SOCIETY
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SOCIETY
teacher of the faith). The personal equation of the
accuser is a correction of great moment; nevertheless
it is to be applied with equally great caution; on no
other point is an accused person so liable to make
mistakes. Undoubtedly, however, when we find
a learned man like Harnack declaring roundly (but
without proofs) that Jesuits are not historians, we
may place this statement of his beside another of
his professorial dicta, that the Bible is not history.
If the same principles underlie both propositions,
the accusation against the order will carry Uttle
weight. When an infidel government, about to
assail the Uberties of the Church, begins by expeUing
the Jesuits, on the allegation that they destroy the
love of freedom in their scholars, we can only say
that no words of theirs can counterbalance the logic
of their acts. Early in this century the French
Government urged as one of their reasons for sup-
pressing all the religious orders in France, among
them the Society, that the regulars were crowding
the secular clergy out of their proper spheres of activity
and influence. No sooner were the rehgious suppressed
than the law separating Church and State was passed
to cripple and enslave the bishops and secular clergy.
(2) Again it is perhaps httle wonder that heretics in general, and tho.se in particular who impugn church liberties and the authority of the Holy See, should be ever ready to assail the Jesuits, who are especially bound to the defence of that see. It seems stranger that the opponents of the Society should sometimes be within the Church. Yet it is almost inevitable that such opposition should at times occur. No matter how adequately the canon law regulating the relations of regulars with the hierarchy and clergy generally may provide for their peaceful co-operation in missionary, educational, and charitable enterprises, there will necessarily be occasion for differences of opinion, disputes over jurisdiction, methods, and similar vital points, which in the heat of controversy often embitter and even estrange the parties at variance. Such unfortunate controversies arise between other religious orders and the hierarchy and secular clergy; they are neither common nor permanent, not the rule but the excep- tion, so that they do not warrant the sinister judg- ment that is sometimes formed of the Society in particul ir as unable or unwiUing to work with others, jealous of its own influence. Sometimes, especially when troubles of t his kind have affected broad questions of doctrine and discipline, the agitation has reached immense jjroportions and bitterness has remained for years. The controversies De auxiliis led to violent explosions of temper, to intrigue, and to furious language which was simply astonishing; and there were others, in England for instance about the faculties of the archpriest, in France about Galh- canism, which were almost equally memorable for fire and fury. Odium ihcologicum is sure at all times to call forth excitement of unusual keenness; but we may make allowance for the early disputants, because of the pugnacious character of the times. When the age quite approved of gentlemen kiUing each other in duels on very slight provocation, there can be Uttle wonder that clerics, when aroused, should forget propriety and self-restraint, sharpen their pens like daggers, and, dipping them in gall, strike at any sensitive point of their adversaries which they could injure. Charges put about by such excited advocates must be received with the greatest caution.
(3) The most embittered and the most untrust- worthy enemies of the Society (they arc fortunately not very numerous) have ever been deserters from its own ranks. We know with what malice and venom some unfaithful priests are wont to .assail the Church, which they once believed to be Divine, and not dis- similar has been the hatred of some Jesuits who have been untrue to their calling.
C. What is to be expecledf The Society has cer-
tainly had some share in the beatitude of suffering
for persecution's sake; though it is not true, how-
ever, to say that the Society is the object of universal
deleslalion. Prominent politicians, whose acts affect
the interests of millions, are much more hotly and
violently criticized, more freely denounced, carica-
tured, and condemned in the course of a month than
the Jesuits singly or collectively in a year. When
once the politician is overthrown, the world turns
its fire upon the new holder of power, and it forgets
the man that is fallen. But the Ught attacks against
the Society never cease for long, and their cumulative
effect appears more serious than it should, because
people overlook the long spans of years which in
its case intervene between the different signal assaults;
Another principle to remember is that the enemies
of the Church would never assail the Society at all,
were it not that it is conspicuously popular with large
classes of the Cathohc community. Neither univer-
sal odium therefore nor freedom from all assault
should be expected, but charges which, by exaggera-
tion, inversion, satire, or irony, somehow correspond
with the place of the Societj' in the Church.
Not being contemplatives Uke the monks of old, Jesuits are not decried as lazy and useless. Not being called to fill posts of high authority or to rule, like popes and bishops, Jesuits are not seriously denounced as tyrants, or maligned for nepotism and similar misdeeds. Ignatius described his order as a flying squadron ready for service anywhere, especially as educators and missionaries. The principal charges against the Society are misrepresentations of these qualities. If they are ready for service in any part of the world, they are called busybodies, mischief- makers, politicians with no attachment to country. If they do not rule, at least they must be grasping, ambitious, scheming, and wont to lower standards of morality, in order to gain control of consciences. If they are good disciplinarians, it will be said it is by espionage and suppression of individuality and independence. If they are popular schoolmasters, the adversary will say they are good for children, good perhaps as crammers, but bad educators, without influence. If they are favourite confessors, their success is ascribed to their lax moral doctrines, to their casuistry, and above all to their use of the maxim which is supposed to justify any and every evil act: "the end justifies the means". This perhaps is the most salient instance of the ignorance or ill-will of their accusers. Their books are open to all the world. Time and again those who impute to them as a body, or to any of their publications, the use of this maxim to justify evil of any sort have been asked to cite one instance of such usage, but all to no purpose. The signal failure of Hoensbroech to establish before the civil courts of Trier and Cologne (30 July, 1905) any such example of Jesuit teaching should silence this and similar accusations forever.
D. TJie Jesuit Legend. — It is curious that at the present day even literary men have next to no interest in the objective facts concerning the Society, not even in those supposed to be to its disadvantage. All attention is fixed on the Jesuit legend; encyclope- dia articles and general histories hardly concern themselves with .anything else. The legend, though it reached its present form in the middle of the nine- teenth century, began at a much earlier period. The early persecutions of the Society (which counted some 100 martyrs in Europe during its first century) were backed up by fiery, loud, unscrupulous writers such as IlasenTniiller and Hospinian, who diligently collected and defended all the charges brought against the .Jesuits. The rude, criminous ideal which these writers set forth received subtler traits of deceitful- ne.ss and doul)le-dealinff through Zahorowski's "Mon- ita secreta Societatis Jesu" (Cracow, 1614), a satire
