secretary Polanco that “in those who offered themselves he looked
less to purely natural goodness than to firmness of character and
ability for business, for he was of opinion that those who were not
fit for public business were not adapted for filling offices in the
Society.” He further declared that even exceptional qualities and
endowments in a candidate were valuable in his eyes only on the
condition of their being brought into play, or held in abeyance,
strictly at the command of a superior. Hence his teaching on
obedience. His letter on this subject, addressed to the Jesuits of
Coimbra in 1553, is still one of the standard formularies of the
Society, ranking with those other products of his pen, the Spiritual
Exercises and the Constitutions. In this letter Ignatius clothes the
general with the powers of a commander-in-chief in time of war,
giving him the absolute disposal of all members of the Society in
every place and for every purpose. He pushes the claim even
further, requiring, besides entire outward submission to command,
also the complete identification of the inferior’s will with that of the
superior. He lays down that the superior is to be obeyed simply
as such and as standing in the place of God, without reference to his
personal wisdom, piety or discretion; that any obedience which falls
short of making the superior’s will one’s own, in inward affection as
well as in outward effect, is lax and imperfect; that going beyond
the letter of command, even in things abstractly good and praiseworthy,
is disobedience, and that the “sacrifice of the intellect” is
the third and highest grade of obedience, well pleasing to God, when
the inferior not only wills what the superior wills, but thinks what
he thinks, submitting his judgment, so far as it is possible for the
will to influence and lead the judgment. This Letter on Obedience
was written for the guidance and formation of Ignatius’s own
followers; it was an entirely domestic affair. But when it became
known beyond the Society the teaching met with great opposition,
especially from members of other orders whose institutes represented
the normal days of peace rather than those of war. The
letter was condemned by the Inquisitions of Spain and Portugal;
and it tasked all the skill and learning of Bellarmine as its apologist,
together with the whole influence of the Society, to avert what seemed
to be a probable condemnation at Rome.
The teaching of the Letter must be understood in the living spirit of the Society. Ignatius himself lays down the rule that an inferior is bound to make all necessary representations to his superior so as to guide him in imposing a precept of obedience. When a superior knows the views of his inferior and still commands, it is because he is aware of other sides of the question which appear of greater importance than those that the inferior has brought forward. Ignatius distinctly excepts the case where obedience in itself would be sinful: “In all things except sin I ought to do the will of my superior and not my own.” There may be cases where an inferior judges that what is commanded is sinful. What is to be done? Ignatius says: “When it seems to me that I am commanded by my superior to do a thing against which my conscience revolts as sinful and my superior judges otherwise, it is my duty to yield my doubts to him unless I am otherwise constrained by evident reasons. ... If submissions do not appease my conscience I must impart my doubts to two or three persons of discretion and abide by their decision.” From this it is clear that only in doubtful cases concerning sin should an inferior try to submit his judgment to that of his superior, who ex officio is held to be not only one who would not order what is clearly sinful, but also a competent judge who knows and understands, better than the inferior, the nature and aspect of the command. As the Jesuit obedience is based on the law of God, it is clearly impossible that he should be bound to obey in what is directly opposed to the divine service. A Jesuit lives in obedience all his life, though the yoke is not galling nor always felt. He can accept no dignity or office which will make him independent of the Society; and even if ordered by the pope to accept the cardinalate or the episcopate, he is still bound, if not to obey, yet to listen to the advice of those whom the general deputes to counsel him in important matters.
The Jesuits had to find their principal work in the world and in direct and immediate contact with mankind. To seek spiritual perfection in a retired life of contemplation and prayer did not seem to Ignatius to be the best way of reforming the evils which had brought about the revolt from Rome. He withdrew his followers from this sort of retirement, except as a mere temporary preparation for later activity; he made habitual intercourse with the world a prime duty; and to this end he rigidly suppressed all such external peculiarities of dress or rule as tended to put obstacles in the way of his followers acting freely as emissaries, agents or missionaries in the most various places and circumstances. Another change he introduced even more completely than did the founders of the Friars. The Jesuit has no home: the whole world is his parish. Mobility and cosmopolitanism are of the very essence of the Society. As Ignatius said, the ancient monastic communities were the infantry of the Church, whose duty was to stand firmly in one place on the battlefield; the Jesuits were to be her light horse, capable of going anywhere at a moment’s notice, but especially apt and designed for scouting and skirmishing. To carry out this view, it was one of his plans to send foreigners as superiors or officers to the Jesuit houses in each country, requiring of these envoys, however, invariably to use the language of their new place of residence and to study it both in speaking and writing till entire mastery of it had been acquired—thus by degrees making all the parts of his system mutually interchangeable, and so largely increasing the number of persons eligible to fill any given post without reference to locality. But subsequent experience has, in practice, modified this interchange, as far as local government goes, though the central government of the Society is always cosmopolitan.
Next we must consider the machinery by which the Society is constituted and governed so as to make its spirit a living energy and not a mere abstract theory. The Society is distributed into six grades: novices, scholastics, temporal coadjutors (lay brothers), spiritual coadjutors, professed of the three vows, and professed of the four vows. No one can become a postulant for admission to the Society until fourteen years old, unless by special dispensation. The novice is classified according as his destination is the priesthood or lay brotherhood, while a third class of “indifferents” receives such as are reserved for further inquiry before a decision of this kind is made. The novice has first to undergo a strict retreat, practically in solitary confinement, during which he receives from a director the Spiritual Exercises and makes a general confession of his whole life; after which the first novitiate of two years’ duration begins. In this period of trial the real character of the man is discerned, his weak points are noted and his will is tested. Prayer and the practices of asceticism, as means to an end, are the chief occupations of the novice. He may leave or be dismissed at any time during the two years; but at the end of the period if he is approved and destined for the priesthood, he is advanced to the grade of scholastic and takes the following simple vows in the presence of certain witnesses, but not to any person:—
“Almighty Everlasting God, albeit everyway most unworthy in Thy holy sight, yet relying on Thine infinite kindness and mercy and impelled by the desire of serving Thee, before the Most Holy Virgin Mary and all Thy heavenly host, I, N., vow to Thy divine Majesty Poverty, Chastity and Perpetual Obedience to the Society of Jesus, and promise that I will enter the same Society to live in it perpetually, understanding all things according to the Constitutions of the Society. I humbly pray from Thine immense goodness and clemency, through the Blood of Jesus Christ, that Thou wilt deign to accept this sacrifice in the odour of sweetness; and as Thou hast granted me to desire and to offer this, so wilt Thou bestow abundant grace to fulfil it.”
The scholastic then follows the ordinary course of an undergraduate at a university. After passing five years in arts he has, while still keeping up his own studies, to devote five or six years more to teaching the junior classes in various Jesuit schools or colleges. About this period he takes his simple vows in the following terms:—
“I, N., promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the whole heavenly host, and to thee, Reverend Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and to thy successors (or to thee, Reverend Father M. in place of the General of the Society of Jesus and his successors holding the place of God), Perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to it a peculiar care in the education of boys, according to the manner expressed in the Apostolic Letter and Constitutions of the said Society.”
The lay brothers leave out the clause concerning education. The scholastic does not begin the study of theology until he is twenty-eight or thirty, and then passes through a four or six years’ course. Only when he is thirty-four or thirty-six can he be ordained a priest and enter on the grade of a spiritual coadjutor. A lay brother, before he can become a temporal coadjutor for the discharge of domestic duties, must pass ten years before he is admitted to vows. Sometimes after ordination the priest, in the midst of his work, is again called away to a third year’s novitiate, called the tertianship, as a preparation for his solemn profession of the three vows. His former vows were simple and the Society was at liberty to dismiss him for any canonical reason. The formula of the famous Jesuit vow is as follows:—
“I, N., promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the whole heavenly host, and to all standing by; and to thee, Reverend Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and to thy successors (or to thee, Reverend Father M. in place of the General of the Society of Jesus and his successors holding the place of God), Perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to it a peculiar care in the education of boys according to
