627) 13,195 pupils in their schools
in the Paris province alone, and more than that number in the remaining
French provinces. Their opponents were, however, numerous and active,
and Richelieu was not unwilling to see this check on their ambition. We
find Father Suffren, the king's confessor, complaining in 1626 of the
number and violence of their enemies, and adding: "Few of our friends
have the courage openly to undertake to defend us." What we shall see
presently of their relations to the bishops and universities will throw
some light on this. There can be little doubt that Richelieu despised
the Jesuits, but preferred to have them under his eye, engaged in the
teaching of the young, rather than as open opponents. He punished
them ruthlessly when they interfered in politics. He had Father
Monod, confessor to Christiane of Savoy, imprisoned for his political
intrigues, and when Father Caussin, who was appointed confessor to
Louis in 1637, was discovered by Richelieu's spies to be making a
secret and insidious attempt to turn the king against Richelieu, he was
promptly exiled. Louis had shown Caussin a list, supplied by Richelieu,
of Jesuit theologians, who approved the policy of the minister. "Ah,
sire," said the Jesuit, piqued at this astute move, "they had a church
to build."
In a word, the Jesuits were politically powerless under Richelieu,
and gave him little serious anxiety. It seems rather that he induced
many of them, however insincerely, to support him in his policy--a
policy which was angrily repudiated by Rome and the Catholic powers. In
1638 he threatened to cast off the yoke of the papacy, and, by making
some of the gravest concessions demanded by the Reformers, unite the
Huguenots and Catholics of France in an independent Gallican Church.
If we may believe a story given in Bayle's _Dictionary_ (article
"Amyrant"), which was written shortly afterwards, he actually used the
Jesuit Amyrant to negotiate with a leading Huguenot divine, and promise
to surrender such Catholic doctrines as purgatory and the invocation
of the saints.[19]Two years later we find a Jesuit enlisted in the
regiment of pamphleteers who defended Richelieu's singular policy. It
is perhaps, in view of their constant policy toward the Reformation,
one of the most curious instances of their power of adaptation to
circumstances.
I have said that Richelieu despised the Jesuits, and his correspondence
with Father (later Cardinal) de Bérulle suggests this. De Bérulle, a
man of exalted character and piety, was the founder of the Oratorian
priests, and a valued friend of the minister. We have a letter that he
wrote to Richelieu in 1623, which contains, in the mild and charitable
language of a saint, a very painful indictment of the French Jesuits.
Their jealousy of the new congregation and determination to prevent its
growth led to some extremely unworthy conduct. In town after town, as
de Bérulle describes in detail, the Oratorians removed the prejudice
against the Jesuits, and even surrendered property to them, and the
Jesuits then repaid their benefactors with slander and intrigue. At
Dieppe the governor refused to allow the Jesuits to found a college,
but gladly admitted the Oratorians. A Jesuit then asked the hospitality
of the Oratorians, and used the opportunity to intrigue against them,
in favour of the Society, among the citizens. A letter in which he
informed his colleagues of his hope of winning the college from the
Oratorians was intercepted and sent to de Bérulle. At Paris the
King offered the Oratorians a hotel, but the Jesuits intervened and
prevented the gift. They told "strange and atrocious calumnies" of de
Bérulle at the court, and at Bordeaux they proposed to indite him for
heresy. The intrigue covers the whole of France during more than ten
years, and betrays a very general lack of moral sensitiveness among the
French Jesuits. In a similar, though less vigorous, way they attempted
to hinder the growth of the new congregation of priests founded by St.
Vincent de Paul.[20]
A more general view of the conduct of the French Jesuits from 1615 to
1645 does little to alter this unfavourable impression. Even in the
pages of their French apologist their record of service is singularly
mediocre; they taught tens of thousands of pupils and preached to
hundreds of congregations, is all that one can say. On the other hand,
when we turn to the numerous facts which the French apologist has
discreetly omitted, we find them making unedifying efforts to extend
their work and influence. In 1620 the Jesuits of Poitiers defy the
bishop, who lays an interdict on their church; the bishop has decreed
that his people must attend their parish churches once in three weeks
at least, and the Jesuits reply from the pulpit that it is enough if
the people attend _their_ church. At Angoulême, in 1622, they secure,
through Father Coton and by a secret contract with the mayor, the
monopoly of teaching and the control of the university. They continue
for four years to defy the bishop and stir the people against him,
although they are condemned by Cardinal de Sourdis and their contract
is declared void by the Parlement, until the bishop is compelled to
excommunicate them. In 1623 they have similar trouble, due to their
determination to found petty universities at Toulouse, Pontoise, and
Tournon, and all the universities of France combine in what the French
apologist calls a "ferocious war" against them. A few years later
they obtain from the King letters permitting them to found a house at
Troyes, "at the request of the inhabitants." The inhabitants were so
little minded to invite them, and so angry at the fraud, that they kept
them out of Troyes, in spite of all their efforts, for a hundred years.
Their record in France is full of such details. Toward the end of the
period it begins to tell of the famous struggle with the Jansenists;
but we will consider this story in full in a later chapter.
An incident that occurred in the province of Lorraine, which was
annexed by Richelieu in 1633, deserves special consideration. The
impetuous and sensuous young Duke, Charles IV., chose the Jesuit
Cheminot as his confessor in 1637, and a week later, although his
first wife still lived, he married the Princess Béatrix de Cusance.
Instead of retiring from the court, which was at once assailed from
all parts of France for the bigamy, Cheminot wrote a casuistic memoir
to prove that the marriage was valid, and clung to the duke for six
years. The misconduct of an individual Jesuit is, as I have said, not
matter for serious history, and, if it were true that Cheminot defied
his own superiors, there would be no occasion to dwell on it. But the
correspondence published by Crétineau-Joly shows plainly that the
Jesuit authorities acquiesced in Cheminot's position for many years.
We find Charles writing to General Vitelleschi in 1639, in friendly
terms, to complain that some of the other Jesuits are hostile to his
accommodating confessor. Three years later we find Charles declaring
to Cheminot that he will not grant him permission to retire, as his
General "presses" him to do; as if a Jesuit needed such permission. It
was only in 1643, when the scandal was known to all Europe, that the
Roman authorities excommunicated Cheminot. They had waited five years
in the hope that they would not be compelled to sacrifice a place in a
ducal court.
Their fortunes in Belgium and Holland also were less romantic than they
had been in earlier years. The settlement of Belgium as a Catholic
province enabled them to spread over it with easy prosperity, and
obtain a very large share in the education of the young. The Flemish
fathers made a singular contribution to the literature of the Society,
which has given its more sober admirers much embarrassment. In the
year 1636, which they chose to regard as the centenary of the Society,
they published a work, the _Imago Primi Sæculi_, in which they gave,
by pen and pencil, a marvellous account of the first hundred years of
the Society's life. Its progress and virtues were put on the highest
scale of miraculous heroism; the Jesuits were represented as a troop of
angels transferred to the planet earth in the crisis of its religious
development. As, however, the modern apologist for the Jesuits
represents the work as a "touching fiction" and "pious dithyramb,"
we need not give it serious attention. Undoubtedly it was imposed on
Belgium and other countries at the time as veracious history.
M. Crétineau-Joly is not so candid when he turns to Holland. He marks
how, in spite of the heretical atmosphere, the Jesuits have planted
colonies at Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Leyden, Harlem, Delft,
Rotterdam, Gouda, Hoorn, Alkmaer, Harlingen, Groningen, Bolsward,
Zutphen, Nimegues, and Vianen; how they mingle with the Spanish troops
and board their vessels in the war; how they press on to Denmark, and
are seen everywhere as the fearless "standard-bearers of the Church."
It was, perhaps, natural that he should be indisposed to mar this
picture with an account of the relations of the Jesuits to the secular
clergy; but, since our purpose is to attain a just and complete view
of the Jesuit character, we are compelled to consider it. During forty
years they maintained a struggle similar to that they had conducted in
England in the days of Elizabeth.
The secular clergy of Holland pressed for the appointment of a
bishop, and the Jesuits used all their resources to prevent such an
appointment, since it threatened their ascendancy. When a priest named
Sasbold was named for the office, they made a scandalous attack on his
character; and when, in 1602, he was appointed Archbishop of Utrecht,
they had his name changed to Archbishop of Philippi. Until his death
in 1614 they conducted an unceasing intrigue against Sasbold, and they
first endeavoured to prevent the appointment of a successor, and then
transferred their rancorous hostility to him. They had been banished
from Holland in 1612, but they again secured toleration, and by 1628
there were seventy Jesuits in the country. The struggle against the
archbishop continued all through the period, in spite of several papal
injunctions that they were to obey him; but it is unnecessary to enter
into all the details. We need not question the bravery of the Jesuits
as standard-bearers of the Church, but it is impossible to admire their
efforts to prevent the employment of other standard-bearers. Their work
was, in point of fact, less effective than that of the secular clergy,
because the Dutch Protestants hated and distrusted them. They were
found in 1638 to be implicated in a political plot to introduce the
Spaniards, and two of them were tortured and executed.
Since the period we are considering coincides with the Thirty Years'
War (1618-1648), we naturally find that the record of the Jesuits in
Germany is full of life and adventure. Their share in bringing about
that disastrous and paralysing struggle cannot be measured by the
historian. Now that the world realises the baneful effect of that war
and of the Catholic policy of intolerance which led to it, in retarding
the development of European civilisation, the Jesuit authorities are
not likely ever to publish such documents in their archives as would
reveal their activity. We must be guided by two chief considerations.
In the first place, the general historian can trace the movements
which led to the outbreak of war without any reference to the Jesuits,
and is therefore not disposed to think that their intrigues were an
essential element in the incitement of it; on the other hand, however,
the Jesuits were the most earnest and insistent advocates of the harsh
Catholic policy which occasioned the war, and they had considerable
influence over the Catholic leaders. Ferdinand II., Maximilian of
Bavaria, and Wallenstein had been trained in Jesuit schools; Tilly had
actually entered the Society, but withdrawn before he had taken the
vows. Jesuits swarmed in the Catholic camp, especially about the tent
of Tilly, fired the soldiers to their work, and advanced in the rear of
the army to occupy whatever towns fell to their arms.
The war began, it will be remembered, in Bohemia, and here the Jesuits
were very clearly interested. When the Protestants cast off the yoke
of the Emperor in 1618, they swept the Jesuits from their country and
burned some of their colleges. We can very well imagine the plaints
of the Jesuits at the courts of Ferdinand and Maximilian, and are
not surprised to learn that eighteen Jesuits accompanied Tilly's
troops when they came to subdue Bohemia. It was the beginning of the
war. Similarly, when Bethlen Gabor took Hungary in 1622, one of his
first measures was to expel the Jesuits; and the victorious Swedes
had expelled them from Livonia in the preceding year. It is, however,
unnecessary here to follow them through the long course of the Thirty
Years' War. They retreated and advanced with the soldiers of the
Catholic League, died of plague in the camp or fell under the sabres
of the heretics, and maintained the struggle to the end with all the
energy which non-combatants could exert. There were even occasions,
as at the siege of Prague, when they took arms and fought desperately
in the van of the Catholic troops. The alliance of France with the
Protestants was a bitter disappointment to them, and they were among
the few in Europe who profoundly deplored the Peace of Westphalia
(1648), which at last gave a just liberty to Protestantism in Germany.
The war, as conceived by them, was a costly and lamentable failure.
I have said that they fiercely resented the attitude of Richelieu; yet,
it is curious to note, they took a singular advantage of it in their
own interest. One of the articles of the treaty which Richelieu made
with the northern heretics provided that after their victories they
should respect Jesuit settlements. Crétineau-Joly reproduces a letter
in which Louis XIII. reminds his Protestant allies of this provision.
The French apologist would have us believe that the agreement was
distasteful to the Jesuits themselves,--on this point he quotes no
documents,--but we should find it hard to conceive Richelieu making
so exacting a demand of the Protestants if the Jesuits were even
indifferent to it. It accords only too well with their sinuous and
accommodating policy.
Their work of education proceeded in the provinces which were not
ravaged by the troops; but even here they met much hostility and had
some disastrous experiences. It was during this period, in 1612, that
the famous _Secret Counsels_ ("Monita Privata") came to light and drew
a large amount of odium upon them. It is the general belief that this
book was written by a Polish priest and ex-Jesuit, Jerome Zahorowski,
whose bishop proceeded against him on that ground. Since, however,
manuscript copies of the work were afterwards discovered in the Jesuit
colleges at Prague, Paris, Roermond, Munich, and Paderborn, their
critics submit that it was a secret code of instructions issued by
the Roman authorities to their professed members, and that Zahorowski
merely published what the Society had already circulated in private.
This question must still remain open. The occurrence of so many
manuscript copies in Jesuit colleges is singular, but it is impossible
to prove that any of these were earlier than the printed edition of
1612.
If we regard the contents of the work, we find that it is, in almost
every paragraph, a summary of principles and tactics on which the
Jesuits actually proceeded in their pursuit of wealth and power;
but there is a callousness, at times a cynicism, in this deliberate
codification which makes one hesitate to think that it was written by
high Jesuit officials. It seems to me that Zahorowski at least recast
such instructions as were genuine, and intended to write a satire on
Jesuit procedure. It is incredible that the Roman authorities should
enjoin the fathers always to settle in wealthy towns, "because the aim
of our Society is to imitate Christ, our Saviour, who dwelt mainly at
Jerusalem," and it is difficult to believe that they expressly laid it
down that "everybody must be brought into a condition of dependence on
us," and that wealthy widows must "be allowed to have secret recreation
with those who please them." Nearly a fourth of the book is occupied
with instructions on the way to conciliate wealthy widows: notoriously,
one of the chief sections of Jesuit practice. Much of the remainder is
devoted to the conciliation of princes, and the drastic procedure to be
taken against apostates. There are few lines which do not describe the
well-known procedure of the Jesuits; but, in its actual form, at least,
the work seems to be a deliberate and just satire.
A second incident which brought much odium on the Jesuits in the
period occurred at Cracow. Here, as at so many places, the University,
conscious that the Jesuits wished to win the control of higher
education, kept a jealous eye on their school. In 1622 the fathers
endeavoured to evade the restrictions placed on them by including
in their celebration of the canonisation of St. Ignatius a public
discussion of certain theses. The university professors and students
prevented them from doing so, and a long and angry quarrel followed.
In 1626 a decree of the States-General of Poland (reproduced in
the _Mercure Jésuite_, ii. 312) closed the Jesuit school, and the
University sent a formal report to Louvain and other universities,
begging them to unite against the intrigues of the Jesuits. This
letter, dated 29th July 1627, contains very grave charges against the
Society, and considerably strengthened the opposition to them in the
university towns of Europe. It complains that the Jesuits sent their
pupils in arms against the university students, and, when a riot
occurred, induced the King to send troops against the students. As
grave trouble occurred about the same time at Louvain, Douai, Liège,
Salamanca, and other universities, there was a general concentration of
the professors throughout Europe in hostility to the Society. However
much we may suspect partiality or exaggeration in their severe charges,
it is clear that the Jesuits made unscrupulous efforts to capture the
universities.
And this feeling against them was strongly reinforced by their efforts
to secure the property of other monastic bodies. We saw how Ignatius
himself had set an example by endeavouring to get the estates of
the Benedictines in England, and how constantly this charge is made
against the Society. In 1629, Ferdinand II. ordered the Protestants
of his dominions to restore ecclesiastical property; and we learn
from the decree of Pope Urban VIII. that the Jesuits were "the chief
authors of the imperial edict." The Benedictines, Cistercians, and
Premonstratensians at once began to claim their property, and were not
a little agitated when the "chief authors" of the edict succeeded in
getting from the Pope an order that they were to share in the division.
The Emperor's confessor was, of course, a Jesuit (Lamormaini), and it
is admitted by their apologist that they secured the "best part" of
the restored property. To cover their lack of moral or legal title to
this property, the Jesuits freely reproached the older orders with
corruption and decadence, and a war of pamphlets was maintained for
many years. From these publications we learn some remarkable stories of
Jesuit procedure.
At Voltigerode in Saxony some Bernardine nuns had, in 1631, obtained
one of the restored houses. The Jesuit fathers persuaded them that
the building was unsafe, and, when the nuns retired, claimed it as
"abandoned property." The nuns returned, however, and a very lively
scene was witnessed. The Jesuits brought the police, and the nuns, who
clung valiantly to the seats of the chapel, were physically dragged
out of the building. The Cistercian monks afterwards took up the
case and secured the expulsion of the Jesuits. At Prague the Jesuits
coveted a handsome Cistercian abbey, and persuaded the Emperor that
only a half-dozen degenerate monks occupied the vast establishment. An
imperial commissary was sent, and found that there were sixty-one monks
and thirteen novices in the abbey. The angry Jesuits, who accompanied
the commissary, protested that the abbot had put the monastic dress
on his farm-labourers; but the Cistercians held their ground and
obtained the protection of the Emperor. The Vicar-General of the Order
of Cluny reported a large number of these fraudulent attempts of the
Jesuits to obtain the property of his monks; and we have civic and
ecclesiastical documents relating to great numbers of similar cases in
France, Germany, and Switzerland in the early part of the seventeenth
century.[21]
When we turn to the missionary field of the Society during this period,
we find a remarkable activity which would in itself merit a volume.
The casuistic methods of the Jesuits are applied in a singular way
to overcome the obstacles to their success, and devices are adopted
from which the modern missionary, of any denomination, would shrink
with astonishment. The simple fervour of a Xavier had, as we saw,
early given way to more calculating methods and political intrigue,
but the extent to which this diplomatic procedure was carried in the
seventeenth century brought a storm of criticism upon the Jesuits.
Here we have only to notice the beginning of the more unusual tactics,
and we will in a later chapter consider the missions in the height of
their prosperity and irregularity.
An amusing instance of this readiness to adopt questionable, and even
downright dishonest, practices in the service of religion is furnished
by the mission to the Hindoos. It appears that after all the hundred
years of activity in India, with a free and not very delicate use of
the Portuguese authority, the results were regarded as meagre and
unsatisfactory. Hitherto we have heard nothing but most optimistic
accounts of the work of the missionaries in India; but when the hour
comes, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for justifying a
new and strange policy, the Jesuits tell us that the effect of the
older policy had been slight, and that the high-caste Hindoos smiled
with disdain on the crowds of ignorant natives who had, on one pretext
or other, accepted baptism. In 1605 the Jesuit Robert de Nobili, an
Italian of noble birth and a nephew of Bellarmine, joined the Indian
mission and initiated the new policy.
Isolating himself from his colleagues before he became known in India,
he made a very close study of the customs and sacred writings of the
higher caste Hindoos, learned Tamil and Sanscrit, and after a few years
appeared before the people of India as a member of the penitential (or
highest) caste of the Saniassi. He lived apart, in a turf hut, and
abstained rigorously from flesh and fish. His head was shaved, save
for a single tuft of hair, and he had the yellow mark of the caste on
his forehead. Dressed in a flame-coloured robe and tiger-skin, with
the peculiar wooden sandals of the caste on his feet, he posed in all
things as one of the devout Saniassi, and attracted the veneration of
the natives. The Brahmans naturally suspected this mysterious addition
to their brotherhood, and came to interrogate him. He took oath that he
was of high caste,--a quite innocent thing, the Jesuit apologists say,
since he was a noble by birth,--and produced a document certifying that
he was the Tatuva Podagar Swami whom he pretended to be. This document
was itself a gross imposture, and we may be further quite sure that the
Brahmans would not pass him, as they did, until he had made very plain
professions of belief in the Vedas and the Hindoo gods, and practised
the idolatrous rites of his adopted caste.
For a time he lived apart, and was content to edify by the austerity
of his life. Then, like his forerunner, the Swedish Jesuit Nicolai,
he began to attract a few impressible Brahmans, and cautiously to
initiate them to the Christian faith. Other missionaries were now aware
of this action, and he was summoned to appear before the archbishop
at Goa. From Goa he was, in 1618, sent to justify his conduct before
the Inquisition at Rome; and many of his own brethren, including his
learned uncle, were scandalised at his flame-coloured robe and painted
brow. He maintained that there was no superstition whatever in the
practices of the _saniassi_, and he actually obtained permission from
the Pope to return and continue his work on the understanding that
the peculiarities of his dress and the rites of his caste had no more
than a civic and sanitary significance! Other members of the Society
now followed his example, and the imposture continued throughout the
seventeenth century. At his death in 1656 it was claimed that Robert
had made 100,000 high-caste converts, and that one of his colleagues
had made 30,000. In a more precise document, however, we read, at a
later date, that one of the most insidious of these Jesuit saniassis
baptized nine Brahmans in eight months, and that this was more than
his colleagues had done in ten years. The whole questionable episode
was little more than an indulgence in the romantic adventure to which
his diplomatic principles always disposed the Jesuit. He instinctively
loved disguise and palliated deceit. The work in India continued on the
old lines. Thousands of children were stealthily baptized, to swell the
lists published in Europe; the favour and wealth of the Portuguese were
assiduously used; and, as we gather from the letters sent to Europe,
a great deal of trickery was employed in order to make the ignorant
natives believe that the Jesuits could work miracles and control
devils. Coloured lights were cunningly placed at times so as to shine
on their statues and altars and create a belief in miracles.
Missionaries from India penetrated Ceylon and Thibet, but they were
expelled after a few years. The Chinese mission continued to prosper,
and by 1620 claimed to have made a hundred thousand converts. One of
the missionaries, Adam Schall, an expert in mathematics and mechanics,
was employed by the Emperor to correct the Chinese calendar, make
guns for his army, and construct fortifications. He received in
return permission for his colleagues to preach throughout the Empire,
and hundreds of churches were built. Presently, however, the rival
Dominican missionaries reported to Rome that the Jesuits owed their
success to a scandalous compromise with the native religion. There
is no doubt that the Christianity they set before the Chinese was a
very different creed from that which Xavier had intended to bring.
They did not obtrude the crucifix on the notice of their converts, and
they looked leniently on the worship of ancestors and the veneration
for Kung-fu-tse. When the Dominicans and Franciscans insisted on the
drastic purity of the faith, and characterised the pagan moralist with
all the vigour of mediæval intolerance, the Jesuits persuaded the
Chinese to expel them, and a spirited struggle, which will engage us at
a later stage, took place in regard to their "Chinese rites."
The Japanese mission, on the other hand, was totally extinguished under
the generalship of Vitelleschi. For a time after 1616 the new Emperor
Xogun was indifferent to the labours of the Jesuits, who entered the
country in disguise, and the converts were once more gathered into the
Church. It is said that they numbered 400,000, and the record of the
persecutions which followed shows that at least a large proportion of
them were fervent and convinced Christians. In 1617, however, Xogun
ordered all missionaries to leave the country, and a long and bloody
persecution set in. The English and Dutch merchants had now supplanted
the Portuguese, and they fed the animosity of the Emperor. Large
numbers of the Jesuits and their followers were brutally tortured and
executed; yet with signal heroism they continued to enter the land and
lay down their lives for their work. But the fierce persecution was
sustained by Xogun II. and his son, and by the time of the death of
Vitelleschi, Christianity was extinct in Japan.
The next most interesting field of missionary activity was South
America, where the Jesuits came to set up the remarkable commonwealths
of which their admirers still speak with unstinted admiration. We must
defer until a later stage the full consideration of these communities,
and can only tell here the story of their origin and early fortunes.
The natives of Paraguay had been so brutally treated by the Spaniards
that when, in 1586, the Jesuits entered the country, they found it
exceedingly difficult to disarm their apprehensions. They scattered
over the country, winning thousands of the natives by their kindly
and humane aid, but usually leaving them, after baptism, to their
original ways. The mission was better organised in 1602, and definite
Christian settlements began to appear. As a natural result of their
sympathy with the natives they soon quarrelled with the Spaniards.
While the Spaniards expected the missionaries to make the natives more
pliant and submissive to their authority, the Jesuits reported that the
natives would have nothing to do with the European colonists, whom they
denounced for their cruelty and rapacity. The Spaniards retorted that
the Jesuits sought to keep the trade in native products and industries
for their own profit, and a bitter controversy was provoked. In 1610
the Jesuits obtained from Philip III. permission to colonise, and
founded the first of their "reductions," or industrial settlements.
For many years the work proved extremely difficult. The natives
appreciated the protection of the Jesuits, who obtained a royal
order that none of their converts could be enslaved, but were little
attracted to their creed. At the least pressure they would return
to the forests, and could only be recovered with great labour. More
workers came from Europe, however,--by 1616 there were a hundred and
fifty Jesuits in Paraguay,--and more settlements were founded. By
the year 1632 there were twenty "reductions," each containing about
a thousand families. Not only was the ground assiduously tilled, but
Jesuit lay-brothers taught the arts and crafts of civilisation, and
even formed an armed and trained militia for defence. The children were
taught and decently clothed, and the evenings and days of rest were
brightened by song and dance. The hours of prayer, work, and sleep were
appointed by the two Jesuit fathers who controlled each reduction;
idleness was severely punished and industry rewarded with presents of
knives, or mirrors, or trinkets; the products of their industry were
distributed each week; and a very close observation was kept on the
morals of all the members.
We will consider these "ideal republics" more closely when we find
them reorganised and more extended at a later date. For the moment
it is enough to notice a curious inconsistency which appears even in
apologetic accounts of them. To the Spaniards the Jesuits declared
that the natives were so suspicious that no European could be allowed
to visit the reductions, and the intercourse of the fathers with other
Europeans had to be concealed; yet they refused to teach Spanish to the
natives on the ground that intercourse with the Spaniards would corrupt
their morals. Their critics naturally inferred that they kept the races
apart so that their monopoly of the trade might not be disturbed, and
drew unfriendly comparisons between the comfortable houses of the
missionaries and the rough unfurnished huts of their converts. We will
return to the point when the great controversy about the reductions
begins after 1645. Before that date they had a series of disasters to
face and were partially destroyed. The hostile tribe of the Mamelus
descended on them and drove most of them out of Paraguay. Of a hundred
thousand subjects in the province of Guayra the Jesuits only retained
and transferred twelve thousand.
The remaining Jesuit missions of the period may be dismissed briefly.
They extended their operations to New Granada, but were expelled by the
Archbishop of Santa Fe, at the complaint of the Spanish merchants, for
mingling commerce with their preaching of the Gospel. In Canada they
made little progress until the English abandoned that region in 1632,
and even afterwards they found great difficulty in forming settlements
among the Indians. Another attempt was made to enter Abyssinia, and
this also ended in disaster. For services rendered by the Portuguese
to the Emperor they were allowed to preach their faith and made many
converts. A Jesuit at last became "Patriarch of Abyssinia," and he
involved the Emperor in a sanguinary repression of the native Christian
Church. On the accession of a new Emperor, however, they were denounced
to him for a conspiracy to win the country for Portugal, and were
expelled once more. Letters of theirs which were intercepted show
that the charge was not groundless. In the same period, finally, they
obtained, through France, permission to enter the Turkish Empire,
and they began the work of organising the surviving Christians, and
assailing the Nestorians, in Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Armenia
and Chaldæa.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: This rare and curious work, which was often condemned
and burned in subsequent years, was published in 1654, and affords
a particularly unpleasant picture of the Spanish Jesuits. It was
attributed to a distinguished Dominican monk. He denied the authorship,
but many believe that the denial was merely a matter of policy.]
[Footnote 19: See the author's _Iron Cardinal_ (1909), p. 341.]
[Footnote 20: Crétineau-Joly suppresses the whole of these facts, and
describes Père de Bérulle as "intimately united with the Jesuits"! De
Bérulle's letter to Richelieu is published in the _Annales_, ii. 738.]
[Footnote 21: Many of the documents are collected in the _Annales de
la Société des soi-disans Jésuites_. The most familiar procedure of
the Jesuits was to accuse the monks of corruption and rely on their
influence at court to prevent too close an inquiry. The French Conseil
d'État forced them, as late as 4th August 1654, to restore three abbeys
to their lawful owners.]