The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Jesuits
JESUITS, or Society of Jesus (Span. Compañía
de Jesus), a religious order of the Roman Catholic
church. St. Ignatius Loyola, its founder,
does not appear to have known that the title
of “Society of Jesus” had been bestowed in
the 15th century on an order of chivalry
established by Pope Pius II., the members of which
bound themselves by special vow to fight
unceasingly against the Turks. This fact is
attested in a letter of that pope dated Mantua,
Oct. 13, 1459, and addressed to Charles VII.
of France, begging him to permit one of his
nobles “to enter into the society bearing the
name of Jesus, and which has been lately
founded to tight for the glory of God against
the infidels.” The efforts of Pius to organize
a crusade for the rescue of Constantinople having
failed, this new order expired almost at
its birth. The appellation Societas Jesu was
inserted in the Latin forms approved in 1540
by Paul III. The word “Jesuit,” it is said,
was first used by Calvin in his “Institutes;”
it is found in the register of the parliament of
Paris in 1552; but at that time it was never
used by the companions themselves. The
actual title received much opposition from the
Sorbonne in France, and even in Italy, where
Sixtus V. ordered Claudio de Acquaviva, then
general, to discontinue it. But Sixtus died
before the order could be executed; and the
title was expressly approved by Gregory XIV.,
June 28, 1594. Ignatius Loyola, very soon
after his conversion, conceived the idea of a
body of apostolic men specially devoted to the
propagation of Christianity among the heathen.
In his conception their organization and spirit
were to partake somewhat of a military
character; hence he always used the Spanish word
compañía in designating his order, both before
it had been canonically established, and in the
constitutions which he afterward drew up for
it. His original purpose, which he never
abandoned, was to have the headquarters of this
religious militia in Jerusalem. To effect this
he visited that city as a pilgrim in 1523; but
the resident Franciscan monks forbade his
remaining there. Returning to Spain and
becoming conscious that he lacked the literary
culture necessary for the accomplishment of his
design, he set about preparing himself by study
in the universities, and while there collected a
small band of young men whom he formed by
ascetic exercises to a life of self-renouncement
and devotion to the spiritual welfare of others.
But the peculiarities of their dress and manner
of living, and the discourses which they
addressed to the people, excited the suspicions
of the inquisitors. Ignatius was repeatedly
imprisoned by the holy office, and forbidden
to discourse in public or private on religious
subjects. He thereupon separated himself
from his companions, who never afterward
joined him, and went to study in the university
of Paris in January, 1528. There he soon
gained as followers Pierre Lefèvre, a Savoyard,
Francisco Xavier, Diego Laynez, Alfonso
Salmeron, Nicolas Alfonso de Bobadilla,
Spaniards, and Simon Rodriguez de Azevedo, a
Portuguese. When each of these had been
separately prepared by Ignatius for adopting a
resolution conformable to his purpose, he
assembled them in July, 1534, and disclosed to
them his project of going to Palestine in order
to labor there for the conversion of the Asiatic
populations. He added that he would “bind
himself to the death” to any among them who
would follow him thither, and that he intended
to confirm his purpose by taking before them
all the vows of chastity and poverty. This
proposal was unanimously adopted; and on
the morning of Aug. 15 following Ignatius and
his six companions met in a crypt of the church
of Notre Dame des Martyrs at Montmartre.
Lefèvre, the only priest among them, celebrated
mass, and all, before partaking of the communion,
read a written engagement by which they
renounced all worldly dignities and possessions,
bound themselves to the journey to Palestine,
to perpetual chastity and poverty, and to
receive no stipend for their clerical functions.
These vows were renewed annually in the same
place while they remained in France to
complete their theological studies and receive their
degrees. Three more were added to the little
band before Ignatius left Paris for Spain in
March, 1535; and when on Jan. 6, 1537, they
met in Venice, their number was increased to
13. Ignatius having incurred the resentment
of Cardinal Caraffa, afterward Pope Paul IV.,
and not daring to visit Rome himself to solicit
the pope's consent to their going to Palestine
and his approval of their labors in that country,
Lefèvre and the others undertook the
journey to Rome amid great hardships. They
were well received by Paul III., who, hearing
that they were graduates of the university of
Paris, made them discuss theological questions
in his presence with the most learned Italians
in Rome. After learning their manner of life,
he approved of their project, gave them money
for their expenses, and permission to receive
holy orders forthwith. But, as the war
between Venice and Turkey rendered the voyage
to Palestine impossible, they spread themselves
throughout the peninsula after their ordination,
Ignatius, Lefèvre, and Laynez going to
Rome in November, 1537. He now bade them
say, when asked who they were, that they
belonged to the compagnia di Gesù. The pope
appointed Lefèvre and Laynez to chairs of
theology in the university of Sapienza at Rome,
and Ignatius occupied himself in directing
persons who wished to perform his “Spiritual
Exercises.” All of them embraced every opportunity
of assembling and catechising the
Roman children. In March, 1538, all the
companions were summoned to Rome for the
purpose of deliberating on the erection of the
company into a religious order. But a
formidable obstacle was raised by the renewal,
before the inquisitors of Venice and Rome, of
the charge of heresy formerly made against
Ignatius in Spain and in Paris. He boldly
went himself to the pope, and related to him
the whole story of these inquisitorial persecutions,
and demanded that an ordinary judge
should be instantly appointed to inquire into
the matter and decide without delay. To this
the pope assented, and a solemn sentence
acquitting Ignatius and his followers was issued
Nov. 18, 1538. The pope, who recognized the
importance of the service which the association
could render in counteracting the spirit of
Protestantism, immediately commanded schools
to be opened throughout the city in which
Ignatius and his associates might teach the
elements of Christian doctrine. At the same time
a fearful famine in Rome afforded them the
opportunity of displaying their charity. The
pope would not have hesitated to recognize
them at once as a religious order, had it not
been that a commission appointed that very
year to inquire into clerical abuses and scandals
had presented to him a report discountenancing
the establishment of new religious orders.
Nevertheless, Ignatius and his companions
began their deliberations in the first days of April,
1539, and a sketch of the proposed constitutions
in five chapters was subscribed by all on
May 4, and presented to the pope. The master
of the sacred palace having reported favorably
on this sketch, it was approved orally Sept. 3.
Meanwhile these outlines were committed for
thorough examination to three cardinals, among
whom Cardinal Guidiccioni was so opposed to
the introduction of new orders that he would
not at first even read the sketch. At length
having done so, he changed his mind, won over
his colleagues to his opinion, and the bull of
confirmation, Regimini militantis ecclesiæ, was
signed Sept. 27, 1540, and promulgated in the
spring of 1541. It restricted the number of
“professed” members to 60; but this restriction
was removed, March 14, 1543. A written
promise of entering the company after its
confirmation by the pope had been signed by 11
of the members, including Ignatius, on April
15, 1539. After their deliberations closed on
May 4, most of them were sent by the pope
on various missions. Codure, Le Jay, Ignatius,
and Francis Xavier remained in Rome, Xavier
being secretary and keeping up the correspondence
with the absent members. On March
15, 1540, Ignatius informed Xavier that he was
to leave Rome the next day for Lisbon and the
East Indies. At the same time the pope
destined others for Ireland in order to counteract
there the measures of Henry VIII. At the
Easter of 1541 Ignatius was unanimously chosen
general, those absent from Rome sending their
votes in writing, and he entered on the office
April 13. In conformity with the will of the
pope and the wish of his companions, he now
began to draw up constitutions for the new
order. He had read previously the lives of the
founders of religions orders, as well as the rules
which they had framed for their followers; but
while engaged in framing the constitutions of
the society, he shut himself up, with no books
near him save the Bible and the “Imitation of
Christ,” preparing himself before he wrote by
prayer and meditation, then placing what he
had written upon the altar during mass, and
only consulting with the other fathers when he
had well considered each matter himself and
come to some decision. These constitutions,
drawn up in Spanish, and translated into Latin
under the eyes of Ignatius, received high praise
from Cardinal Richelieu. They are now
accessible to all (Institutum Societatis Jesu, 2
vols., Avignon, 1827-'38, a reprint from the
official edition of Prague, 2 vols., 1757). It
was only in 1550 that they were so far complete
that Ignatius could communicate them to an
assembly of the professed who had been
summoned to Rome, including Laynez and Francis
Borgia. He wished his work to be suitable
for all without distinction, so that the difference
of countries and nations, of manners and
dispositions, should require neither exceptions nor
dispensations. He also submitted the constitutions
to the judgment of the absent. They
were examined with the most minute attention,
and were only published when every
correction or addition suggested and deemed
necessary had been made. In 1553 they were sent
upon trial to Spain, Portugal, and other
countries, in order that they should be approved by
the whole body only when found everywhere
to be in perfect accordance with the design of
the society. This sanction of the whole body
was not given to them till 1558, after the
death of Ignatius, and in the congregation
assembled to choose his successor. They were
revised with the utmost care, and confirmed
with unanimity. They were then presented to
Pope Paul IV., who appointed a commission
of four cardinals to examine them. These
approved the constitutions unanimously, and the
pope confirmed them without changing a single
word. Laynez added nothing to them, nor is
it on record that he had any more to do with
the framing of them than any other of the
members consulted by Ignatius. — The kernel
or indestructible portion of these constitutions
is found in the draft presented to Paul III. and
first approved by him. In this it is said that
“whoever wishes to enter the society of Jesus,
to fight under the standard of the cross and of
God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and to serve
the church his spouse under his vicar the
Roman pontiff, must keep in mind that this society
has been established for the defence and
propagation of the faith, for promoting the
salvation of souls, by teaching Christian doctrine
and Christian life, by explaining the word of
God, by giving the ‘Spiritual Exercises,’ by
teaching catechism to the young and ignorant,
by the administration of the sacraments, and
especially the sacrament of penance. He must
keep also in mind that its object is to perform
works of mercy, more particularly for the sick
and the imprisoned; and all this is to be done
gratuitously and without any earthly
compensation.” The constitutions are divided into 10
parts. The 1st describes the qualities which
allow or forbid the admission to noviceship;
the 2d, the causes and manner of rejection;
the 3d and 4th relate to health, devotion, and
study; the 5th explains the profession of the
four vows and the inferior degrees; the 6th
and 7th instruct the professed and spiritual
coadjutors in their various offices; the 8th and
9th concern the general, his election, authority,
and duties; the 10th gives general directions
for the conservation and increase of the society.
The greatest discrimination is used in the choice
of candidates for membership. Some
circumstances or qualities form absolute impediments
to admission, such as illegitimate birth or
infamous descent, public heresy or apostasy, such
crimes as murder or enormous secret sins, the
brand of a degrading judicial sentence,
matrimonial ties, membership even for one day in
another religious order, and insanity or notable
weakness of intellect. Less serious impediments,
such as ill temper, obstinacy, injudicious
enthusiasm or visionary devotion, the being
involved in debt, &c., may be compensated by
other redeeming qualities and circumstances.
The first probation consists of a period of some
weeks spent by the candidate in a house of the
society, during which he is given to read the
Examen Generale, taken from the first part of
the constitutions, containing a series of
questions, which he is required to answer truthfully.
His examiner is bound to the strictest secrecy
as to the answers. These questions involve
every possible impediment to his admission.
He is required also to declare if he is perfectly
free in his determination to enter, or if he is
led to do so by friendship for any member of
the society. He is finally asked if he is willing
that all letters written by him or addressed to
him shall be opened by the superior; if he
consents that the superior shall admonish him
of all imperfections and faults which he may
remark in him, and that his companions shall
report the same to the superior; and, finally,
if he will be content to accept any grade,
occupation, or office in the society which may be
assigned to him. The candidate, having waived
his natural rights on these points, is admitted
to his second probation or noviceship, which
lasts two years and one day from the date of
his first entrance. During the first year the
novices devote a full month to the performance
of the “Spiritual Exercises,” which they are
required to master as an indispensable instrument
of future utility to others. The whole
two years are given up to spiritual things.
They teach the elements of Christian doctrine
to children and the poor, serve the sick for
a month in some hospital, and travel during
another month from place to place without
money, and subsisting on the charity received
by the way. They have also daily conferences
or lessons on the constitutions and rules of the
society. The severest scrutiny is exercised
with regard to the capacity and dispositions of
each novice, and every means is employed to
encourage him to correct what is faulty and to
perfect what is praiseworthy in his conduct.
Such as are destined for the priesthood are
called “scholastic novices;” the others, who
are to be lay brothers, are not allowed to rise
any further in secular knowledge. They must
be content with what they already possess, and
apply themselves to the acquisition of humility
and solid piety. At the end of these two
years, the novices pronounce the simple vows
of poverty, chastity, and obedience, with a
formal promise to enter the society at a future
day, implying an engagement to accept readily
any degree which may be given them therein.
Such as are destined to study now assume the
name of formed scholastics (scholastici
formati). If they are young enough, a space of
two years, called juniorship or juvenate, is spent
by them in cultivating Latin and Greek letters
and rhetoric; then three years are given in a
scholasticate to mental and moral philosophy
and the sciences. The professors in these
special seminaries are all men who have
themselves passed through the entire curriculum of
sacred and profane science, and have either
made the profession of the four vows, or are
destined to do so in due time. Every six
months the scholastics undergo a most searching
examination before four sworn examiners,
who send separately their sealed suffrages to
the general and the local provincial. At the
end of the philosophical course the scholastic
is sent to teach in a college, both for the
purpose of enabling him to apply his acquired
knowledge and of training him to the science
of governing men. Should his age permit, he
begins with the lowest grammar and leads his
scholars up to humanities and rhetoric. This
is called by the French cours de régence, and is
followed by the study of theology, Scripture,
canon law, and church history, which lasts four
years. The half-yearly examination here
becomes still more rigorous, and at the end of the
third year it is increased in length and severity.
Should the candidate break down in this, he
is not allowed to proceed in his fourth year of
study. At the end of the third year the
scholastics are raised to the priesthood. The fourth
year closes with the examen ad gradum, or
the examination which qualifies the successful
candidate for the profession of the four
vows, the highest rank in the society. Three
months in advance of the day appointed
for this, the candidate is given a series of
theses embracing the substance of dogmatical
theology, intellectual philosophy, and the
natural sciences. He is freed from every other
occupation in order thoroughly to prepare
himself for the ordeal. The examination takes
place before a commission of four examiners
presided over by the rector, and lasts two
hours, each examiner being bound by his oath
to propound the most searching questions and
formidable objections during half an hour.
The suffrage, delivered sealed to the general
and the provincial, attests that the “candidate
is (or is not) able to teach the whole of theology,
philosophy, and the sciences in any university.”
This intellectual ordeal is one regular
condition for obtaining the degree of professed;
the other and a more indispensable condition
is proficiency in solid virtue as well as in learning.
Sometimes young men of extraordinary
eloquence are allowed, after passing this last
examination, to spend two years more in
Biblical and patristic studies. Generally,
however, they pass from the theologate to what is
known as the third “probation,” which is an
entire year spent in a special establishment and
under a master thoroughly versed in asceticism
and a knowledge of the constitutions of the
society. Their exercises are substantially those
of noviceship or second probation, a full month
being devoted to the “Spiritual Exercises,”
another to pilgrimage, and a third to giving
retreats or missions. This year St. Ignatius
called the “school of the heart.” When the
special informations sent to the general
concerning the probationists assure him that they
possess that superiority in virtue and science
required by the constitutions, he awards them
their degree of professed of the four vows.
Throughout this protracted course of studies
and probation, every precaution is taken that
the mind shall not be diverted from the object
of study, that the bodily health shall not be
injured by intense mental application, and that
the springs of piety in the soul shall not be
dried up by the exclusive culture of the intellect.
The establishments in which the young
Jesuits are trained are allowed by Ignatius to
receive endowments, or they are supported
by taxes levied on all the houses of the province,
or, in some instances, wealthy novices are
allowed to retain the possession of their
property, but not the disposal of their revenues,
until their studies and probation are ended,
and thus to pay their own expenses. But in
no case are they allowed to seek outside of the
house for alms, or to be turned away in any
manner from their studies. The members of
the society who have taken their final vows,
socii formati, are distinguished into three classes,
the professed, the spiritual coadjutors, and lay
brothers, or temporal coadjutors. The degree
of professed of three vows is an honorary
distinction bestowed for some signal service or
great quality on priests who do not possess
the regular theological or scientific attainments
required for the profession of the four vows;
this distinction enables its subject to rank
with the latter, but not to hold the offices
reserved to them, such as those of general,
provincial, and elector in a general congregation.
The “professed society” (societas professa)
constitutes the core of the whole body; the
coadjutors, both spiritual and temporal, are
only auxiliaries or helpers. To the professed
society belong the colleges, seminaries, houses,
and residences of the order, together with all
other property whatsoever, movable and
immovable; and it is in its name that this
property is held and administered by the coadjutors.
In ordinary life the professed are not
distinguished from the spiritual coadjutors. The
latter are appointed in preference to the
government of lay colleges and seminaries, to
superiorships in residences, &c.; while the
professed are left free to preach, or to teach the
higher branches of sacred and profane science,
and it is only by certain reserved occupations
and functions that their rank is known to the
majority of their brethren. — The whole order
is divided into assistancies, of which there are
at present five, distributed according to the
foremost European races or languages, namely,
those of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and
England. The original assistancy of Portugal
has been abolished since the total extinction
of the society in that country, and that of
England has been recently created. Each
assistancy embraces several provinces and missions.
A province comprises one or more colleges, a
novitiate, scholasticate, and residences with a
stated number of professed. It has a certain
autonomy, and depends on the general only in
the measure prescribed by the constitutions.
At the head of the order is a general (præpositus
generalis), who is elected for life in a general
congregation composed of the provincials and
two delegates from each province. They elect
at the same time the five assistants who form
his council, the secretary of the society, and
an admonitor, whose duty it is to observe the
conduct and actions of the general and to
admonish him when necessary. If they see in
his conduct anything censurable, they must lay
their observations before him; and in a case
of great urgency or visible scandal, the assistants
can summon without his assent a general
congregation, or even depose him themselves,
after obtaining by letter the suffrages of the
provinces. The power of the general, so long
as he acts within the limits of the constitutions,
is very great. He appoints the provincials,
rectors of colleges, scholasticates, and
novitiates, the superiors of professed houses
and residences, together with the executive
officer in each house, called minister; these are
properly denominated superiors, and have a
right to command. The inferior officers are
nominated by the provincial with the approbation
of the general. Every provincial, rector,
and superior has his council of four consultors
and his admonitor. The provincial is required
to report every month to the general; the other
superiors report every three months. The
consultors, both provincial and local, are bound to
report separately at stated times. Every three
years deputies elected by the provincial
congregations meet in Rome or wherever the
general resides. They compose what is called the
“congregation of procurators,” and one of
their chief functions is to decide on the
necessity of convening a general congregation. They
also bear to the general from each province
a complete catalogue of its members, detailing
the conduct and capacity of each. In the
general congregation resides the supreme legislative
power. The provincial congregation is
composed of the provincial, rectors, and senior
professed members. The term of office for all
superiors below the general is three years.
Provincials visit every house in their jurisdiction
once a year, to see that the constitutions are
exactly observed by all. During this visitation
rigorous inquiry is made into the temporal and
spiritual welfare of each house. Every member,
beginning with the rector or superior, has
to render to the provincial a full account of
his conscience, of his temptations and trials,
and the difficulties he meets with in the
performance of his special office. This
“manifestation of conscience,” whether made in
sacramental confession or not, obliges the
provincial to the most inviolable secrecy. He can
only make of the knowledge thus acquired the
use which the inferior permits him. At the
same time the latter is informed of the
defects which have been remarked in his conduct.
This practice is one of the fundamental points
or subatantialia of the constitutions, and
contributes above all others to give to the government
of the society its extraordinary power, as
well as to make obedience easy. Another
chief object of this yearly visitation is to
correct every abuse in the matter of poverty.
Obedience and dependent poverty are the two
mainsprings of the order. One of the vows
made at the time of the solemn profession
binds the professed to maintain the obligations
of poverty inviolable, or to make them more
rigorous. The rectors and local superiors
yearly demand the same “account of
conscience” of their subjects; and as all who have
not pronounced their last solemn vows renew
their simple vows twice a year, this renewal
affords a fitting opportunity for repairing every
violation of religious poverty. Before the
time of Ignatius one year's novitiate only was
required before admission to membership in a
religious order, and the emission of the solemn
religious vows. In his constitutions, besides a
novitiate of two full years, he demanded a
further probation of several years before any one
was admitted to final membership. Thus there
are three kinds of vows made by Jesuits to the
society: the simple vows made at the end of
the novitiate, and renewed every six months,
but not accepted by the society; the simple
but final vows made by the coadjutors,
both temporal and spiritual, when they are
solemnly admitted into the society, which
accepts them by the hands of the local superior;
and the solemn vows made by the professed.
The fourth solemn vow is to the pope, and
binds the Jesuit to go wherever the former
may send him for the service of the church.
The professed, besides these four which are
made publicly in the church, pronounce in
private immediately afterward a formula containing
several simple vows, among them one
binding them neither to seek nor to accept any
dignity or office in the society or in the church,
and to denounce all of their brethren whom
they know to be seeking them. The society
of Jesus never admitted a third order, like the
Dominicans and Franciscans; and St. Ignatius
inflexibly refused not only to allow nuns to
have any fellowship with the society, but to
permit its members to be cumbered with the
direction of nuns. There never has been any
body of men or women directly or indirectly
affiliated to the Jesuits. The dress adopted by
St. Ignatius and his companions was that of the
better class of Spanish secular priests. It
consists in a black cassock and cloak, and has been
somewhat modified in various provinces. Two
popes (Paul IV. and Pius V.) and one general
(Francis Borgia) wished to assimilate the Jesuits
in some points more to the other religious
orders, in particular by introducing the
observance of the canonical hours; but this was
soon given up, and the whole energy of the
order was directed to laboring in behalf of the
church by means of education and missions. —
As the “Spiritual Exercises” of St. Ignatius
moulded not only his own religious character
and that of his early companions, but the spirit
of the society, it is impossible to understand
either its constitutions or the private and
public life of its members, without having some
conception of the nature and aim of that
famous book. It is not a book to be merely
read; for it contains only germs of thought,
and rude outlines of meditations on the great
Christian truths and facts of gospel history.
The “exercises” consist in a graduated series
of meditations on the creation and destiny of
man; on the degradation and misery wrought
by sin; on the restoration of the fallen children
of God to their true rank in Christ, and the
manifestation of true heroism in following him, in
poverty, toil, humiliation, suffering, and death.
The meditations are intermingled with practical
rules for examining one's conscience, for
the prudent use of penitential austerities, for
detecting and resisting temptations, for discovering
the action of the good spirit on one's
soul from that of the evil one, for making a
safe election in determining one's calling in life,
for a right distribution of alms, for moderating
one's appetite in eating and drinking, and
finally for conforming one's judgment to that
of the church. These exercises, when fully
performed in retirement, last over a month, and are
divided into four stages or “weeks.” In the
first, the truth of God's right over man's being,
faculties, and life is, made the foundation of all
the subsequent exercises, and a practical
“indifference” in the use of all things, states, and
conditions of life is inculcated as a necessary
conclusion from the fact that wealth and
poverty, health and sickness, are only means to
an end, and in themselves indifferent. The
foundation of religious poverty and
self-renouncement is thus laid at the very outset.
Then come the meditations on sin and its
punishments in time and eternity, terminating with
the contemplation of Christ crucified, and the
mingled sentiments of grief and love, shame
and generosity, inspired by the consciousness
of one's own guilt in presence of the divine
victim of sin. Next comes the meditation of
Christ our king as the model of the generosity
to be thenceforth displayed in serving God.
Ignatius proposes here the conception formed
at Manresa, when he had renounced the
secucular militia for a life of spiritual chivalry.
Christ presents himself as a king inviting all
his subjects to aid him in subjecting the whole
earth to God, asking none to follow where he
does not lead himself, and promising certain
victory with a fellowship in glory after a
fellowship in toil and danger. The offer to follow
Christ, not as the crowd may, but in the
foremost ranks of those who shall wear his
livery and share his poverty and privations,
lays the foundation of what Ignatius conceives
to be the apostolic virtues. These dispositions
are fostered and continually increased by the
meditations which follow on the incarnation,
the nativity, the flight into Egypt, the private
life of Christ at Nazareth, and the labors of
his public career. In the midst of these
meditations come the exercises known as the
“three degrees of humility” and the “three
classes of men,” the whole drift of which is to
raise the spiritual enthusiasm or generosity of
the soul to the point of resolving to leave all
to follow Christ in shame and suffering, and
be content only when it has embraced what is
most repugnant to flesh and blood and the
judgment of the world. This resolution is
still further intensified and confirmed by the
meditations on Christ crucified which occupy
the third week; and the meditations on the
resurrection and the life of Christ with his
apostles and disciples until his ascension are
destined to set forth a perfect model of the
sweetness to be enjoyed in Christ's company,
in such a society as Ignatius contemplated. —
The society spread with unparalleled rapidity,
so that it was said to have had no period of
youth. At the death of Ignatius there were
1,000 members in 12 provinces; soon after the
death of Acquaviva, in 1615, 13,000 members
in 32 provinces; in 1749, 24 professed houses,
669 colleges, 176 seminaries, 61 novitiates, 335
residences, 273 missions in Protestant and
pagan countries, and about 22,600 members. In
Portugal it was introduced as early as 1540 by
St. Francis Xavier and Rodriguez, who found
a zealous patron in King John III. Rodriguez
established a college at Coimbra, which in 1544
counted 60 members. A considerable number
of young noblemen prayed for admission,
and thus the order soon became influential.
King John appointed at the same time two
Jesuits to be judges of the inquisition, but
Ignatius forbade them to accept the office.
“For,” said he, “the society has for its
mission the assistance of our neighbor by preaching
and the duties of the confessional; moreover,
it were undesirable that its members
had power to punish heretics with death. On
the contrary, their duty is to console with
priestly kindness these unfortunate men.” In
Spain the Jesuits had at first to overcome the
opposition of several bishops, but the patronage
of Francis Borgia, at that time governor of
Barcelona, soon procured for them a favorable
reception and a number of houses and colleges,
and at the university of Salamanca they received
some of the theological chairs. In France,
where they likewise appeared as early as 1540,
they met with a very decided resistance on the
part of the parliament, the university of Paris,
and many bishops. They could not secure a
legal existence until 1562, when they were
recognized as “fathers of the college of
Clermont.” The parliament at first refused to
register the royal patent, but had at length to
yield to the order of the king. They were
unable, however, to overcome the opposition of
the parliament and the Sorbonne. When Châtel,
who had studied in one of their colleges,
made an attempt against the life of Henry IV.,
they were expelled from France by a decree of
the parliament in 1594, and Père Guignard, who
was accused of having approved the attempt of
assassination, was put to death. Henry IV.
himself recalled them in 1603, and from that
year they remained in the undisturbed possession
of their property. They enjoyed the
confidence of Louis XIII., Cardinal Richelieu, and
Louis XIV., and were the principal combatants
against the doctrines of the Jansenists. Their
colleges were very numerous, and among their
pupils were Descartes, Bossuet, Corneille,
Voltaire, and the astronomer Lalande. Two Jesuits
were sent to Ireland as papal nuncios in the
reign of Henry VIII. Elizabeth expelled them
from her dominions, and forbade them upon
penalty of death to return. We find them,
nevertheless, again as missionaries in the reign
of James I., and after the discovery of the
gunpowder plot (1605) Father Garnet, to whom
the plot had been communicated by his
subordinate in an “account of conscience,” was put
to death. In 1678 Titus Gates charged them
with having entered into a conspiracy against
Charles II. and the state, in consequence of
which six Jesuits were put to death. In spite
of several decrees against the public exercise
of the Roman Catholic religion in England in
general and the residence of Jesuits in particular,
the society maintained itself there, although
it never became very numerous. The Jesuits
first appeared in Germany about 1549, at the
instance of Duke William of Bavaria and of
Ferdinand I. of Austria; Salmeron and Peter
Canisius being appointed professors of theology
in the university of Ingolstadt, and others at
Prague. The society received chairs in the
colleges at Cologne (1556), Munich (1559), Treves
(1561), Augsburg (1563), and several other
places. In Italy they spread more rapidly and
more extensively than in any other country.
They were banished from Venice in 1606, and
the popes did not succeed until 1657 in causing
their restoration. One of the wars between
France and Charles V., during which all
Spaniards were ordered to leave France, brought
some Jesuits to the Netherlands soon after the
foundation of the society. They gained a firm
footing under Philip II., although the bishops
showed them less favor than in other countries.
In Transylvania they were favored by Prince
Christopher Báthori and his son and successor
Sigismund, but the assembly of the states
compelled the latter prince in 1588 to sign
a decree of banishment. They became very
numerous in Poland, which they divided
before the end of the 16th century into two
provinces, and where they had houses and colleges
in 20 towns. In Sweden they made great
efforts, under John III. and Sigismund, to
restore the sway of the Roman Catholic church,
but the dethronement of Sigismund in 1604
destroyed their hopes. In Russia favorable
prospects seemed to open for them with the
reign of Pseudo-Demetrius, but the fall of this
prince involved that of the Jesuits. — The
missionary activity of the Jesuits among the
pagans commenced in 1541, the year after the
foundation of the order. Francis Xavier sailed
in that year to the East Indies, founded a
college at Goa, preached in Travancore,
Malacca, Macassar, the islands, and Japan, and
baptized a vast number of pagans. Other
members of the order preached in Madura,
Ceylon, and many other places, and the Christian
population of their missions in India rose
to 100,000. Some members of the society,
especially Robert de' Nobili, appeared as Brahmans,
and tried to excel the Hindoo Brahmans
as sages and penitents, regarding this as the
most efficient means of obtaining the confidence
of the Hindoo population. The mission
in Japan was commenced by Francis Xavier
in 1549; several princes were converted, and
some natives were received into the society.
In 1613 the Portuguese Jesuits had in Japan
two colleges, eight residences, and three
professed houses; but the persecution which soon
after broke out against the Catholics put an
end to their establishments. Their last member,
a native of Japan, was put to death in 1636.
Father Rogerius penetrated into China in 1584,
disguised as a merchant. Ricci established a
reputation as one of the best Chinese scholars.
Others became the teachers and ministers of
several emperors. In 1692 they obtained a
decree by which Christianity was declared to be
a sacred law and the missionaries virtuous men.
The number of converts was very large, and
amounted in the province of Kiangsu alone to
100,000. But a controversy with several other
orders on the conformity of the Jesuits to the
pagan customs in China and India was decided
by the pope against the Jesuits, and proved a
fatal blow to the prosperity of their missions
in these countries. Cochin China (1614) and
Tonquin (1627) became likewise missionary
fields for Jesuits; the congregations in Tonquin
in 1640 numbered 100,000 members, but they
were cruelly persecuted. The most celebrated
of the Jesuit missions was that established in
Paraguay, where they Christianized and
civilized an Indian population of from 100,000
to 200,000 souls. With the consent of the
Spanish authorities they retained the civil
dominion over the Indians, and their principles
of government have been commended by many
who in other respects were their opponents,
as Montesquieu, Muratori, and Southey; while
many of their admirers have represented Paraguay
under the sway of the Jesuits as more
free from vice and corruption than any
other state of modern times. The prosperity of
these missions was interrupted in 1750, when
Spain ceded seven parishes to Portugal, and
the Indians, with an army of 14,000 men,
resisted the execution of this project. After
some time, however, the former state of things
and the dominion of the Jesuits were restored,
both of which continued until the suppression
of the order in Spain. In 1566 they were sent
to Florida, which in the following year was
formed into a vice province of the order, and
a school for the children of the Florida
Indians was commenced in Havana (1568). On
the invitation of a Virginian chief, called by
the Spaniards Don Luis, Father Segura, the
vice provincial, with seven members of the
order and some Indian youths who had been
educated at Havana, undertook to establish a new
mission on the banks of the Chesapeake, or
St. Mary's bay. But the Indian proved to be
a traitor, and Father Segura with all his
companions except one lost their lives (1570).
This led the Jesuits to abandon Florida for
Mexico. The first mission of the Jesuits in
California was established by Father Eusebius
Külm or Kino, in 1683; gradually they founded
16 missionary stations, each of which was
generally directed by one missionary. They
administered these missions until the suppression
of the order in Spain and the Spanish
possessions. In 1611 the Jesuits established their
first mission in the French possessions in
America. This mission was interrupted for a time
by the English, who in 1629 took Quebec and
carried off the missionaries; but their work
was resumed in 1633, and for nearly half a
century they wrestled with paganism in the
northern wilds. Quebec remained their
centre, whence Jesuit missionaries were sent far
and wide. The most distant effort made by
the Jesuits was a mission in Arkansas. When
Louisiana was settled, Jesuits were sent from
France to undertake missions on the lower
Mississippi, but these missions were not
subject to the superior at Quebec, but to another
at New Orleans. After the restoration of the
order, the Jesuits recommenced their missions
among the Indians on the Missouri in 1824,
which gradually extended over a number of
tribes. In 1840 the mission in Oregon was
commenced by Father de Smet, one of the
most celebrated missionaries of the order in the
present century. Other missions were
established among the tribes near the Amazon river
in Brazil (1549), Peru (1567), Mexico (1572),
the Antilles (1700), Congo and Angola, on
the W. coast of Africa (1560), and Turkey
(1627), where they effected in particular the
submission of many members of the eastern
churches to the authority of the pope.
Toward the middle of the 18th century the prime
ministers of Portugal (Pombal), Spain (Aranda),
and France (Choiseul) resolved nearly at
the same time upon the expulsion of the
Jesuits from their countries. Pombal was
incensed against them, ostensibly because he
suspected them of having instigated the Indians
in Paraguay to resist the execution of the
treaty of cession above mentioned. Soon after
an attempt was made to assassinate Joseph
Emanuel, king of Portugal, and several Jesuits,
particularly Father Malagrida, were accused of
having been privy to the plot. Pombal
requested the pope to take measures against the
Jesuits; but as Clement XIII. took their
defence, a royal edict of Sept. 3, 1759, declared
the Jesuits to be traitors, suppressed the order
in Portugal, Brazil, and the other Portuguese
colonies, and confiscated its property. All the
Jesuits living in Portugal were transported to
the Papal States. In France they fell into
disfavor at court when the two fathers who were
the confessors of Louis XV. and Mme. de
Pompadour refused to admit them to the sacraments,
unless the latter was dismissed from
court. Mme. de Pompadour and Choiseul united
their influence with that of the parliament
to suppress the order. At the same time its
reputation among the people, which had long
before been injured by the lax contents of
some Jesuit books of casuistry, suffered greatly
in consequence of the unfortunate commercial
operations of Lavalette, superior of an
establishment of the order in Martinique.
Lavalette speculated largely in colonial produce,
and, when two of his ships were taken by the
English, became a bankrupt. A firm in
Marseilles brought a suit for indemnification against
the whole society, and the inferior courts as
well as the parliament of Paris, to which the
Jesuits appealed, gave sentence against them,
and made them pay 2,000,000 livres to the
plaintiff and the costs. Louis XV., who wished
to save the society, at first yielded to the
urgent calls for its suppression only so far as to
demand in Rome that the society be reformed,
and that the French Jesuits be placed under a
vicar of their own. To this demand the
general, Ricci, is reported to have given the
famous response: Sint ut sunt, aut non sint;
whereupon the king expelled them from France
in 1764. Their expulsion from Spain was
effected in 1767 by Aranda, on the charge,
according to some historians, that treasonable
writings had been discovered in one of the
colleges, which declared the king a bastard
and not entitled to the throne. But the true
reason is not known, as the king declared
that he kept the secret “locked up in his
royal heart.” On April 2 all the Jesuits of
Spain and the Spanish colonies were arrested
at the same hour, and shipped to the territory
of the pope, who, at the request of the general
of the order, refused to receive them. At the
same time, and in a similar way, the order was
suppressed in Naples, Parma, and Malta. On
Dec. 10, 1768, all the Bourbon courts (France,
Spain, Naples, and Parma) demanded from
the pope its entire suppression for the whole
church. Shortly afterward the pope died
(1769), and the Bourbon courts succeeded in
procuring the election of Clement XIV.
(Ganganelli), who had given to the minister of
Spain a written declaration that a pope, without
acting against the canonical laws, was at
liberty to suppress the order. For four years
Clement XIV. endeavored to put off an event
from which he feared the worst consequences;
but at length, when also the court of Vienna
consented to the suppression of the Jesuits,
he issued, July 21, 1773, the famous brief,
Dominui ac Redemptor noster, by which the
suppression of the society of Jesus in all the
states of Christendom was declared. The brief,
though not signed or published with the usual
canonical formalities, was quickly complied
with; yet the archives and treasures found in
searching their houses did not equal in importance
and amount the public anticipation. The
ex-Jesuits had the choice either to enter other
religious orders or to place themselves under
the jurisdiction of the bishops. Everywhere,
except in Portugal, they received an annuity
from the proceeds of their confiscated property.
In Rome and the Papal States the colleges and
houses of the suppressed society were intrusted
to secular priests, who employed many of the
former professors, and kept up the method and
discipline of their schools. A general
resistance to the brief of suppression had been
expected from the Jesuits and their many powerful
friends; and in anticipation of this, as
well as to secure possession of the large funds
supposed to be hoarded up in their houses at
Rome, the general, Lorenzo Ricci, was imprisoned
in the castle of Sant' Angelo. The members
of the order, however, submitted everywhere
without hesitation to the pontifical will, Ricci
did nothing to incite resistance, and the
minutest search discovered no treasures. Ricci
on his deathbed, in November, 1775, as he was
about to receive the sacrament, read a solemn
protest on the part of the extinct society,
affirming that the conduct of its members
afforded no grounds for the suppression, and
that he had himself given no reason for his
imprisonment. In Prussia, although they had
to abandon the constitution of the order (1776),
the favor of Frederick II., who esteemed them
as teachers, permitted them to continue as an
organized society, under the name of priests
of the royal school institute; but this institute
also was abolished by Frederick William II.
In Russia, which with the eastern part of
Poland had received in 1772 several houses of
Jesuits, they enjoyed the patronage of the
empress Catharine II., who appointed an ex-Jesuit
coadjutor of the archbishop of Mohilev, and
sent him in 1783 as her minister to Rome.
He urged Pius VI. to recognize the society as
validly existing in Russia, and Pius, moved by
the memoir presented to him by Cardinal
Albani, as well as by the opinion prevalent in the
college of cardinals, that the brief of Clement
XIV. was uncanonical, granted to the Russian
Jesuits permission to elect a vicar general. The
number of Jesuits in Russia amounted at that
time to 178, and the total number of ex-Jesuits
was estimated at about 9,000. Attempts to
restore the order under other names were
made in 1704, when the ex-Jesuits De Broglie
and De Tournely founded the “Society of the
Sacred Heart,” and in 1798, when Paccanari
founded the “Society of the Faith of Jesus,”
known as pères de la foi. This latter organization,
in spite of the defection of its founder,
maintained its existence, and its members formed
the nucleus of the restored society in France.
The prospects of restoration dawned with the
pontificate of Pius VII. (1800). Solicited by
Ferdinand IV., he authorized in 1804 the
introduction of the order into the kingdom of
the Two Sicilies; and on Aug. 7, 1814, he
issued the bull of restoration. The vicar general
of Russia, Brzozowski, was recognized in Rome
as general. At his death an attempt was made
to have the constitutions changed in such a
way as to suit the altered circumstances of
society. At the head of the influential
persons who originated and actively favored this
scheme was Cardinal della Genga, soon to be
Pope Leo XII. The vicar general appointed
to govern the order during the interim was
drawn into the scheme, and despatched couriers
with sealed orders to the electors already on
their way to Rome, commanding them to
proceed no further on their journey. The assistant
of France, De Rozaven, in the name of his
colleagues, issued a counter order, enjoining
on the deputies to hasten to Rome. Not one
failed to be there on the appointed day, and
the first act of the congregation was to decree
the expulsion of the vicar general and his
associates in the order, among whom was the
celebrated Padre Ventura, afterward the
uncompromising opponent of the Jesuits. Aloisio
Fortis was elected general, Oct. 18, 1822, and
took up his residence at the Gesù in Rome.
Cardinal della Genga succeeded Pius VII. Sept.
28, 1823, and his election filled the Jesuits with
alarm; but the new pope on his way to St.
John Lateran descended from his chair of state
in front of the Gesù, to bless the general and
his household. In 1824 the Jesuits received the
direction of the Roman college, and in 1836,
under Gregory XVI., of the college of the
propaganda. As no Jesuits were allowed to
occupy chairs in the latter, and the teaching was
principally intrusted to their theological
opponents, their connection with it became a
source of such serious annoyance, that Pius
IX. in 1850, at the petition of Father Roothaan,
relieved them from this charge. In Modena,
Sardinia, and Naples they were restored in
1815, and reinstated in the possession of a part
or the whole of the former property of the
order, and several new houses were established.
They returned to Lombardy in 1837, to Parma
and Venice in 1844, and to Tuscany (for a short
time) in 1846. The revolution of 1848 endangered
their existence in all Italy; mobs attacked
their houses in Genoa and Naples, and they
were expelled from nearly every state, even
from the dominions of the pope. The general
found for some time a refuge in England.
They returned after the success of the counter
revolution in 1849 to most states, except
Sardinia and Tuscany, but were again expelled
by the movements of 1859 from Lombardy,
Parma, Modena, and the legations. In Naples
the principal organ of the Jesuits, the Civiltà
Cattolica of Rome, was prohibited in 1855 for
having censured the government; but in 1858
they received from the latter new marks of
confidence. In 1860 the progress of Garibaldi
in Sicily and the Neapolitan provinces was
attended by the expulsion of the Jesuits and the
sequestration of their property. The establishment
of the kingdom of Italy was the signal
for the final suppression of the order in the
peninsula. Pius IX., who was thought not
to favor them in the beginning of his
pontificate, gave them many proofs of special
affection after his return from Gaëta. As
province after province was taken from him,
the Jesuits were driven from their houses.
When Rome became the capital of Italy in
1870, the Italian parliament decreed the
suppression of all religious orders and corporations.
The houses destined as residences for
the heads of these orders and their officers
were at first reserved from the general decree;
but in October, 1873, despite the efforts of the
Italian ministry, these central residences were
suppressed by the legislature, and no Jesuit at
present legally exists in Rome or elsewhere in
Italy. In Portugal, John VI. protested against
their restoration; Dom Miguel admitted them
by a decree of 1829, but Dom Pedro exiled
them in 1834, since which time there have been
no recognized communities of Jesuits in that
country. In Spain, Ferdinand VII., after his
restoration in 1814, put them in possession of
all their former rights and property. They
were banished again during the revolution of
1820, but restored with Ferdinand in 1823. In
1834 the ravages of the cholera were attributed
to the poisoning of the wells by the Jesuits.
The populace in consequence broke into the
professed house and massacred the inmates.
In 1835 Queen Christina was compelled to
suppress the order, and in 1840 its last house, at
Loyola in Guipúzcoa, was dissolved by order
of the provincial regency; but in 1844 they
succeeded in establishing themselves again in
the Spanish dominions. They were once more
banished by Espartero in 1854, but were
recalled by O'Donnell in 1858, at the instance
of the emperor and empress of the French.
They were intrusted with several colleges and
seminaries, among others the university of
Salamanca, and with important missions at
Fernando Po and the Philippine islands; and
a wider scope was allowed to their labors in
Cuba and Porto Rico. Their numbers increased
with astonishing rapidity, many novices from
Portugal hastening to join them. But after
the revolution of 1868 they were once more
banished from Spain, and allowed only a
precarious existence in her colonies. In France,
during the reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles
X., they obtained only toleration, and eight of
their colleges, with about 3,500 pupils, were
closed in 1828 by order of the government.
The revolution of July, 1830, banished them
again “for ever” from France, notwithstanding
which they were able to maintain
themselves. In 1845 the chamber of deputies, with
only a few dissenting votes, requested the
government to have their houses closed; but no
decree was issued against them, and after a brief
interval they resumed their labors everywhere.
In 1859 they there possessed 61 establishments
in 38 dioceses. In 1866 they numbered in all
2,464, and in 1873 2,482, exclusive of the
members belonging to the mission of New York
and Canada. During the second empire the
educational establishments of the French
Jesuits entered into a successful competition with
the university schools. Their special scientific
school in Paris attained such eminence that
the emperor was induced to give them the old
collége St. Clément in Metz, where a second
special school was established scarcely inferior
to that of Paris. At the same time they
accepted from the government the chaplaincy of
the penal settlement of Cayenne, where the
dreadful climate soon destroyed upward of 30
priests, and they multiplied their missionary
colonies in Africa, Syria, Madagascar, India,
and China. In the Netherlands King William
I. permitted them to form establishments, and
after the separation of Belgium from Holland
they increased largely in the former. The
Belgian province reckoned 643 members in 1873,
and the province of Holland 313. The
government of Austria admitted them into Galicia,
which in 1820 was made a separate province
of the order. The revolution of 1848 endangered
their existence in Austria for a short
time, but after 1849 their establishments
increased rapidly. The government transferred to
them seven of the state colleges, and intrusted
to them one chair in the theological faculty of
Vienna, and the entire theological faculty of the
university of Innspruck. The Austrian Jesuits
at the present time (July, 1874) are threatened
with suppression. The conversion of the duke
of Anhalt-Köthen to the Roman Catholic
church in 1825 was followed by the establishment
of a mission of the Jesuits at Köthen,
which existed till 1848. In the kingdom of
Saxony they were expressly excluded from the
country by a provision in the constitution of
1831. The events of 1848, which expelled
them from so many countries, opened to them
a wide field of action in many of the German
states, where they were permitted, for the first
time since their restoration, to hold missions
for eight or more days. Many of the larger
Protestant cities, as Berlin, heard on this
occasion the preaching of the Jesuits for the first
time. They were allowed to settle in Prussia,
and in Westphalia and the province of the
Rhine they founded within a short time a
considerable number of establishments. During
the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-'71 the Jesuits
distinguished themselves in the service of
the sick and wounded, and several of them
were decorated by the emperor William. But
the active part taken by the theologians of the
order in advocating and promoting the dogma
of pontifical infallibility, and the coalition of
the ultramontane deputies with the separatists
in the Reichstag, aroused the suspicions of the
German imperial government, and led finally
to their suppression and their expulsion from
the German empire in 1873. Of the two
provinces of Germany and Galicia, the former
numbered in that year 764, the latter 230 members.
They were recalled to Switzerland as early as
1814 by the government of Valais, which also
put them in possession of the former property
of the order. In 1818 they founded a college
at Fribourg, which soon became one of the most
famous institutions of the order, and had
numerous pupils (676 in 1845) from nearly every
country of Europe. The decision of the grand
council of Lucerne, in 1844, to call Jesuits to
the chairs of the theological school and to one
of the parish churches of the capital, greatly
increased the excitement already existing against
them in most of the Protestant cantons.
Several incursions were made from other cantons
to overthrow the local government in order to
expel the Jesuits. They were however
unsuccessful, and strengthened the separate alliance
(Sonderbund) which the government of
Lucerne had formed with six other cantons for
the protection of what they considered their
sovereign cantonal rights. In 1847 the federal
diet demanded the dissolution of the Sonderbund
and the removal of the Jesuits; the
seven cantons refusing submission to this
decree, war ensued, and ended in breaking up
the alliance and the expulsion of the Jesuits,
who have ever since been forbidden by the
federal constitution to return. The Swiss
constitution, as revised in 1874, rigorously
excludes all religious corporations from the
territory of the republic. In England, a rich
Catholic, Thomas Weld of Lulworth castle, in
1799 gave to ex-members of the order Stonyhurst,
which is still their largest establishment
in that country. They conduct at present
the colleges of Stonyhurst, near Whalley,
Lancashire, Mount St. Mary's, near
Chesterfield, and Beaumont Lodge, near Windsor,
besides the scholasticate of St. Beuno's at St.
Asaph. They possess several other flourishing
establishments in England and Scotland, and
maintain missions in Guiana and Jamaica.
In Ireland they have, besides the well known
college of Clongowes, others at Tullabeg,
Dublin, Limerick, and Galway, and a novitiate at
Miltown Park, Donnybrook. The Irish province
has also missionary establishments in
Melbourne, Australia. In Russia, where their
college of Polotzk received in 1812 the rank of a
university, they lost the favor of the emperor
when several young noblemen, who had been
their pupils, were received by them into the
Roman Catholic church. An imperial ukase
of Jan. 1, 1816, closed their establishments at
St. Petersburg and Moscow; and another of
March 25, 1820, suppressed the order entirely
in all Russia and Poland. — The Jesuits had
accompanied Leonard Calvert when he sailed for
the Chesapeake, and were the first religious
instructors of the early Catholic settlers of
Maryland, as well as of the neighboring Indian
tribes. John Carroll, first archbishop of
Baltimore, and some of his American fellow
countrymen, were completing their “third probation”
in Austria when the brief of suppression
was issued. They hastened to America at the
beginning of the revolutionary war, and
continued to live in community until the restoration
of the order. Since then their progress
has been rapid. They are divided into two
provinces and several important missions. The
parent province of Maryland has establishments
in the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia, and the District
of Columbia; the province of Missouri, founded
by that of Maryland with the help of
numerous recruits from Belgium and Holland,
has establishments in the dioceses of St. Louis,
Cincinnati, Chicago, and Milwaukee. The
mission of New York, originally founded by
the province of France, but now independent,
embraces the whole state of New York and the
Dominion of Canada, and has three colleges
with a novitiate, several residences, and
missionary establishments among the Indian tribes
of Lake Superior. The mission of the province
of Germany, recently organized for the benefit
of the German population, possesses several
houses in western New York and Ohio. The
New Orleans mission, dependent on the province
of Lyons, conducts three colleges and
several flourishing houses in the dioceses of New
Orleans and Mobile. The province of Naples
has about 25 missionaries in New Mexico and
Colorado, and the province of Turin 120 in
California and among the Indians of the Rocky
mountains. Their colleges in the United States
are as follows: Boston college, South Boston,
and college of the Holy Cross, Worcester,
Mass.; of St. Francis Xavier, New York; St.
John's, New York (Fordham); St. Joseph's,
Philadelphia; St. John's, Frederick, Md.;
Loyola, Baltimore; Gonzaga, Washington, D. C.;
Georgetown, D. C.; Spring Hill, near Mobile,
Ala.; St. Louis university, St. Louis, Mo.;
college of the Immaculate Conception, New
Orleans; St. Charles's, Grand Coteau, La.; St.
Joseph's, Bardstown, Ky.; St. Xavier's,
Cincinnati; St. Ignatius' college, San Francisco;
and Santa Clara, Cal. In Canada, the Jesuits
conduct St. Mary's college, Montreal, founded
in 1848; and they have recently petitioned the
Dominion parliament for a restoration to them
of the estates owned by the order before its
suppression in France and her colonies. The
number of Jesuits in the United States and
Canada at the present time (1874) is 1,062. In
Mexico and the states of Central and South
America they have sometimes been admitted,
sometimes again expelled, their fate being
dependent on the success or defeat of the several
political parties. They are now entirely
expelled from the Mexican and Colombian republics.
The prosperous seminaries which they
directed in Guatemala were suppressed in 1873,
and the Jesuits themselves compelled to leave
the country. Missionary establishments had
been also opened a few years ago in Ecuador,
Peru, and the province of Maranham, Brazil;
but they were suppressed in 1874. In Chili
and Paraguay several establishments have been
recently founded, all of which are subject to
the same insecurity. Jesuits also now labor as
missionaries among nearly all the non-Christian
nations of the world, especially among the
Indians of North America, in Turkey, in India,
and China. — The number of Jesuits distributed
through the five assistancies in 1873 was as
follows: in the five dispersed provinces of the
Italian assistancy — Rome 459, Naples 308,
Sicily 206, Turin 301, and Venice 246; in the
German assistancy — Austria 462, Belgium 642,
Galicia 230, Germany 764, and Holland 313;
in the French assistancy — Champagne 430,
missions of New York and Canada 251, France
735, Lyons 722, Toulouse 595; in the dispersed
Spanish assistancy — Aragon 560, Castile 784,
Mexico 31; in the English assistancy — England
383, Ireland 183, Maryland 265, and Missouri
255. Total number of members, 9,266.
Attached to the assistancy of Italy are the
following missions: province of Rome, 80
members in Etruria, Æmilia, and Brazil; province
of Naples, 25 in New Mexico and Colorado;
Turin, 120 in California and the Rocky
mountains; Venice, 40 in Illyria, Dalmatia, and
Venetia. German assistancy: Austria, 23 in
South Australia; Belgium, 44 in Bengal;
Germany, 52 in western New York, &c., 70 in
Bombay, 31 in Brazil, and 15 in Java. French
assistancy: Champagne, 21 in northern China;
New York and Canada, 19 in Indian missions
of Lake Superior; France, 16 in Cayenne and
86 in Nanking; Lyons, 72 in Algeria, 94 in
New Orleans and gulf states, and 70 in Syria;
Toulouse, 77 in the isle of Réunion and
Madagascar, and 78 in Madura (India). English
assistancy: England, 14 in Scotland, 13 in Guiana,
and 17 in Jamaica; Ireland, 12 in Melbourne,
Australia; Missouri, 13 among the Osages, and
22 among the Pottawattamies. In all, 1,734
missionaries. — The order has had since the
foundation the following 22 generals, many of
whom belong also to its most celebrated
names: 1, Loyola, a Spaniard, 1541-'56; 2, Laynez,
a Spaniard, 1558-'65; 3, Borgia, a Spaniard,
1565-'72; 4, Mercurian, a Belgian, 1573-'80;
5, Acquaviva, a Neapolitan, 1581-1615;
6, Vitelleschi, a Roman, 1615-'45; 7, Caraffa, a
Neapolitan, 1646-'9; 8, Piccolomini, a Florentine,
1649-'51; 9, Gottofredi, a Roman, Jan. 21
to March 12, 1652; 10, Nickel, a German, 1652-'64;
11, Oliva, a Genoese; 1664-'81; 12, De
Noyelle, a Belgian, 1682-'6; 13, Gonzalez, a
Spaniard, 1687-1705; 14, Tamburini, a Modenese,
1706-'30; 15, Retz, a Bohemian, 1730-'50;
16, Visconti, a Milanese, 1751-'5; 17, Centurioni,
a Genoese, 1755-'7; 18, Ricci, a Florentine,
1758-'73, died in 1775; 19, Brzozowski, a
Pole, 1814-'20; 20, Fortis, a Veronese, 1820-'29;
21, Roothaan, a Hollander, 1829-'53; 22,
Beckx, a Belgian. Among the Jesuits who have
been canonized or beatified, the most celebrated
are Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Francis
Borgia, Francis Regis, Aloysius Gonzaga, and
Stanislas Kostka. — Before the suppression of
the order, the Jesuits counted among their
members some of the greatest scholars of
Europe. The works of Petavius, Sirmond,
Tursellinus, and Viger in classical literature, and of
Tiraboschi in literary history, are still valued
and used. Among the theologians and pulpit
orators, Bellarmin, Pallavicini, Paolo Segneri,
and Bourdaloue are especially distinguished.
Since the restoration, Passaglia (who, however,
left the order in 1858) and Perrone have gained
the reputation of being among the principal
theological writers of the Roman Catholic
church, and Ravignan and Félix in France and
Roh in Germany have been counted among the
greatest Catholic pulpit orators. The most
extensive literary work of the order is the Acta
Sanctorum (Bollandist), commenced in the 17th
century and still continued. Among its
periodicals are the Civiltà Cattolica, semi-monthly,
at Rome (which has the largest circulation of
any theological publication of Italy); the
Précis historiques ft littéraires, semi-monthly, at
Brussels; the Études théologiques, fortnightly,
at Paris; “The Month,” at London; and
two published at Freiburg in Germany. —
Several charges of complicity in the murder of
princes have been brought against the Jesuits,
some of which have been abandoned by all
impartial historians, while all are contested.
These charges are closely connected with the
doctrine of the rightfulness of tyrannicide,
which has been defended by several writers of
the order. It is generally admitted that 14
Jesuits, viz., Sa, Tolet, Valentia, Delrio, Salas,
Mariana, Heissius, Suarez, Lessius, Becan,
Gretser, Tanner, Castro-Paolo, and Escobar,
have maintained it. But on the other hand, it
is alleged that this doctrine was one very common
among the Roman Catholic theologians,
and that even Thomas Aquinas taught it; that
more than 60 Jesuits have written against it;
and that those Jesuits who admit it, confine it
to a few exceptional cases, and allow it to be
committed only by a nation. Acquaviva, by
a decree issued after the assassination of Henry
IV., and dated July 6, 1610, forbade any member
publicly or privately to uphold the
doctrine that it is lawful for any one under any
pretext of tyranny to attempt the life of any
ruler. On other points of ethics members of
the order have been accused of unsound
principles even by certain Catholic writers, and
some of the writings of Jesuits have been on
this account censured by Rome. Concerning
this point the defence presents the same
arguments as on the preceding, viz., that none of
the censured doctrines were peculiar to the
order or shared by all its members. The following
passage in the constitution of the order has
often been and is still construed by some writers
as if it gave to the superiors of the order
the right of obliging their inferiors to commit
a sin: Visum est nobis in Domino, excepto
expresso voto quo societas summo pontifici pro
tempore existenti tenetur, ac trifivs aliis
essentialibus paupertatis, castitatis, et obedientiæ,
nullas constitutiones, declarationes, vel ordinem
ullum vivendi posse obligationem ad peccatum
mortale vel teniale inducere, nisi superior
ea in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, vel in
virtute obedientiæ juberet. But the Jesuits
have proved this to be a mistranslation of the
Latin and in conflict with others of their rules;
the true sense of the passage being, that none
of the rules of the order so bind the members
that the non-observance by itself involves a
sin, but that a sin is committed only when a
member violates a special order of the superior.
Several Protestant historians of note, as Ranke
(“History of the Popes”) and Reuchlin
(“History of Port Royal”), who in the first editions
of their works had followed the former
interpretation, have changed their view in subsequent
editions, and pronounced the interpretation
which the order itself gives of it the true
one. — Among the most important works on the
history of the Jesuits are: Historia Societatis
Jesu, from 1540 to 1625, by Orlandini,
Sacchini, Passinus, and other members of the
society; Wolf (adverse to the Jesuits), Allgemeine
Geschichte der Jesuiten (4 vols., Leipsic,
1803), valuable for its complete bibliography;
Crétineau-Joli, Histoire religieuse, politique et
littéraire de la compagnie de Jésus (6 vols.,
Paris, 1844-'6); Gioberti (adverse to the Jesuits),
Il Gesuita moderno (5 vols., Lausanne,
1847); A. Steinmetz, “History of the Jesuits”
(3 vols., London, 1848); Abbé Guettée
(Gallican), Histoire des Jésuites (2 vols., Paris,
1858-'9); Huber (Old Catholic), Der Jesuiten-Orden
(Berlin, 1873). See also the “Institute
of the Society of Jesus, approved by the Holy
See,” “Decrees of the General Congregations,”
and “Ordinances of the Superiors General,” all
which have been published; “Life and Institute
of St. Ignatius Loyola,” by Bartoli; Documents
authentiques, &c., by Carié de la Charie (Paris,
1827); and Ravignan's L'Existence et l'institut
des Jésuites (Paris, 1844), and Clément XIII.
et Clément XIV. (2 vols. 8vo, 1854).