Chapter X

1581-1608.

COMMOTION AMONG THE JESUITS.

In relating the proceedings of the Jesuits in divers countries of Europe, we have not mentioned Spain; first, because, though firmly established in that country, they, under the absolute Philip II., exercised no influence whatever over its general policy; and, secondly, because we had it in reserve to speak of their proceedings in that country in the present chapter.

In Spain the Jesuits had no heretics to contend with—no zeal or fanaticism to excite. If now and then some Christianised Jew or Moor relapsed into his former belief, the Inquisition was too jealous of her privilege of roasting those accursed of God, in a solemn _auto da fè_, to permit the Jesuits to meddle in the holy ceremony. Having thus no external enemy to contend with, they, as usually happens, fell out among themselves, and fought with one another.

The so-called Society of Jesus having been mostly established by Spaniards, the Spanish Jesuits pretended that all the honours and dignities of the order were exclusively due to them. A first blow was dealt to these pretensions when, by the interference of the Pope, a General was chosen who was not a Castilian. However, since Mercurianus, the person elected, was old and weak, they submitted without much reluctance to an authority they did not dread. But when the fifth General Congregation chose for General a Neapolitan nobleman, young, active, and enterprising, they broke out into open revolt. This General, elected in 1581, was Claude Acquaviva, son of the Duke of Atri, only thirty-seven years of age at the time of his election. Acquaviva was, and has remained, the _beau idéal_ of Jesuitism. He had grown up in the Court of Rome, where he was chamberlain, and where he acquired a thorough knowledge of men, and of all political intrigues, in which the Roman curia at that epoch excelled all the other courts of Europe. He was crafty, insinuating, persevering. He never uttered a precise command, but never suffered his exhortations to be disregarded. Gentle in appearance, and renowned for the amenity of his manners, he was endowed with an inflexible intrepidity of character. He spoke rarely, never gave a decided opinion, and preserved in all circumstances a placid and calm demeanour. His family had been from of old attached to the French party, and he followed the same line of policy. As we have seen, he disapproved of the League, and gave other tokens of his attachment to the French interest, without, however, openly committing himself with the other party. Such was Acquaviva.

_Hinchliff._]

At the news of Acquaviva’s election, the old Jesuits of Spain, incensed in the highest degree, broke out in loud complaints first, refused afterwards obedience to his orders, lastly rebelled openly, and asked that the members residing in Spain should be governed by a commissary-general independent of Rome. Philip, to cast a reproach upon Acquaviva, whom he detested on account of his partiality to the French king, sided with the malcontents. The General faced the storm in the best manner he could. First of all, he contrived, by promises of advancement and honours, to retain in his interest some of the less compromised among the rioters; secondly, he sent into the Peninsula new provincials and superiors, the most of whom were Neapolitans, young (a class of Jesuits who worshipped him), and firmly attached to his fortunes, with strict injunctions to enforce obedience to his orders. Some of the Jesuits, in the hope of making their way to preferment, submitted; the most refused obedience, and had recourse to the Inquisition and the king. Philip ordered the Bishop of Carthagena to subject the order to a visitation, and the Inquisition arrested the provincial Marcenius, and two or three more members of Acquaviva’s party; the latter being accused by the other party of absolving the members of their order from certain sins from which the Inquisition only could absolve; and those sins, Sacchini tells us, consisted in the attempt to corrupt the honesty of their penitents. This was rather a serious matter, and menaced the Society in its very existence. Nevertheless, Acquaviva was not appalled. He did not lose his self-command, nor vent his anger in threats. Against such enemies he had but one shield—the Pope. Sixtus V. filled the chair of St Peter; he bore no goodwill to the order, but he was jealous to an extreme degree of his own authority, and wished that that of others also should be respected. Acquaviva persuaded Sixtus, or, to speak more correctly, insinuated to him, that the blow was aimed not so much at him, the General, as at the supremacy of Rome; at the same time skilfully making him understand, that the Bishop of Carthagena was of illegitimate birth, a blemish which he knew the Pope abhorred above all things. Sixtus at once recalled the assent which he had given to the visitation, and commanded the Inquisition to set at liberty the arrested Jesuits, and to remit the whole case to Rome. When he was informed that the holy tribunal refused to obey his orders, Sixtus became furious with anger, and directed a letter to be written to Cardinal Quiroga, the Grand Inquisitor, to which he added, in his own handwriting, “And if you do not obey, I, the Pope, shall immediately depose you from your office of inquisitor, and tear from your head your cardinal’s hat.” This decided language produced the desired effect. Sixtus’s orders were obeyed, and Acquaviva, under the shadow of the Pope’s authority, maintained himself unshaken in his high office during Sixtus’s lifetime.

But the storm, which had been but momentarily quelled, broke out again after the death of Sixtus, with increased violence. In 1592, while the General was absent from Rome, Philip, who never forgave to Acquaviva his partiality for the French interest, sent the Pope a petition from all the Spanish Jesuits, praying for a general congregation of the order; he himself, at the same time, strongly recommending the measure. Clement VIII., the reigning Pope, granted their request, and before even the General could be aware of his enemies’ manœuvres, the Pope issued orders for the meeting of the congregation. Acquaviva, satisfied that the measure was now irrevocable, submitted to it with the greatest possible good grace, and having used his utmost endeavours that the election should not prove too unfavourable to him, the moment the congregation opened, he, without waiting to be accused, requested that his conduct should be examined and judged. A commission was immediately appointed to receive any accusation or complaint that might be brought against the General. But Acquaviva was far too prudent to have violated any essential rule, or to have given his enemies the right of consistently impeaching his private conduct; so that, as no charge could be substantiated against him, he was triumphantly acquitted. Philip, however, insisted that some restraint should be put upon the General’s authority, and, although the congregation refused to comply with the king’s wishes, the Pope, in the plenitude of his apostolic power, ordained that the superiors and rectors should be changed every third year, and that, at the expiration of every sixth year, a general congregation should be assembled. Acquaviva shewed a great readiness to acquiesce in the Pope’s decrees, but he rendered them almost nugatory by other ordinances; and as a new generation of Jesuits, all devoted to his interests, was now grown up, all questions taken up both by the provincial and general congregations, were decided in accordance with his wishes. By his letter on the happy increase of the Society, Acquaviva prescribed new rules to render the superiors more respected by their subordinates, and more submissive to the General. A second letter, _ratio studiorum_, which contains a complete code of school legislation, was of still greater importance, and productive of more momentous results. As the education of the young has been one of the principal and immediate causes of the Jesuits’ immense power and influence, we feel obliged to devote some few pages to this important matter.

Had the Jesuits devoted themselves to the work of education for the sole and noble end of diffusing knowledge and intellectual culture among the people, no praise would be adequate to their meritorious exertions and unremitting activity. Such, however, was not exactly the case. The Order—that idol which the Jesuit must have constantly before his eyes—was in this, as in every other undertaking, the great object to which their labours were consecrated; and for its honour and advantage they did not hesitate to sacrifice, when necessary, every other consideration. Nevertheless, in a literary point of view, we shall not refuse to them some eulogy.

“The instruction of boys and of ignorant people in Christianity” was one of the ends which they proposed to attain, and for which Loyola asked Paul III. to approve his order. The example of John III. of Portugal, and of the Duke of Candia, who first erected colleges for the fathers, was eagerly imitated by many. Their colleges increased rapidly, and were soon planted all over the world, so that there were no less than 669 of them at the epoch of the suppression of the order. We have already seen (pp. 40, 41) by what allurements wealthy persons were induced by the Jesuits to leave their property to Jesuit establishments. These were of two kinds, seminaries and colleges, the members of the latter being subdivided into gymnasium and faculty-students. In connexion with each college there was a boarding-house, whither parents were happy to send their children as under a safe shelter from the storms of passion, and from the dangerous society of depraved companions. In their seminaries were trained up the Scholars—those members of the order who were thought to be possessed of such talents as to qualify them to fulfil afterwards the office of professor. But the most numerous class, and perhaps the most useful for their purpose, was the class of day scholars. It is well known that all persons, of whatsoever rank, are admitted into the Jesuit schools, and receive the same instructions. At school hours the prince’s son, who is brought up in their boarding-houses, descends and takes his seat on the same bench with the son of a cobbler. And this we consider an admirable and most instructive plan. The only obligation imposed on the day scholars is, that they must give in their names, and promise to observe the rules of the college, which are everywhere uniform, and which oblige the pupil to hear mass every day, and to go to the confessional once every month. In former times, the Jesuits undertook a still more watchful oversight of this class. They visited them at unwonted hours in their abodes, they had them followed in their different movements, and if they were found guilty of any misdemeanour they were reprimanded, and their faults were made an obstacle to their advancement to academical honours. It is, however, worthy of remark, that Loyola, the clear-sighted Loyola, foreseeing that the obligation to follow the rules of the college would deter Protestants from sending their children to it, and wishing above all things to get hold of those children and to try what the Jesuits could do to convert them, had taken care to leave an opening for their admission. To the third paragraph of the thirteenth chapter of the fourth part of the Constitution, in which is enacted that the day scholars shall engage to observe the rules of the college, he added the following note:—“If any of those who present themselves to our schools will neither engage to observe the rules nor give in his name, he ought not for that reason to be prevented from attending the classes, provided he conduct himself with propriety, and do not cause either trouble or scandal. Let them be made aware of this; adding, however, that they shall not receive the peculiar care which is given to those whose names are inscribed in the register of the university or of the class, and who engage to follow its rules.”[204] This is a characteristic specimen of Jesuitical policy. By absolutely refusing to admit the children of Protestants, they would obtain no result; but by admitting them on such terms, they obtain an opportunity of influencing their youthful minds, and bending them to their purpose indirectly. On the one hand, such pupils cannot but imbibe, in the ordinary course of instruction, the principles and spirit of their masters; and on the other, their pride is mortified at never being considered or mentioned at those public exhibitions which form so important a part of the Jesuit system of education. This artful policy is too frequently successful. Oftentimes the parents, jealous of their children’s renown, and anxious to see them surrounded by those affectionate and friendly cares which the Jesuits unsparingly bestow upon the regular pupils, are induced to consent that they shall follow the rules of the college, and go to mass and to the confessional, and even change their own faith, the better to secure for them these desired advantages: and if it should chance that the mother alone is left as guardian, it commonly happens that both mother and son become Roman Catholics.

In the Jesuit schools the greatest order reigned. The Jesuit masters were men of polite and agreeable manners, in general of a _comely appearance_, with a cheerful and smiling countenance. They descended with a winning affability to the level of their pupils, and accommodated their language and manners to the capacities and dispositions of the _class of persons_ they had to deal with. The parents, who were highly pleased with the polished manners and the high attainments of their children, sounded forth the praises of their kind instructors far and wide, and repaid their gratuitous instructions sometimes by large donations, always by a deference and devotion never withdrawn. It is an incontestable fact, that even Protestants and philosophers, who had been educated in these seminaries, and who afterwards became the most hostile to the Jesuits as a religious community, continued to preserve a grateful recollection of their Jesuit teachers. Voltaire himself dedicated his tragedy _Merope_ to his dear master Father Porée; and the different princes who were brought up by the Jesuits never lost, when on the throne, that affection and veneration which they had conceived for their kind instructors at an age when generous minds are most susceptible of noble and generous impressions.

Nor was this all. Another strong link, that of religion, was added to the chain of sympathy by which they bound their pupils to the order, and insured for themselves in the different nations of Europe an all-powerful and irresistible influence. In 1569 the Jesuit Leon, a teacher, thought of assembling during the interval of studies such of the boys as were willing to sing the praises of the Virgin, and perform certain external acts of devotion, contributing at the same time, monthly, small sums of money, part of which was employed in works of charity, the merit of the action being always attributed, not to the donors, but to the Jesuits. These meetings took the form of associations, and increased so rapidly, that fifteen years after, in 1584, Gregory XIII. erected them into primary congregations, under the title of _Congregations of the Holy Virgin_. “These congregations, of which the General of the order was the supreme director, soon broke out from the walls of the colleges with those young men who left them to embrace a career, and who wished to remain in a communion of prayers and remembrances with their masters and their fellow-scholars. They became a link of connexion and friendship; they spread in Europe and in India; they united in the same association the east and the west, the populations of the north and of the south. They had statutes, rules, prayers, and duties in common. It was a numerous brotherhood, extending from Paris to Goa, and descending from Rome to the most insignificant hamlet. The congregations of Avignon, of Antwerp, of Prague, of Friburg, were the most celebrated. There were congregations composed of ecclesiastics, of military men, of magistrates, of nobles, of burgesses, of merchants, of artisans, of servants, all occupied in good and meritorious works.”[205] With the exception of this last clause, this description is perfectly true. A Jesuit was at the head of every congregation. At appointed times the members met together to repeat the office of the Virgin, and to listen to whatever exhortation or advice the Jesuit might think proper to give. His influence was greater or less, according to the quality of persons composing the congregation. Over the poor and the ignorant he had an almost absolute control, and whatever he enjoined, they unscrupulously obeyed. If he exercised no such absolute control over members of the higher classes, he still possessed a great influence over them, and had free access to their families, where he more leisurely practised those arts by which the Jesuit very seldom fails to attain his ends. One is amazed when he considers what immense power these congregations must have given the General of the society. His orders, his curses or commendations of a book, of a man, or of a measure, were repeated in the same tone throughout all the world by tens of thousands, who considered it a sin to disbelieve his word, or to disobey his commands. No wonder, then, that the Court of Rome itself was obliged to submit to the ascendancy of the Jesuits, and that the suppression of the order was with difficulty effected by the united efforts of almost all the sovereigns of Europe.

After the order was suppressed, and during the political turmoil and the unsettled state of Europe, the congregations, although kept up secretly by some disguised Liguorist or Jesuit, were thinly attended, and had lost all their importance. But after the restoration of the Pope and of the Bourbons, missionaries of all kinds overran the whole of Italy, Spain, and part of France, and, among other religious exploits, re-established the congregations of the Virgin. Congregations both of men and women are now very numerous, although they perhaps want that unity of purpose and of direction, which in former times rendered them so dangerously powerful. Their denominations are numberless; congregations of the Rosary, congregations of the Assumption of the Virgin, congregations of the Blood of Jesus (del Sangue di Gesù). In those places where there are no Jesuits, they are directed by proxy, some other religious community, as the Liguorist, the Lazarist, the Passionist, or such like idle and corrupted crew, being appointed to that duty. In church affairs, the members of these congregations have, so to speak, privileges above the rest of the citizens. They go foremost in the processions and other exhibitions; they wear a distinctive badge; they are entitled to a greater number of days of indulgence, and so on. Besides these things, which satisfy the devotional feeling, and flatter the vanity, especially that of the common people in small towns, each individual member may count upon receiving the protection and indirect assistance of the father director.

The boarders in the Jesuit college are subjected to almost the same mode of life as that of the Scholars (the second class of Jesuits), which, however, is not strictly conformable to that of the other classes; Loyola having given them a dispensation from some external practices, acts of devotion and of mortification, that they may have more time for study.[206] The boarders are placed in large rooms, called in Italian _Camerate_, in French _Chambres_, each of which accommodates from fifteen to twenty, who are under the superintendence of a _Prefetto_ and _Vice-prefetto_. At six in the morning a bell gives the signal for rising. The prefect immediately chants some prayers, which are repeated by some of the youths who are less asleep than the rest. Half an hour is allowed for dressing; an hour is spent in the chapel, hearing mass, and singing the praises of the Virgin and St Ignatius. Study follows, and after breakfast, for which half an hour is allowed, they descend to the public schoolroom, where they mix with the day-boarders, with whom, however, they have no opportunities of secret converse. Two pupils, and every day different ones, are secretly charged by the prefect to give an account of the behaviour of all the others, and they are punished if they are not accurate in their denunciations. At twelve they sit down to dinner, during which ascetic books are read from a pulpit placed in the refectory. After the evening school, they walk for an hour in winter, two in summer, and almost double that time on holidays. Before supper, half an hour is again spent in the chapel; and what remains of the evening after supper is spent in study and recreation. At nine o’clock, being warned by the ringing of the bell, they prepare for rest, accompanying the prefect in chanting the Litany of the Virgin. No one is allowed to go from one _camerata_ to another, without the express permission of the prefect or vice-prefect, one of whom must accompany him. No one, not even a parent, is allowed to visit a boarder without the consent of the superior, who is almost always present at the interview. No letter can be sent off or received by any boarder but it must pass through the hands of the rector, who stops it if he thinks proper. The boarders never go home except during the holidays in September, and some remain in the college even during that period. The consequence is, that the influence of the family is gradually destroyed, and the Jesuits mould these youthful hearts and intellects according to their own Jesuitical pattern. Every fortnight all the boarders must go to the confessional, and severe punishment is inflicted on those who transgress this principal rule of the college. But no one ever dares to brave the punishment, though many do not scruple to evade the duty by practising a little ruse.[207]

In all the Jesuit colleges, as we have already observed, reigns the greatest decency, and a sort of military order and discipline, which is highly pleasing to the young. “Their colleges were open for all the graceful arts. Even dancing and fencing were not excluded. The annual distribution of prizes was preceded not only by tragedies full of political allusions, but also by _ballets_ composed by the reverend fathers, and executed by the most agile of their pupils.”[208]

No pains were spared by the Jesuits to advance their pupils in their studies. But as the end which they taught them to have in view was not _the truth_—as it was not their purpose to inspire their young minds with those noble and generous sentiments which form great citizens, but only to instruct them in their peculiar doctrines, and render them subservient to their order, the whole course of instruction was directed to the attainment of these ends, and the progress of their pupils was more brilliant than solid—partook more of a theatrical character than of a serious method of learning that would have developed the power of reason and reflection. In the speculative sciences especially, their instruction was most defective. The student was by no means taught to penetrate the superficial crust of prejudices and appearances on which the mass of mankind build their opinions, and to descend into the deeper essence of philosophy; but his attention was chiefly directed to the art of disputing in pitiable syllogism upon some of their established principles. The most fantastical, and, at the same time, attractive questions, were proposed for public disputation; and to that incessant fencing of _nego_, _concedo_, _distinguo_, &c., the apprentice philosopher was taught to give all his attention, and, in the display of ability in this exercise, to place all his glory. The Jesuits, so celebrated as casuists, cannot boast of any great philosopher. If some of their pupils acquired a great name in science or in literature, they owed it to their own creative power, which broke out from that sort of magic circle which had been described around them. They became great, not because they had had good masters, but, on the contrary, because they had followed no other master than their own inventive genius. And this is always the case—the Dantes, the Bacons, the Shakspeares, had no masters. The Jesuits cultivated, with more success, archæology, numismatics, and the study of languages. They have especially rendered important services to the study of the classics, which they strongly recommended as the most effectual requisite of a good education. But even to their labours in this department of learning we cannot render unqualified praise.

Literature forms the principal part of the education of a people. Greece and Rome owe their civilisation and grandeur to their poets and orators more than to anything else. With the Eschyluses, the Demostheneses, the Horaces, and the Ciceros, disappeared the glory, the liberty, the civilisation, of the two nations. And if now and then some privileged intelligences, such as Tacitus and Plutarch, appeared on the scene, they could not give a tone to the age, both because they stood alone, and because they were the reflection, not of their own, but of bygone times, and that all the elements of the expiring civilisation were concentrated, we may say, in themselves alone. For it is not to the excellence of the form that literature is indebted for its power; it is rather to its being a vivid representation of the thoughts and feelings, the opinions and sentiments, the hopes and fears, which constitute the life of a nation, and which the writers powerfully exhibit because they themselves are powerfully moved by them. It was by their possessing this excellence in the highest degree that the classical writers of antiquity contributed to form the character of their countrymen; and it is this which forms the chief attraction of their works to the modern student, and which renders them so efficient an instrument for developing the powers of the youthful mind. Now, how can a Jesuit, who has no country, no family, no affection, no history, nothing in which to glory but his order—how can such a man impart to young minds those noble sentiments, those inspirations, which form the essential part of classical literature? “How,” exclaims our Gioberti,[209] “how shall the youth love and admire the heroes of Plutarch if they are made known to him by a Jesuit?[210] because,” most judiciously adds the Italian philosopher, “even if the pupils can repeat the half of Demosthenes or of Cicero, the lesson cannot produce any good effect on their tender minds, if it is not assisted by the voice, by the manners, by the examples, of the interpreter; so that the soul and the life of the master ought to be a mirror and image of that ideal world into which he introduces the pupil.” In fact, the Jesuits gave all their attention merely to the external form of their compositions. Purity of language, elegance of style, correctness of expression, are, generally speaking, the distinctive characteristics of the writings of the Jesuits and their pupils. But their writings are devoid of invention, of bold and luxuriant images, of earnest and passionate expressions, and the care they take to publish their style renders them affected and often ridiculous. No doubt there are honourable exceptions; and Bartoli, for example, Segneri, and Bourdaloue, may be classed among the first Italian and French writers. The Jesuits exercised rather the memory than the intelligence of the pupil, who not seldom was able to recite volumes of which he hardly understood a word. Their greatest merit consisted in rendering study pleasing; and many of their pupils owe their fame and greatness, not to the information, but to the love of learning, they had acquired in their schools.

The _Ratio Studiorum_ regulated with great precision the method of instruction in its most minute details, and has ever since been the code followed by the Jesuits to our day.

Meanwhile a great change had taken place in the general policy of the Society. Through Acquaviva’s influence, the order, at least as represented by its officials in Rome, and by the young generation of Jesuits who were devoted to the General, had passed from the Spanish into the French camp; and ever after, the Jesuits were in a great measure opposed by the Spanish and supported by the French court. Let us see how it happened.

The Jesuits had only partially obeyed the _arrêt_ of the Parliament of Paris which expelled them from France. They resided publicly in many provinces: secretly and in disguise everywhere. Following the suggestions of their General, they had changed their language and their conduct, and, from being furious Leaguers, were become zealous partisans of Henry IV. “Cardinal Tolet has done wonders, and has shewn himself a good Frenchman,” wrote the French ambassador, Cardinal du Perron, to the minister Villeroy.[211] In fact, he, more than any other person, had contributed to obtain Henry’s absolution. Acquaviva refused to accept, without Henry’s consent, two new colleges which were offered to the order by some town of Languedoc, where the Jesuits had been maintained by the local parliament. He, the General, and the Pope, the king’s best friends, as they called themselves, pressed him hard to restore the Jesuits, who, on their part, promised him the same obedience, the same devotion, they had till then shewn to the King of Spain. Above all, they offered to uphold his royal authority in all its extent, which was then impugned by the Huguenots. Henry was in a very perplexing position. He stood in need of the Pope’s support against the rival house of Austria. He felt the necessity of shewing himself a zealous Catholic, and he wished to secure, if possible, the support of such men as the Jesuits. On the other hand, he knew what dangerous and perfidious guests they were; and the parliament, the greatest part of the clergy, and all his ministers, were adverse to the Society. Sully, the great minister and faithful friend of Henry, has handed down to us the sentiments of his royal master on this subject. “I do not doubt,” said the prince to Sully, “that you can easily combat this first reason, but I do not think that you will even attempt to refute the second, namely, that by necessity I am compelled to do one of these two things—either simply to recall the Jesuits, free them from the infamy and disgrace with which they are covered, and put to the test the sincerity of their oaths and of their splendid promises; or to expel them in a more absolute manner, using against them all the rigour and severity that can be thought of to prevent them from ever approaching either my person or my estates; on which supposition there is no doubt but that we shall drive them to despair, and to the resolution of attempting my life, which would render it so miserable to me, being always under the apprehension of being poisoned or murdered (for those people have correspondents everywhere, and are very dexterous in disposing the minds of men to whatever they wish), that I think it would be better to be already dead, being of Cæsar’s opinion, that the sweetest death is that which is least expected and foreseen.”[212] In conformity with this opinion, Henry, in 1603, issued letters-patent for the re-establishment of the Jesuits, and _forced_ the reluctant parliament to register them. To Acquaviva he wrote a warm letter, assuring him of his friendship, and expressing to the then convened congregation his wishes that the original Constitutions should not be altered, and this letter in great part checked the influence of the Spanish party, who asked for a reform, and were supported by the Spanish court.[213]

In the affair of Venice, the two courts shewed the same dispositions. It does not enter into the plan of this work to narrate the particulars of this famous contest, except in so far as the Jesuits were concerned in it, and it belongs to their history; and this we proceed to do as shortly as possible.

Long had the difference lasted between the Roman See and the Venetian government, the first asserting many privileges of the Church over state affairs, the latter denying them. The Jesuits upheld the exorbitant pretensions of Rome with the utmost pertinacity. Now, it happened, while both parties were exasperated against each other, two priests, accused of infamous crimes, were, by order of the Venetian government, arrested, and delivered up to the ordinary tribunals. The Pope was highly incensed at this proceeding, and contended that the republic had no right to arrest any ecclesiastic, who was subject to none but ecclesiastical authority. The Jesuits were the most zealous of the clergy in maintaining this principle. The famous Bellarmine asserted, that “the priesthood has its princes who govern, not only in spiritual, but also in temporal matters. It could not possibly acknowledge any particular temporal superior. No man can serve two masters. It is for the priest to judge the emperor, not the emperor the priest. It would be absurd for the sheep to pretend to judge the shepherd.”[214] The republic, on the other hand, asserted her sovereign rights. Paul V. was in the Papal chair, a man who considered the canonical law as the word of God, and was ready to excommunicate whosoever dared to disregard its authority. He laid Venice under an interdict, which, as most of our readers are aware, would have shut up all the churches, and prevented the performance of all religious services within its bounds. The government, however, that the public tranquillity might not be disturbed, summoned before them all the clergy, both regular and secular, and offered them the alternative, either to officiate, as in ordinary times, or to leave the territory of the republic immediately. They did not hesitate for an instant; not a single copy of the Papal brief was fixed up, and public worship was everywhere conducted as before. The Jesuits, however, in obedience to the Pope’s command, transmitted by their General, departed from the Venetian States, ostentatiously carrying with them the consecrated host, as if they would shew, says Gioberti, that God went into exile along with them. When the dispute between Rome and the republic was afterwards settled, the senate refused, though requested, to re-admit the Jesuits. In vain the Pope, and above all, Henry IV., who sent the Cardinal Joyeuse to Venice on purpose, used all their influence to procure the re-establishment of the fathers. The republic, encouraged in her resolution by the court of Spain, would in no way yield on this point, and it was only in 1657 that, in exchange for pecuniary advantages and the support of the Pope in the war of Candia, the Jesuits were allowed, under many restrictions, to re-enter the Venetian states.[215]

By this time Acquaviva had established his authority more firmly than ever. The congregations had supported him; the revolt had been quelled; the rioters punished; and peace for the moment restored to the Society. “Acquaviva, so to speak, had gone through the iron age of the company—his successor was destined to govern in the golden age.... All, during a century, bestowed smiles upon the Company of Jesus. She became the favourite of the Popes and the kings—the confidant of their ministers—the director of the public spirit. All took inspiration from her—all returned to her as to its source.”[216] But, notwithstanding this flattering and in part true picture, the order had received a shock, the effect of which was soon to be made manifest. To govern the revolted province of Spain, Acquaviva, violating the fundamental law of the order, had appointed professed members as administrators of colleges, while, to meet the necessity of the moment, coadjutors fulfilled the duties assigned by the Constitution to the professed. This ultimately proved the ruin of the order. Besides this, Mariana[217] and Henriquez, two influential Spanish Jesuits, out of hatred to Acquaviva, had pointed out many abuses which had crept into the community, and bitterly inveighed against the tyranny of the General and a few of the higher functionaries. This had an immediate result most injurious to the order. Under the successors of Acquaviva, these seeds of revolt and disobedience spread so fast, that when, towards the year 1560, the General, Goswin Nickel, attempted to enforce obedience to the primitive rules, he was solemnly deprived by his disciples of all authority.