and the unimpeachable purity of their lives. These qualities they
have carefully maintained; and probably no large body of men
in the world has been so free from the reproach of discreditable
members or has kept up, on the whole, an equally high average
of intelligence and conduct. As preachers, too, they delivered
the pulpit from the bondage of an effete scholasticism and
reached at once a clearness and simplicity of treatment such as
the English pulpit scarcely begins to exhibit till after the days
of Tillotson; while in literature and theology they count a far
larger number of respectable writers than any other religious
society can boast. It is in the mission field, however, that their
achievements have been most remarkable. Whether toiling
among the teeming millions in Hindustan and China, labouring
amongst the Hurons and Iroquois of North America, governing
and civilizing the natives of Brazil and Paraguay in the
missions and “reductions,” or ministering, at the hourly risk
of his life to his fellow-Catholics in England under Elizabeth
and the Stuarts, the Jesuit appears alike devoted, indefatigable,
cheerful and worthy of hearty admiration and respect.
Nevertheless, two startling and indisputable facts meet the student who pursues the history of the Society. The first is the universal suspicion and hostility it has incurred—not merely from the Protestants whose avowed foe it has been, not yet from the enemies of all clericalism and dogma, but from every Catholic state and nation in the world. Its chief enemies have been those of the household of the Roman Catholic faith. The second fact is the ultimate failure which seems to dog all its most promising schemes and efforts. These two results are to be observed alike in the provinces of morals and politics. The first cause of the opposition indeed redounds to the Jesuits’ credit, for it was largely due to their success. Their pulpits rang with a studied eloquence; their churches, sumptuous and attractive, were crowded; and in the confessional their advice was eagerly sought in all kinds of difficulties, for they were the fashionable professors of the art of direction. Full of enthusiasm and zeal, devoted wholly to their Society, they were able to bring in numbers of rich and influential persons to their ranks; for, with a clear understanding of the power of wealth, they became, of set purpose, the apostles of the rich and influential. The Jesuits felt that they were the new men, the men of the time; so with a perfect confidence in themselves they went out to set the Church to rights. It was no wonder that success, so well worked for and so well deserved, failed to win the approval or sympathy of those who found themselves supplanted. Old-fashioned men, to whom the apostles’ advice to “do all to the glory of God” seemed sufficient, mistrusted those who professed to go beyond all others and adopted as their motto the famous Ad majorem Dei gloriam, “To the greater glory of God.” But, besides this, the esprit de corps which is necessary for every body of men was, it was held, carried to an excess and made the Jesuits intolerant of any one or anything if not of “ours.” The novelties too which they introduced into the conception of the religious life, naturally, were displeasing to the older orders, who felt like old aristocratic families towards a newly rich or purse-proud upstart. The Society, or rather its members, were too aggressive and self-assertive to be welcomed; and a certain characteristic, which soon began to manifest itself in an impatience of episcopal control, showed that the quality of “Jesuitry,” usually associated with the Society, was singularly lacking in their dealings with opponents. Their political attitude also alienated many. Many of the Jesuits could not separate religion from politics. To say this is only to assert that they were not clearer-minded than most men of their age. But unfortunately they invariably took the wrong side and allowed themselves to be made the tools of men who saw farther and more clearly than they did. They had their share, direct or indirect, in the embroiling of states, in concocting conspiracies and in kindling wars. They were also responsible by their theoretical teachings in theological schools, where cases were considered and treated in the abstract, for not a few assassinations of the enemies of the cause. Weak minds heard tyrannicide discussed and defended in the abstract; and it was no wonder that, when opportunity served, the train that had been heedlessly laid by speculative professors was fired by rash hands. What professors like Suarez taught in the calm atmosphere of the lecture hall, what writers like Mariana upheld and praised, practical men took as justification for deeds of blood. There is no evidence that any Jesuit took a direct part in political assassinations; however, indirectly, they may have been morally responsible. They were playing with edged tools and often got wounded through their own carelessness. Other grievances were raised by their perpetual meddling in politics, e.g. their large share in fanning the flames of political hatred against the Huguenots under the last two Valois kings; their perpetual plotting against England in the reign of Elizabeth; their share in the Thirty Years’ War and in the religious miseries of Bohemia; their decisive influence in causing the revocation of the edict of Nantes and the expulsion of the Protestants from France; the ruin of the Stuart cause under James II., and the establishment of the Protestant succession. In a number of cases where the evidence against them is defective, it is at least an unfortunate coincidence that there is always direct proof of some Jesuit having been in communication with the actual agents engaged. They were the stormy petrels of politics. Yet the Jesuits, as a body, should not be made responsible for the doings of men who, in their political intrigues, were going directly against the distinct law of the Society, which in strict terms, and under heavy penalties, forbade them to have anything to do with such matters. The politicians were comparatively few in number, though unfortunately they held high rank; and their disobedience to the rule besmirched the name of the society and destroyed the good work of the other Jesuits who were faithfully carrying out their own proper duties.
A far graver cause for uneasiness was given by the Jesuits’ activity in the region of doctrine and morals. Here the charges against them are precise, early, numerous and weighty. Their founder himself was arrested, more than once, by the Inquisition and required to give account of his belief and conduct. But St Ignatius, with all his powerful gifts of intellect, was entirely practical and ethical in his range, and had no turn whatever for speculation, nor desire to discuss, much less to question, any of the received dogmas of the Church. He gives it as a rule of orthodoxy to be ready to say that black is white if the Church says so. He was therefore acquitted on every occasion, and applied each time for a formally attested certificate of his orthodoxy, knowing well that, in default of such documents, the fact of his arrest as a suspected heretic would be more distinctly recollected by opponents than that of his honourable dismissal from custody. His followers, however, have not been so fortunate. On doctrinal questions indeed, though their teaching on grace, especially in the form given to it by Molina (q.v.), ran contrary to the accepted teaching on the subject by the Augustinians, Dominicans and other representative schools; yet by their pertinacity they gained for their views a recognized and established position. A special congregation of cardinals and theologians known as de auxiliis was summoned by the pope to settle the dispute, for the odium theologicum had risen to a desperate height between the representatives of the old and the new theology; but after many years they failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, and the pope, instead of settling the dispute, was only able to impose mutual silence on all opponents. Among those who held out stiffly against the Jesuits on the subject of grace were the Jansenists, who held that they were following the special teaching of St Augustine, known par excellence as the doctor of grace. The Jesuits and the Jansenists soon became deadly enemies; and in the ensuing conflict both parties accused each other of flinging scruples to the wind. (See Jansenism.)
But the accusations against the Jesuit system of moral theology and their action as guides of conduct have had a more serious effect on their reputation. It is undeniable that some of their moral writers were lax in their teaching; and conscience was strained to the snapping point. The Society was trying to make itself all things to all men. Propositions extracted from
