Jesuits

Jesuits, the members of the society of Jesus, a most influential religious order founded by Ignatius Loyola, which was established by a bull of Paul III., 1540. The founder projected a society devoted to self-culture in all that made for religion, to preaching, gratuitous teaching, and missionary labour, and, in virtue of a fourth vow peculiar to them, bound to obey the Pope implicitly. The intense enthusiasm of the founder and the striking applicability of his general ideas to the circumstances of the Catholic Church attracted several adherents of exceptional ability, notably Diego-Lainez, the second general; Francis Xavier, the "Apostle of India;" Spaniards, and Pierre le Fevre, or Peter Faber, of Savoy. The society rapidly became the most powerful agent in the reaction which checked the spread of Protestantism, and in time restored whole provinces and kingdoms to the Romish Church. Their learning enabled them to carry on with better success the contests in which the old forces of the Papacy had been worsted by the Reformers and the humanists, Salmeron and Bellarmine being their chief controversial writers. Their zeal and capacity for education continually enlarged the sphere and strengthened the foundations of their influence. Their attention to the exigencies of polite society and their sympathy with the spirit of enlightenment and material proress made them popular with all classes, while the completeness of their organisation developed a marvellous display of well-directed effort, the most distant ramifications of their vast system being actuated by one intelligent will, that of the general in Rome, whose decisions were based on reports regularly transmitted from the provincials, the superiors of professed houses, the rectors of coliges, the masters of novitiate houses, and inividual members delegated to any special office or service. Thus the general and his assistants commanded a bureau of almost universal information on ecclesiastical, political, and social matters. The general, though the supreme head of the society, was himself controlled by a monitor, and advised by five assistants or counsellors. The grateful popes allowed the Jesuits immunity from regular monastic rules, so that they might the more easily attain the practical ends at which the order aimed. The complete self-surrender of every member gave the general instruments on which he could place absolute reliance. Secular offices, such as that of provincial and the rectorship or management of college, were at first in the hands of secular coadjutors, who only took the vow of implicit obedience, by which arrangement the order avoided internal friction between the religious and the lay sentiment, while the secular and professed members kept a check on each other. In a very few years from its foundation this remarkable society had established colleges in many kingdoms of Europe, and had scattered missions over heathendom literlly from China to Peru. Many of their professed members were confessors of sovereigns, statesmen, and nobles, and everywhere they were the indefatigable champions of the supremacy of the Roman See. Aquaviva, general from 1581 to 1615, deserves special mention for his improvements in the training of the young, which made the schools of the Jesuits popular and famous. In a few years the Jesuits established themselves firmly in several states of Italy, throughout Spain and Portugal, where they gained great influence at both courts. Before 1570 they had assured the Papal ascendancy in Austria, Bavaria, and the Tyrol, and had gained ground against Protestantism in Germany and France. Their success as missionaries was most conspicuous in Spanish America, where they conerted and civilised vast numbers of Indians. In Paraguay they organised a hierarchical state, wherein an ideal age of innocence and prosperity was enjoyed until, in 1750, the Portuguese minister Pombal obtained possession of a large portion of the country by exchange with Spain, and, war having in consequence broken out, procured the recall of the Jesuits from Paraguay, and in 1759 the expulsion of the order from Portugal. By the time of their centenary, 1640, when Vitelleschi was general, their numbers had increased to over 13,000, and abuses had begun to deteriorate the character of the order, and the downward career was in Ranke's opinion much accelerated by the admission, under Vitelleschi, of professed members to the secular offices. The Jesuit Molina (d. 1000) had held semi-Pelagian views concerning grace. The Jansenists revived the Molinist controversy, 1640, and in 1656 Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales made a violent onslaught on the Jesuits and their system of casuistry, developed by Escobar, Busenbaum, and others, which, according to their opponents, is subversive of the foundations of morality. By the middle of the 17th century the Jesuits' system of instruction had ceased to satisfy the spirit of the age, and was condemned as superficial. Their acquisition of wealth and assiduous engagement in commerce, in defiance of the fundamental principles of the order, raised up hosts of enemies. Owing to the failure of their factory at Martinique, 1743, they were expelled from France in 1763. They were expelled from Spain in 1767, and in 1771 the order was abolished by Clement XIV. It was shrived or repristinated by Pius VII., 1814. The Jesuits now enjoy considerable influence in southern Europe, and have colleges in England, Ireland, the United States, and elsewhere, and missions in many heathen countries. [La Chaise, Malagrida, Mariana, Vicentines.]