Chapter XIX: Part 19

On the 7th of April 1541, Ignatius was unanimously chosen general. His refusal of this post was overruled, so he entered on his office on the 13th of April; and two days after, the newly constituted Society took its formal corporate vows in the basilica of San Paolo _fuori le mura_. Scarcely was the Society launched when its members dispersed in various directions to their new tasks. Alfonso Salmeron and Pasquier-Brouet, as papal delegates, were sent on a secret mission to Ireland to encourage the native clergy and people to resist the religious changes introduced by Henry VIII.; Nicholas Bobadilla went to Naples; Faber, first to the diet of Worms and then to Spain; Laynez and Claude le Jay to Germany, while Ignatius busied himself at Rome in good works and in drawing up the constitutions and completing the _Spiritual Exercises_. Success crowned these first efforts; and the Society began to win golden opinions. The first college was founded at Coimbra in 1542 by John III. of Portugal and put under the rectorship of Rodriguez. It was designed as a training school to feed the Indian mission of which Francis Xavier had already taken the oversight, while a seminary at Goa was the second institution founded outside Rome in connexion with the Society. Both from the original scheme and from the foundation at Coimbra it is clear that the original idea of the colleges was to provide for the education of future Jesuits. In Spain, national pride in the founder aided the Society's cause almost as much as royal patronage did in Portugal; and the third house was opened in Gandia under the protection of its duke, Francisco Borgia, a grandson of Alexander VI. In Germany, the Jesuits were eagerly welcomed as the only persons able to meet the Lutherans on equal terms. Only in France, among the countries which still were united with the Roman Church, was their advance checked, owing to political distrust of their Spanish origin, together with the hostility of the Sorbonne and the bishop of Paris. However, after many difficulties, they succeeded in getting a footing through the help of Guillaume du Prat, bishop of Clermont (d. 1560), who founded a college for them in 1545 in the town of Billom, besides making over to them his house at Paris, the hôtel de Clermont, which became the nucleus of the afterwards famous college of Louis-le-Grand, while a formal legalization was granted to them by the states-general at Poissy in 1561. In Rome, Paul III.'s favour did not lessen. He bestowed on them the church of St Andrea and conferred at the same time the valuable privilege of making and altering their own statutes; besides the other points, in 1546, which Ignatius had still more at heart, as touching the very essence of his institute, namely, exemption from ecclesiastical offices and dignities and from the task of acting as directors and confessors to convents of women. The former of these measures effectually stopped any drain of the best members away from the society and limited their hopes within its bounds, by putting them more freely at the general's disposal, especially as it was provided that the final vows could not be annulled, nor could a professed member be dismissed, save by the joint action of the general and the pope. The regulation as to convents seems partly due to a desire to avoid the worry and expenditure of time involved in the discharge of such offices and partly to a conviction that penitents living in enclosure, as all religious persons then were, would be of no effective use to the Society; whereas the founder, against the wishes of several of his companions, laid much stress on the duty of accepting the post of confessor to kings, queens and women of high rank when opportunity presented itself. And the year 1546 is notable in the annals of the Society as that in which it embarked on its great educational career, especially by the annexation of free day-schools to all its colleges.

The council of Trent, in its first period, seemed to increase the
reputation of the Society; for the pope chose Laynez, Faber and
Salmeron to act as his theologians in that assembly, and in this
capacity they had no little influence in framing its decrees. When the
council reassembled under Pius IV., Laynez and Salmeron again attended
in the same capacity. It is sometimes said that the council formally
approved of the Society. This is impossible; for as the Society had
received the papal approval, that of the council would have been
impertinent as well as unnecessary. St Charles Borromeo wrote to the
presiding cardinals, on the 11th of May 1562, saying that, as France
was disaffected to the Jesuits whom the pope wished to see established
in every country, Pius IV. desired, when the council was occupying
itself about regulars, that it should make some honourable mention of
the Society in order to recommend it. This was done in the
twenty-fifth session (cap. XVI., d.r.) when the decree was passed that
at the end of the time of probation novices should either be professed
or dismissed; and the words of the council are: "By these things,
however, the Synod does not intend to make any innovation or
prohibition, so as to hinder the religious order of Clerks of the
Society of Jesus from being able to serve God and His Church, in
accordance with their pious institute approved of by the Holy
Apostolic See."

In 1548 the Society received a valuable recruit in the person of Francisco Borgia, duke of Gandia, afterwards thrice general, while two important events marked 1550--the foundation of the Collegio Romano and a fresh confirmation of the Society by Julius III. The German college, for the children of poor nobles, was founded in 1552; and in the same year Ignatius firmly settled the discipline of the Society by putting down, with promptness and severity, some attempts at independent action on the part of Rodriguez at Coimbra--this being the occasion of the famous letter on obedience; while 1553 saw the despatch of a mission to Abyssinia with one of the fathers as patriarch, and the first rift within the lute when the pope thought that the Spanish Jesuits were taking part with the emperor against the Holy See. Paul IV. (whose election alarmed the Jesuits, for they had not found him very friendly as cardinal) was for a time managed with supreme tact by Ignatius, whom he respected personally. In 1556, the founder died and left the Society consisting of forty-five professed fathers and two thousand ordinary members, distributed over twelve provinces, with more than a hundred colleges and houses.

After the death of the first general there was an interregnum of two
years, with Laynez as vicar. During this long period he occupied
himself with completing the constitutions by incorporating certain
declarations, said to be Ignatian, which explained and sometimes
completely altered the meaning of the original text. Laynez was an
astute politician and saw the vast capabilities of the Society over a
far wider field than the founder contemplated; and he prepared to give
it the direction that it has since followed. In some senses, this
learned and consummately clever man may be looked upon as the real
founder of the Society as history knows it. Having carefully prepared
the way, he summoned the general congregation from which he emerged as
second general in 1556. As soon as Ignatius had died Paul IV.
announced his intention of instituting reforms in the Society,
especially in two points: the public recitation of the office in choir
and the limitation of the general's office to a term of three years.
Despite all the protests and negotiations of Laynez, the pope remained
obstinate; and there was nothing but to submit. On the 8th of
September 1558, two points were added to the constitutions: that the
generalship should be triennial and not perpetual, although after the
three years the general might be confirmed; and that the canonical
hours should be observed in choir after the manner of the other
orders, but with that moderation which should seem expedient to the
general. Taking advantage of this last clause, Laynez applied the new
law to two houses only, namely, Rome and Lisbon, the other houses
contenting themselves with singing vespers on feast days; and as soon
as Paul IV. died, Laynez, acting on advice, quietly ignored for the
future the orders of the late pope. He also succeeded in increasing
further the already enormous powers of the general. Laynez took a
leading part in the colloquy of Poissy in 1561 between the Catholics
and Huguenots; and obtained a legal footing from the states-general
for colleges of the Society in France. He died in 1564, leaving the
Society increased to eighteen provinces with a hundred and thirty
colleges, and was succeeded by Francisco Borgia. During the third
generalate, Pius V. confirmed all the former privileges, and in the
amplest form extended to the Society, as being a mendicant institute,
all favours that had been or might afterwards be granted to such
mendicant bodies. It was a trifling set-off that in 1567 the pope
again enjoined the fathers to keep choir and to admit only the
professed to priests' orders, especially as Gregory XIII. rescinded
both these injunctions in 1573; and indeed, as regards the hours, all
that Pius V. was able to obtain was the nominal concession that the
breviary should be recited in choir in the professed houses only, and
that not of necessity by more than two persons at a time. Everard
Mercurian, a Fleming, and a subject of Spain, succeeded Borgia in
1573, being forced on the Society by the pope, in preference to
Polanco, Ignatius's secretary and the vicar-general, who was rejected
partly as a Spaniard and still more because he was a "New Christian"
of Jewish origin and therefore objected to in Spain itself. During his
term of office there took place the troubles in Rome concerning the
English college and the subsequent Jesuit rule over that institution;
and in 1580 the first Jesuit mission, headed by the redoubtable Robert
Parsons and the saintly Edmund Campion, set out for England. This
mission, on one side, carried on an active propaganda against
Elizabeth in favour of Spain; and on the other, among the true
missionaries, was marked with devoted zeal and heroism even to the
ghastly death of traitors. Claude Acquaviva, the fifth general, held
office from 1581 to 1615, a time almost coinciding with the high tide
of the successful reaction, chiefly due to the Jesuits. He was an
able, strong-willed man, and crushed what was tantamount to a
rebellion in Spain. It was during this struggle that Mariana, the
historian and the author of the famous _De rege_ in which he defends
tyrannicide, wrote his treatise _On the Defects in the Government of
the Society_. He confessed freely that the Society had faults and that
there was a great deal of unrest among the members; and he mentioned
among the various points calling for reform the education of the
novices and students; the state of the lay brother and the possessions
of the Society; the spying system, which he declared to be carried so
far that, if the general's archives at Rome should be searched, not
one Jesuit's character would be found to escape; the monopoly of the
higher offices by a small clique; and the absence of all encouragement
and recompense for the best men of the Society.

It was chiefly during the generalship of Acquaviva that the Society began to gain an evil reputation which eclipsed its good report. In France the Jesuits joined, if they did not originate, the league against Henry of Navarre. Absolution was refused by them to those who would not join in the Guise rebellion, and Acquaviva is said to have tried to stop them, but in vain. The assassination of Henry III. in the interests of the league and the wounding of Henry IV. in 1594 by Chastel, a pupil of theirs, revealed the danger that the whole Society was running by the intrigues of a few men. The Jesuits were banished from France in 1594, but were allowed to return by Henry IV. under conditions; as Sully has recorded, the king declared his only motive to be the expediency of not driving them into a corner with possible disastrous results to his life, and because his only hope of tranquillity lay in appeasing them and their powerful friends. In England the political schemings of Parsons were no small factors in the odium which fell on the Society at large; and his determination to capture the English Catholics as an apanage of the Society, to the exclusion of all else, was an object lesson to the rest of Europe of a restless ambition and lust of domination which were to find many imitators. The political turn which was being given by some to the Society, to the detriment of its real spiritual work, evoked the fears of the wiser heads of the body; and in the fifth general congregation held in 1593-1594 it was decreed: "Whereas in these times of difficulty and danger it has happened through the fault of certain individuals, through ambition and intemperate zeal, that our institute has been ill spoken of in divers places and before divers sovereigns ... it is severely and strictly forbidden to all members of the Society to interfere in any manner whatever in public affairs even though they be thereto invited; or to deviate from the institute through entreaty, persuasion or any other motive whatever." It would have been well had Acquaviva enforced this decree; but Parsons was allowed to keep on with his work, and other Jesuits in France for many years after directed, to the loss of religion, affairs of state. In 1605 took place in England the Gunpowder Plot, in which Henry Garnet, the superior of the Society in England, was implicated. That the Jesuits were the instigators of the plot there is no evidence, but they were in close touch with the conspirators, of whose designs Garnet had a general knowledge. There is now no reasonable doubt that he and other Jesuits were legally accessories, and that the condemnation of Garnet as a traitor was substantially just (see GARNET, HENRY).

It was during Acquaviva's generalship that Philip II. of Spain
complained bitterly of the Society to Sixtus V., and encouraged him in
those plans of reform (even to changing the name) which were only cut
short by the pope's death in 1590, and also that the long protracted
discussions on grace, wherein the Dominicans contended against the
Jesuits, were carried on at Rome with little practical result, by the
Congregation _de auxiliis_, which sat from 1598 till 1607. The _Ratio
Studiorum_ took its shape during this time. The Jesuit influence at
Rome was supported by the Spanish ambassador; but when Henry IV. "went
to Mass," the balance inclined to the side of France, and the Spanish
monopoly became a thing of the past. Acquaviva saw the expulsion of
the Jesuits from Venice in 1606 for siding with Paul V. when he placed
the republic under interdict, but did not live to see their recall,
which took place at the intercession of Louis XIV. in 1657. He also
had to banish Parsons from Rome, by order of Clement VIII., who was
wearied with the perpetual complaints made against that intriguer.
Gregory XIV., by the bull _Ecclesiae Christi_ (July 28, 1591), again
confirmed the Society, and granted that Jesuits might, for true cause,
be expelled from the body without any form of trial or even
documentary procedure, besides denouncing excommunications against
every one, save the pope or his legates, who directly or indirectly
infringed the constitutions of the Society or attempted to bring about
any change therein.

Under Vitelleschi, the next general, the Society celebrated its first
centenary on the 25th of September 1639, the hundredth anniversary of
the verbal approbation given to the scheme by Paul III. During this
hundred years the Society had grown to thirty-six provinces, with
eight hundred houses containing some fifteen thousand members. In 1640
broke out the great Jansenist controversy, in which the Society took
the leading part on one side and finally secured the victory. In this
same year, considering themselves ill-used by Olivarez, prime minister
of Philip IV. of Spain, the Jesuits powerfully aided the revolution
which placed the duke of Braganza on the throne of Portugal; and their
services were rewarded for nearly one hundred years with the practical
control of ecclesiastical and almost of civil affairs in that kingdom.

The Society also gained ground steadily in France; for, though held in
check by Richelieu and little more favoured by Mazarin, yet from the
moment that Louis XIV. took the reins, their star was in the
ascendant, and Jesuit confessors, the most celebrated of whom were
François de La Chaise (q.v.) and Michel Le Tellier (1643-1719), guided
the policy of the king, not hesitating to take his side in his quarrel
with the Holy See, which nearly resulted in a schism, nor to sign the
Gallican articles. Their hostility to the Huguenots forced on the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and their war against their
Jansenist opponents did not cease till the very walls of Port Royal
were demolished in 1710, even to the very abbey church itself, and the
bodies of the dead taken with every mark of insult from their graves
and literally flung to the dogs to devour. But while thus gaining
power in one direction, the Society was losing it in another. The
Japanese mission had vanished in blood in 1651; and though many
Jesuits died with their converts bravely as martyrs for the faith, yet
it is impossible to acquit them of a large share in the causes of that
overthrow. It was also about this same period that the grave scandal
of the Chinese and Malabar rites began to attract attention in Europe,
and to make thinking men ask seriously whether the Jesuit missionaries
in those parts taught anything which could fairly be called
Christianity at all. When it was remembered, too, that they had
decided, at a council held at Lima, that it was inexpedient to impose
any act of Christian devotion except baptism, on the South American
converts, without the greatest precautions, on the ground of
intellectual difficulties, it is not wonderful that this doubt was not
satisfactorily cleared up, notably in face of the charges brought
against the Society by Bernardin de Cardonas, bishop of Paraguay, and
the saintly Juan de Palafox (q.v.), bishop of Angelopolis in Mexico.

But "the terrible power in the universal church, the great riches and
the extraordinary prestige" of the Society, which Palafox complained
had raised it "above all dignities, laws, councils and apostolic
constitutions," carried with them the seeds of rapid and inevitable
decay. A succession of devout but incapable generals, after the death
of Acquaviva, saw the gradual secularization of tone by the flocking
in of recruits of rank and wealth desirous to share in the glories and
influence of the Society, but not well adapted to increase them. The
general's supremacy received a shock when the eleventh general
congregation appointed Oliva as vicar, with the right of succession
and powers that practically superseded those of the general Goswin
Nickel, whose infirmities, it is said, did not permit him to govern
with the necessary application and vigour; and an attempt was made to
depose Tirso Gonzalez, the thirteenth general, whose views on
probabilism diverged from those favoured by the rest of the Jesuits.
Though the political weight of the Society continued to increase in
the cabinets of Europe, it was being steadily weakened internally. The
Jesuits abandoned the system of free education which had won them so
much influence and honour; by attaching themselves exclusively to the
interests of courts, they lost favour with the middle and lower
classes; and above all, their monopoly of power and patronage in
France, with the fatal use they had made of it, drew down the
bitterest hostility upon them. It was to their credit, indeed, that
the encyclopaedists attacked them as the foremost representatives of
Christianity, but they are accountable in no small degree in France,
as in England, for alienating the minds of men from the religion for
which they professed to work.

But the most fatal part of the policy of the Society was its activity, wealth and importance as a great trading firm with branch houses scattered over the richest countries of the world. Its founder, with a wise instinct, had forbidden the accumulation of wealth; its own constitutions, as revised in the 84th decree of the sixth general congregation, had forbidden all pursuits of a commercial nature, as also had various popes; but nevertheless the trade went on unceasingly, necessarily with the full knowledge of the general, unless it be pleaded that the system of obligatory espionage had completely broken down. The first muttering of the storm which was soon to break was heard in a breve issued in 1741 by Benedict XIV., wherein he denounced the Jesuit offenders as "disobedient, contumacious, captious and reprobate persons," and enacted many stringent regulations for their better government. The first serious attack came from a country where they had been long dominant. In 1753 Spain and Portugal exchanged certain American provinces with each other, which involved a transfer of sovereign rights over Paraguay; but it was also provided that the populations should severally migrate also, that the subjects of each crown might remain the same as before. The inhabitants of the "reductions," whom the Jesuits had trained in the use of European arms and discipline, naturally rose in defence of their homes, and attacked the troops and authorities. Their previous docility and their entire submission to the Jesuits left no possible doubt as to the source of the rebellion, and gave the enemies of the Jesuits a handle against them that was not forgotten. In 1757 Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, prime minister of Joseph I. of Portugal, and an old pupil of the Jesuits at Coimbra, dismissed the three Jesuit chaplains of the king and named three secular priests in their stead. He next complained to Benedict XIV. that the trading operations of the Society hampered the commercial prosperity of the nation, and asked for remedial measures. The pope, who knew the situation, committed a visitation of the Society to Cardinal Saldanha, an intimate friend of Pombal, who issued a severe decree against the Jesuits and ordered the confiscation of all their merchandise. But at this juncture Benedict XIV., the most learned and able pope of the period, was succeeded by a pope strongly in favour of the Jesuits, Clement XIII. Pombal, finding no help from Rome, adopted other means. The king was fired at and wounded on returning from a visit to his mistress on the 3rd of September 1758. The duke of Aveiro and other high personages were tried and executed for conspiracy; while some of the Jesuits, who had undoubtedly been in communication with them, were charged, on doubtful evidence, with complicity in the attempted assassination. Pombal charged the whole Society with the possible guilt of a few, and, unwilling to wait the dubious issue of an application to the pope for licence to try them in the civil courts, whence they were exempt, issued on the 1st of September 1759 a decree ordering the immediate deportation of every Jesuit from Portugal and all its dependencies and their suppression by the bishops in the schools and universities. Those in Portugal were at once shipped, in great misery, to the papal states, and were soon followed by those in the colonies. In France, Madame de Pompadour was their enemy because they had refused her absolution while she remained the king's mistress; but the immediate cause of their ruin was the bankruptcy of Father Lavalette, the Jesuit superior in Martinique, a daring speculator, who failed, after trading for some years, for 2,400,000 francs and brought ruin upon some French commercial houses of note. Lorenzo Ricci, then general of the Society, repudiated the debt, alleging lack of authority on Lavalette's part to pledge the credit of the Society, and he was sued by the creditors. Losing his cause, he appealed to the parlement of Paris, and it, to decide the issue raised by Ricci, required the constitutions of the Jesuits to be produced in evidence, and affirmed the judgment of the courts below. But the publicity given to a document scarcely known till then raised the utmost indignation against the Society. A royal commission, appointed by the duc de Choiseul to examine the constitutions, convoked a private assembly of fifty-one archbishops and bishops under the presidency of Cardinal de Luynes, all of whom except six voted that the unlimited authority of the general was incompatible with the laws of France, and that the appointment of a resident vicar, subject to those laws, was the only solution of the question fair on all sides. Ricci replied with the historical answer, _Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_; and after some further delay, during which much interest was exerted in their favour, the Jesuits were suppressed by an edict in November 1764, but suffered to remain on the footing of secular priests, a grace withdrawn in 1767, when they were expelled from the kingdom. In the very same year, Charles III. of Spain, a monarch known for personal devoutness, convinced, on evidence not now forthcoming, that the Jesuits were plotting against his authority, prepared, through his minister D'Aranda, a decree suppressing the Society in every part of his dominions. Sealed despatches were sent to every Spanish colony, to be opened on the same day, the 2nd of April 1767, when the measure was to take effect in Spain itself, and the expulsion was relentlessly carried out, nearly six thousand priests being deported from Spain alone, and sent to the Italian coast, whence, however, they were repelled by the orders of the pope and Ricci himself, finding a refuge at Corte in Corsica, after some months' suffering in overcrowded vessels at sea. The general's object may probably have been to accentuate the harshness with which the fathers had been treated, and so to increase public sympathy, but the actual result of his policy was blame for the cruelty with which he enhanced their misfortunes, for the poverty of Corsica made even a bare subsistence scarcely procurable for them there. The Bourbon courts of Naples and Parma followed the example of France and Spain; Clement XIII. retorted with a bull launched at the weakest adversary, and declaring the rank and title of the duke of Parma forfeit. The Bourbon sovereigns threatened to make war on the pope in return (France, indeed, seizing on the county of Avignon), and a joint note demanding a retractation, and the abolition of the Jesuits, was presented by the French ambassador at Rome on the 10th of December 1768 in the name of France, Spain and the two Sicilies. The pope, a man of eighty-two, died of apoplexy, brought on by the shock, early in 1769. Cardinal Lorenzo Ganganelli, a conventual Franciscan, was chosen to succeed him, and took the name of Clement XIV. He endeavoured to avert the decision forced upon him, but, as Portugal joined the Bourbon league, and Maria Theresa with her son the emperor Joseph II. ceased to protect the Jesuits, there remained only the petty kingdom of Sardinia in their favour, though the fall of Choiseul in France raised the hopes of the Society for a time. The pope began with some preliminary measures, permitting first the renewal of lawsuits against the Society, which had been suspended by papal authority, and which, indeed, had in no case been ever successful at Rome. He then closed the Collegio Romano, on the plea of its insolvency, seized the houses at Frascati and Tivoli, and broke up the establishments in Bologna and the Legations. Finally on the 21st of July 1773 the famous breve _Dominus ac Redemptor_ appeared, suppressing the Society of Jesus. This remarkable document opens by citing a long series of precedents for the suppression of religious orders by the Holy See, amongst which occurs the ill-omened instance of the Templars. It then briefly sketches the objects and history of the Jesuits themselves. It speaks of their defiance of their own constitution, expressly revived by Paul V., forbidding them to meddle in politics; of the great ruin to souls caused by their quarrels with local ordinaries and the other religious orders, their condescension to heathen usages in the East, and the disturbances, resulting in persecutions of the Church, which they had stirred up even in Catholic countries, so that several popes had been obliged to punish them. Seeing then that the Catholic sovereigns had been forced to expel them, that many bishops and other eminent persons demanded their extinction, and that the Society had ceased to fulfil the intention of its institute, the pope declares it necessary for the peace of the Church that it should be suppressed, extinguished, abolished and abrogated for ever, with all its houses, colleges, schools and hospitals; transfers all the authority of its general or officers to the local ordinaries; forbids the reception of any more novices, directing that such as were actually in probation should be dismissed, and declaring that profession in the Society should not serve as a title to holy orders. Priests of the Society are given the option of either joining other orders or remaining as secular clergy, under obedience to the ordinaries, who are empowered to grant or withhold from them licences to hear confessions. Such of the fathers as are engaged in the work of education are permitted to continue, on condition of abstaining from lax and questionable doctrines apt to cause strife and trouble. The question of missions is reserved, and the relaxations granted to the Society in such matters as fasting, reciting the hours and reading heretical books, are withdrawn; while the breve ends with clauses carefully drawn to bar any legal exceptions that might be taken against its full validity and obligation. It has been necessary to cite these heads of the breve because the apologists of the Society allege that no motive influenced the pope save the desire of peace at any price, and that he did not believe in the culpability of the fathers. The categorical charges made in the document rebut this plea. The pope followed up this breve by appointing a congregation of cardinals to take possession of the temporalities of the Society, and armed it with summary powers against all who should attempt to retain or conceal any of the property. He also threw Lorenzo Ricci, the general, into prison, first in the English college and then in the castle of St Angelo, where he died in 1775, under the pontificate of Pius VI., who, though not unfavourable to the Society, and owing his own advancement to it, dared not release him, probably because his continued imprisonment was made a condition by the powers who enjoyed a right of veto in papal elections. In September 1774 Clement XIV. died after much suffering, and the question has been hotly debated ever since whether poison was the cause of his death. But the latest researches have shown that there is no evidence to support the theory of poison. Salicetti, the pope's physician, denied that the body showed signs of poisoning, and Tanucci, Neapolitan ambassador at Rome, who had a large share in procuring the breve of suppression, entirely acquits the Jesuits, while F. Theiner, no friend to the Society, does the like.

At the date of this suppression, the Society had 41 provinces and 22,589 members, of whom 11,295 were priests. Far from submitting to the papal breve, the ex-Jesuits, after some ineffectual attempts at direct resistance, withdrew into the territories of the free-thinking sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, Frederick II. and Catherine II., who became their active friends and protectors; and the fathers alleged as a principle, in so far as their theology is concerned, that no papal bull is binding in a state whose sovereign has not approved and authorized its publication and execution. Russia formed the headquarters of the Society, and two forged breves were speedily circulated, being dated June 9 and June 29, 1774, approving their establishment in Russia, and implying the repeal of the breve of suppression. But these are contradicted by the tenor of five genuine breves issued in September 1774 to the archbishop of Gnesen, and making certain assurances to the ex-Jesuits, on condition of their complete obedience to the injunctions already laid on them. The Jesuits also pleaded a verbal approbation by Pius VI., technically known as an _Oraculum vivae vocis_, but this is invalid for purposes of law unless reduced to writing and duly authenticated.

They elected three Poles successively as generals, taking, however, only the title of vicars, till on the 7th of March 1801 Pius VII. granted them liberty to reconstitute themselves in north Russia, and permitted Kareu, then vicar, to exercise full authority as general. On the 30th of July 1804 a similar breve restored the Jesuits in the Two Sicilies, at the express desire of Ferdinand IV., the pope thus anticipating the further action of 1814, when, by the constitution _Sollicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum_, he revoked the action of Clement XIV., and formally restored the Society to corporate legal existence, yet not only omitted any censure of his predecessor's conduct, but all vindication of the Jesuits from the heavy charges in the breve _Dominus ac Redemptor_. In France, even after their expulsion in 1765, they had maintained a precarious footing in the country under the partial disguise and names of "Fathers of the Faith" or "Clerks of the Sacred Heart," but were obliged by Napoleon I. to retire in 1804. They reappeared under their true name in 1814, and obtained formal licence in 1822, but became the objects of so much hostility that Charles X. deprived them by ordinance of the right of instruction, and obliged all applicants for licences as teachers to make oath that they did not belong to any community unrecognized by the laws. They were dispersed again by the revolution of July 1830, but soon reappeared and, though put to much inconvenience during the latter years of Louis Philippe's reign, notably in 1845, maintained their footing, recovered the right to teach freely after the revolution of 1848, and gradually became the leading educational and ecclesiastical power in France, notably under the Second Empire, till they were once more expelled by the Ferry laws of 1880, though they quietly returned since the execution of those measures. They were again expelled by the Law of Associations of 1901. In Spain they came back with Ferdinand VII., but were expelled at the constitutional rising in 1820, returning in 1823, when the duke of Angoulême's army replaced Ferdinand on his throne; they were driven out once more by Espartero in 1835, and have had no legal position since, though their presence is openly tolerated. In Portugal, ranging themselves on the side of Dom Miguel, they fell with his cause, and were exiled in 1834. There are some to this day in Lisbon under the name of "Fathers of the Faith." Russia, which had been their warmest patron, drove them from St Petersburg and Moscow in 1813, and from the whole empire in 1820, mainly on the plea of attempted proselytizing in the imperial army. Holland drove them out in 1816, and, by giving them thus a valid excuse for aiding the Belgian revolution of 1830, secured them the strong position they have ever since held in Belgium; but they have succeeded in returning to Holland. They were expelled from Switzerland in 1847-1848 for the part they were charged with in exciting the war of the Sonderbund. In south Germany, inclusive of Austria and Bavaria, their annals since their restoration have been uneventful; but in north Germany, owing to the footing Frederick II. had given them in Prussia, they became very powerful, especially in the Rhine provinces, and, gradually moulding the younger generation of clergy after the close of the War of Liberation, succeeded in spreading Ultramontane views amongst them, and so leading up to the difficulties with the civil government which issued in the Falk laws, and their own expulsion by decree of the German parliament (June 19, 1872). Since then many attempts have been made to procure the recall of the Society to the German Empire, but without success, although as individuals they are now allowed in the country. In Great Britain, whither they began to straggle over during the revolutionary troubles at the close of the 18th century, and where, practically unaffected by the clause directed against them in the Emancipation Act of 1829, their chief settlement has been at Stonyhurst in Lancashire, an estate conferred on them by Thomas Weld in 1795, they have been unmolested; but there has been little affinity to the order in the British temperament, and the English province has consequently never risen to numerical or intellectual importance in the Society. In Rome itself, its progress after the restoration was at first slow, and it was not till the reign of Leo XII. (1823-1829) that it recovered its place as the chief educational body there. It advanced steadily under Gregory XVI., and, though it was at first shunned by Pius IX., it secured his entire confidence after his return from Gaeta in 1849, and obtained from him a special breve erecting the staff of its literary journal, the _Civiltà Cattolica_, into a perpetual college under the general of the Jesuits, for the purpose of teaching and propagating the faith in its pages. How, with this pope's support throughout his long reign, the gradual filling of nearly all the sees of Latin Christendom with bishops of their own selection, and their practical capture, directly or indirectly, of the education of the clergy in seminaries, they contrived to stamp out the last remains of independence everywhere, and to crown the Ultramontane triumph with the Vatican Decrees, is matter of familiar knowledge. Leo XIII., while favouring them somewhat, never gave them his full confidence; and by his adhesion to the Thomist philosophy and theology, and his active work for the regeneration and progress of the older orders, he made another suppression possible by destroying much of their prestige. But the usual sequence has been observed under Pius X., who appeared to be greatly in favour of the Society and to rely upon them for many of the measures of his pontificate.

The Society has been ruled by twenty-five generals and four vicars from its foundation to the present day (1910). Of all the various nationalities represented in the Society, neither France, its original cradle, nor England, has ever given it a head, while Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Poland, were all represented. The numbers of the Society are not accurately known, but are estimated at about 20,000, in all parts of the world; and of these the English, Irish and American Jesuits are under 3000.

The generals of the Jesuits have been as follow:--

1. Ignatius de Loyola (Spaniard) 1541-1556
2. Diego Laynez (Spaniard) 1558-1565
3. Francisco Borgia (Spaniard) 1565-1572
4. Everard Mercurian (Belgian) 1573-1580
5. Claudio Acquaviva (Neapolitan) 1581-1615
6. Mutio Vitelleschi (Roman) 1615-1645
7. Vincenzio Caraffa (Neapolitan) 1646-1649
8. Francesco Piccolomini (Florentine) 1649-1651
9. Alessandro Gottofredi (Roman) 1652
10. Goswin Nickel (German) 1652-1664
11. Giovanni Paolo Oliva (Genoese) vicar-general and
coadjutor, 1661; general 1664-1681
12. Charles de Noyelle (Belgian) 1682-1686
13. Tirso Gonzalez (Spaniard) 1687-1705
14. Michele Angelo Tamburini (Modenese) 1706-1730
15. Franz Retz (Bohemian) 1730-1750
16. Ignazio Visconti (Milanese) 1751-1755
17. Alessandro Centurioni (Genoese) 1755-1757
18. Lorenzo Ricci (Florentine) 1758-1775
_a_. Stanislaus Czerniewicz (Pole), vicar-general 1782-1785
_b_. Gabriel Lienkiewicz (Pole), " 1785-1798
_c_. Franciscus Xavier Kareu (Pole), (general in
Russia, 7th March 1801) 1799-1802
_d_. Gabriel Gruber (German) 1802-1805
19. Thaddaeus Brzozowski (Pole) 1805-1820
20. Aloysio Fortis (Veronese) 1820-1829
21. Johannes Roothaan (Dutchman) 1829-1853
22. Peter Johannes Beckx (Belgian) 1853-1884
23. Antoine Anderledy (Swiss) 1884-1892
24. Luis Martin (Spanish) 1892-1906
25. Francis Xavier Wernz (German) 1906-

The bibliography of Jesuitism is of enormous extent, and it is
impracticable to cite more than a few of the most important works.
They are as follows: _Institutum Societatis Jesu_ (7 vols., Avignon,
1830-1838); Orlandini, _Historia Societatis Jesu_ (Antwerp, 1620);
_Imago primi saeculi Societatis Jesu_ (Antwerp, 1640); Nieremberg,
_Vida de San Ignacio de Loyola_ (9 vols., fol., Madrid, 1645-1736);
Genelli, _Life of St Ignatius of Loyola_ (London, 1872); Backer,
_Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus_ (7 vols., Paris,
1853-1861); Crétineau Joly, _Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus_ (6
vols., Paris, 1844); Guettée, _Histoire des Jésuites_ (3 vols., Paris,
1858-1859); Wolff, _Allgemeine Geschichte der Jesuiten_ (4 vols.,
Zürich, 1789-1792); Gioberti, _Il Gesuita moderno_ (Lausanne, 1846);
F. Parkman, _Pioneers of France in the New World_ and _The Jesuits in
North America_ (Boston, 1868); _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses,
écrites des missions étrangères, avec les Annales de la propagation de
la foi_ (40 vols., Lyons, 1819-1854); Saint-Priest, _Histoire de la
chute des Jésuites au XVIII^e Siècle_ (Paris, 1844); Ranke, _Römische
Päpste_ (3 vols., Berlin, 1838); E. Taunton, _History of the Jesuits
in England_ (London, 1901); Thomas Hughes, S.J., _History of the
Society of Jesus in North America_ (London and New York, 1907); R. G.
Thwaites, _Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents_ (73 vols. Cleveland,
1896-1901). (R. F. L.; E. Tn.)

JESUP, MORRIS KETCHUM (1830-1908), American banker and philanthropist, was born at Westport, Connecticut, on the 21st of June 1830. In 1842 he went to New York City, where after some experience in business he established a banking house in 1852. In 1856 he organized the banking firm of M. K. Jesup & Company, which after two reorganizations became Cuyler, Morgan & Jesup. He became widely known as a financier, retiring from active business in 1884. He was best known, however, as a munificent patron of scientific research, a large contributor to the needs of education, and a public-spirited citizen of wide interests, who did much for the betterment of social conditions in New York. He contributed largely to the funds for the Arctic expeditions of Commander Robert E. Peary, becoming president of the Peary Arctic Club in 1899. To the American museum of natural history, in New York City, he gave large sums in his lifetime and bequeathed $1,000,000. He was president of the New York chamber of commerce from 1899 until 1907, and was the largest subscriber to its new building. To his native town he gave a fine public library. He died in New York City on the 22nd of January 1908.

JESUS CHRIST. To write a summary account of the life of Christ, though always involving a grave responsibility, was until recent years a comparatively straightforward task; for it was assumed that all that was needed, or could be offered, was a chronological outline based on a harmony of the four canonical Gospels. But to-day history is not satisfied by this simple procedure. Literary criticism has analysed the documents, and has already established some important results; and many questions are still in debate, the answers to which must affect our judgment of the historical value of the existing narratives. It seems therefore consonant alike with prudence and reverence to refrain from attempting to combine afresh into a single picture the materials derivable from the various documents, and to endeavour instead to describe the main contents of the sources from which our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as an historical personage is ultimately drawn, and to observe the picture of Him which each writer in turn has offered to us.

The chief elements of the evidence with which we shall deal are the
following:--

1. First, because earliest in point of time, the references to the
Lord Jesus Christ in the earliest Epistles of St Paul.

2. The Gospel according to St Mark.

3. A document, no longer extant, which was partially incorporated into
the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke.

4. Further information added by St Matthew's Gospel.

5. Further information added by St Luke's Gospel.

6. The Gospel according to St John.

With regard to traditional sayings or doings of our Lord, which were
only written down at a later period, it will suffice to say that those
which have any claim to be genuine are very scanty, and that their
genuineness has to be tested by their correspondence with the great
bulk of information which is derived from the sources already
enumerated. The fictitious literature of the second and third
centuries, known as the Apocryphal Gospels, offers no direct evidence
of any historical value at all: it is chiefly valuable for the
contrast which it presents to the grave simplicity of the canonical
Gospels, and as showing how incapable a later age was of adding
anything to the Gospel history which was not palpably absurd.

1. _Letters of St Paul._--In the order of chronology we must give the first place to the earliest letters of St Paul. The first piece of Christian literature which has an independent existence and to which we can fix a date is St Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians. Lightfoot dates it in 52 or 53; Harnack places it five years earlier. We may say, then, that it was written some twenty years after the Crucifixion. St Paul is not an historian; he is not attempting to describe what Jesus Christ said or did. He is writing a letter to encourage a little Christian society which he, a Jew, had founded in a distant Greek city; and he reminds his readers of many things which he had told them when he was with them. The evidence, to be collected from his epistles generally must not detain us here, but we may glance for a moment at this one letter, because it contains what appears to be the first mention of Jesus Christ in the literature of the world. Those who would get a true history cannot afford to neglect their earliest documents. Now the opening sentence of this letter is as follows: "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you, and peace." Three men with Greek or Latin names are writing to some kind of assembly in a city of Macedonia. The writers are Jews, to judge by their salutation of "peace," and by their mention of "God the Father," and of the assembly or society as being "in" Him. But what is this new name which is placed side by side with the Divine Name--"in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"? An educated Greek, who knew something (as many at that time did) of the Greek translation of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, if he had picked up this letter before he had ever heard the name of Jesus Christ, would have been deeply interested in these opening words. He would have known that "Jesus" was the Greek form of Joshua; that "Christ" was the Greek rendering of Messiah, or Anointed, the title of the great King for whom the Jews were looking; he might further have remembered that "the Lord" is the expression which the Greek Old Testament constantly uses instead of the ineffable name of God, which we now call "Jehovah" (q.v.). Who, then, he might well ask is this Jesus Christ who is lifted to this unexampled height? For it is plain that Jesus Christ stands in some close relation to "God the Father," and that on the ground of that relation a society has been built up, apparently by Jews, in a Greek city far distant from Palestine. He would learn something as he read on; for the letter makes a passing reference to the foundation of the society, and to the expansion of its influence in other parts of Greece; to the conversion of its members from heathenism, and to the consequent sufferings at the hands of their heathen neighbours. The writers speak of themselves as "apostles," or messengers, of Christ; they refer to similar societies "in Christ Jesus," which they call "churches of God," in Judaea, and they say that these also suffer from the Jews there, who had "killed the Lord Jesus" some time before. But they further speak of Jesus as "raised from the dead," and they refer to the belief which they had led the society to entertain, that He would come again "from heaven to deliver them from the coming wrath." Moreover, they urge them not to grieve for certain members of the society who have already died, saying that, "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again," we may also be assured that "the dead in Christ will rise" and will live for ever with Him. Thus the letter assumes that its readers already have considerable knowledge as to "the Lord Jesus Christ," and as to His relation to "God the Father," a knowledge derived from teaching given in person on a former visit. The purpose of the letter is not to give information as to the past, but to stimulate its readers to perseverance by giving fresh teaching as to the future. Historically it is of great value as showing how widely within twenty or twenty-five years of the Crucifixion a religion which proclaimed developed theological teaching as to "the Lord Jesus Christ" had spread in the Roman Empire. We may draw a further conclusion from this and other letters of St Paul before we go on. St Paul's missionary work must have created a demand. Those who had heard him and read his letters would want to know more than he had told them of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. They would wish to be able to picture Him to their minds; and especially to understand what could have led to His being put to death by the Romans at the requisition of the Jews. St Paul had not been one of his personal disciples in Galilee or Jerusalem; he had no memories to relate of His miracles and teaching. Some written account of these was an obvious need. And we may be sure that any such narrative concerning One who was so deeply reverenced would be most carefully scrutinized at a time when many were still living whose memories went back to the period of Our Lord's public ministry. One such narrative we now proceed to describe.

2. _St Mark's Gospel._--The Gospel according to St Mark was written within fifteen years of the first letter of St Paul to the Thessalonians--i.e. about 65. It seems designed to meet the requirements of Christians living far away from Palestine. The author was not an eye-witness of what he relates, but he writes with the firm security of a man who has the best authority behind him. The characteristics of his work confirm the early belief that St Mark wrote this Gospel for the Christians of Rome under the guidance of St Peter. It is of the first importance that we should endeavour to see this book as a whole; to gain the total impression which it makes on the mind; to look at the picture of Jesus Christ which it offers. That picture must inevitably be an incomplete representation of Him; it will need to be supplemented by other pictures which other writers have drawn. But it is important to consider it by itself, as showing us what impress the Master had made on the memory of one disciple who had been almost constantly by His side.

Beginning of Christ's Mission.