2. Early Achievements in Italy, Portugal, and France.

Having approved of the constitution of the society and conferred upon it extensive privileges, Paul III. proceeded at once to employ its members in the most difficult and responsible undertakings. In fact his eagerness to send his associates on missions was embarrassing to the founder, who feared that such prominent service would interfere with the maintenance of obedience, humility, and poverty that he thought essential. They soon came into sharp rivalry with the Dominicans, the recognized leaders in philosophy and theology, and formerly the promoters and executive officers of the Inquisition (see DOMINIC, SAINT, AND THE DOMINICAN ORDER). In the Council of Trent, especially the later sessions, they were the confidential spokesmen of the papal teaching and policy and took a leading part in the revival and the establishment of the Inquisition wherever it was practicable. In Italy the influence of the society soon became paramount. The Collegium Romanum, endowed with special privileges and most generously supported by the pope and his friends, carried on the educational work of the society with the greatest enthusiasm and success (1550 onward). Side by side with this the Collegium Germanicum was established by Gregory XIII. (1753) for the education of those who were to carry forward the Counter-Reformation in German-speaking countries. It was the policy of the pope and of the Jesuit administration to fill this college with students of noble birth, though it was not found practicable to make the restriction absolute. About the middle of the seventeenth century the nobles were in the majority (cf. documents cited by Reusch in ZKG, xiii. 269-270, 1892). The king of Portugal invited Francis Xavier (q.v.) and Simon Rodriguez d'Azendo, two of Ignatius' earliest and most zealous associates, to his court and committed himself to the fullest cooperation with the society. Rodriguez became his chief counselor and Xavier went on his great mission to India and China under the king's patronage. The Jesuits were soon in control of the college at Coimbra, and until a reaction occurred in 1578 they virtually ruled the state. In Spain their conquest was less rapid and complete. They were opposed to the policy of conciliation in relation to Protestantism that had been adopted by Charles V. The Dominicans, who had gained great prestige in Spain because of their leadership in the drastic measures against Mohammedans and Jews as well as against nascent Protestantism, bitterly opposed the society, partly because of its early manifestation of Pelagian tendencies. Melchior Cano (q.v.) denounced the Jesuits as the forerunners of Antichrist (II Tim, iii. 2). Philip II., though in accord with their uncompromising hostility to Protestantism and influenced to some extent by them, never surrendered himself completely to their domination. The winning of Francis of Borgia (q.v.),

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duke of Gandia, who had been a courtier of Charles V., and had been employed in important administrative offices, to membership (1548) was no doubt the most important addition to the personnel of the society since it received papal recognition. He was to prove one of the ablest and most enthusiastic workers and to become the third general (July 2, 1565). The universities of Alcala and Salamanca resisted strenuously the efforts of the Jesuits to gain control; but they finally succeeded in establishing themselves in these centers of influence. Further progress was less difficult. The society encountered antipathy and mistrust in France. A number of youths sent by Ignatius to the University of Paris in 1540 were driven away. The archbishop of Paris, the parliament of Paris, and the Sorbonne united their forces in opposition to the aggressions of the body. The cardinal of Lorraine supported the society. The Jesuits did not succeed until 1661 in establishing a college in France, and this (Clermont) was long denied university privileges. The Jesuits Auger and Pelletian preached and labored with such efficiency in Lyons (1559) as to cause an uprising against the Huguenots that resulted in the burning of their books, the banishment of their preachers, and the suppression of their worship. A Jesuit college was established there in commemoration of their triumph. They persistently opposed Henry of Navarre in his struggle for the crown, refused to pray for him after his submission to the pope, and denounced the Edict of Nantes. Henry did everything in his power to conciliate them, recalled a decree of banishment that had been issued against them, made a Jesuit his confessor, and sought to use the Jesuits in defending himself against Spain, where the Dominicans were highly influential. He was not content with giving to the Jesuits a foremost place in France, but he sought to secure their restoration to Venice, whence they had been expelled in 1606, and to extend the sphere of their influence in other lands. He eagerly promoted the canonization of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier (1608). Yet he was distrusted by the society and when, as he was on the point of marching an army against the emperor and his allies, he was assassinated by Frangois Ravaillac, the Huguenots charged that Jesuit influence had compassed his death, though direct instigation could not be proved. After the death of Henry IV. the society became still more powerful in France, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (q.v.) and the destruction of the Huguenots (q.v.) were largely due to their persistent efforts. The Jansenists asserted that their theology was Pelagian and that their morals were lax (q-v.; see also ARNAULD; DU VERQIER DE HAURANNE, JEAN; PASCAL, BLAISE; PORT ROYAL; QUESNEL, PASQUIER).

3. In Germany and Austria.

Germany and Austria were the scenes of their greatest triumphs. The first Jesuit to enter Germany was Lefèvre, who, in 1640, accompanied Ortiz, deputy of Charles V., to the Diet of Worms. In the city of Worms he found only one priest that was not a concubinary or polluted with crime, so with a zeal rarely surpassed he undertook to rally the demoralized Catholic forces and to inspire with love for Romanism and hatred for Protestantism the few priests and laymen that were amenable to his influence. He participated in the Diet of Regensburg (Apr., 1641), at which Butzer and Melanchthon represented the Evangelical interests. Deeply lamenting the lack of zeal and efficiency in the Catholics present, he invited bishops, prelates, electors, ambassadors, vicars-general, theologians, and others to his courses in training in the Spiritual Exercises. He was made the confessor of the son of the duke of Savoy. Germans, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italians eagerly sought his spiritual guidance. He extended his efforts to Nuremberg. Having been ordered by the general to Portugal, his place was taken by LeJay, whose chief work was to train the priests for aggressive work against heresy and to inspire the nobles with the conviction that heresy must be exterminated at whatever cost. He was soon reinforced by Bobadilla, who in 1541 had achieved a great success in the diocese of Viterbo, had formed an intimate acquaintance at Innsbruck with Ferdinand I., king of the Romans, won him to the Jesuit way of thinking, and accompanied him to Vienna, and had supported the Catholic cause in a number of diets. A college was established in Vienna, which soon became affiliated with the university. LeJay succeeded in filling with enthusiastic zeal against Protestantism many priests who had been idle and indifferent and in enlisting many nobles in the coercive and educational measures proposed by the society. Lefèvre returned to Germany in 1642 and made his influence powerfully felt in Speyer, Mainz, Brandenburg, and other places. Peter Canisius (q.v.) was even more important than Lefèvre or LeJay in organizing Jesuit work in Germany and in establishing training-schools for the propagation of Jesuit principles. From 1559 onward Munich was the chief Jesuit center, and came to be known as the "German Rome"; and the college established there attracted many noble Protestant youths, who were won over by their instructors. All the chief cities of Germany where Catholics had retained the ascendancy and many where Protestantism had made great headway felt the influence of these enthusiastic and dauntless missionaries. Under their guidance Albert V. of Bavaria gave his Protestant subjects the choice of becoming Catholics or leaving the country. With their help Baden was cleared of Protestants in two years (1570-71). Similar measures were carried out in the territory of the abbot of Fulda, in Cologne, Münster, Hildesheim, Paderborn, and Würzburg. In 1595 the bishopric of Bamberg was cleared of heretics, and about 1602 the work was completed in the archbishopric of Mainz. From 1578 onward Jesuits led in the work of exterminating Protestantism in the Austrian provinces. The Counter-Reformation had largely accomplished its work in Austria and its dependencies before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War (1618; q.v.). It was rapidly pressed to completion from this time onward. For the details of Jesuit activity in the Counter-Reformation and in the revived Inquisition, see COUNTER-REFORMATION and articles there referred to; also INQUISITION.

4. In Belgium, Holland, and England.

From 1542 onward the Jesuits had been active in Belgium. They were expelled from the country during the early years of the war with Spain, but were readmitted, under the patronage of Alexander Farnese, after Spanish authority had been reestablished, and were protected by Philip II., who had formerly opposed them (1581-1584). Within a few years they had almost taken possession of the land and made it the base of successful propagandism in the Protestant Netherlands. By 1692 twenty-two Jesuits and 220 secular priests, most of whom had been educated in their colleges, were working in the United Netherlands, and the Catholic membership had increased from a few thousand scattered and discouraged souls to 345,000. The assassination of William of Orange (1584) was commonly attributed to Jesuit influence on the ground that, as was asserted, Baltha sar Gerard claimed the blessing of the rector of the Jesuit college at Treves before committing the crime.

The Jesuits early addressed themselves to the task of reestablishing papal supremacy in England. In 1542 Paschasius Brouet and Alphonso Salmeron (q.v.) made a secret and rapid tour through Ireland and in thirty-four days succeeded in inflaming the Catholics of Ireland against the government of Henry VIII. and against Protestantism. But the Jesuits met with little success in Scotland. In England they carried on for more than a century a secret but effective propaganda. In 1569 William Allen (q.v.), afterward a cardinal, established at Douai (q.v.) a training-school for Jesuit missionaries to England, where a large number of British Catholic youths were prepared for the extremely perilous work of restoring papal authority in Britain. Sacked by the Protestants of Flanders at the instigation of the English government, the college was reopened at Reims under the patronage of the archbishop, and continued to train men for English work and martyrdom. In 1579 an English college was opened in Rome for the same purpose. The moat active leaders of the Jesuit work in England were Robert Parsons and Edmund Campian (qq.v.). In Scotland Jesuits attached themselves to the court of Mary Stuart (c. 1587), and by encouraging her aspirations after the English crown wrought her destruction. The "Gunpowder Plot" (1605) was commonly attributed to their machinations.

5. Mission Work in America.

The missionary efforts of the Jesuits, under French patronage, in North America among the Indians (see INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA, MISSIONS TO; MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN, A) and the French colonists were from their own point of view highly successful. In Florida, Mexico, South America and Central America, and California they established their great mission compounds where captured natives, sometimes guarded and forced by Spanish and Portuguese troops, were employed as laborers and compelled to conform to Roman Catholic observances. Their work among the North American Indians, as well as among the natives of India, China and Japan, displayed heroic self-sacrifice of the highest order along with a willingness to receive a very superficial knowledge of Christianity as evidence of its acceptance. Those whom they baptized, even clandestinely, they claimed as members of the Christian Church.

6. Unethical Teachings and Practises.

Attention has already been called to the obligation of absolute and unquestioning obedience inculcated by Ignatius that involved the suppression or destruction of the individual conscience. The doctrine of Probabilism (q.v.) was not originated by the Jesuits, but was wrought out by their writers during the seventeenth century with more minuteness than by earlier Roman Catholic writers. According to this teaching one is at liberty to follow a probable opinion, i.e., one that has two or three reputable Catholic writers in its favor, against a more probable or a highly probable opinion in whose favor a multitude of the highest authorities concur. To justify any practise, however immoral it might be commonly esteemed, a few sentences from Catholic writers sufficed, and these were often garbled. Some Jesuits and some popes repudiated this doctrine. In 1680 Gonzales, an opponent of the doctrine, was made general of the society through papal pressure; but he failed to purge the society of probabilism and came near being deposed by reason of his opposition. Another antiethical device widely approved and employed by members of the society is Mental Reservation or Restriction (see RESERVATION, MENTAL), in accordance with which, when important interests are at stake, a negative or a modifying clause may remain unuttered which would completely reverse the statement actually made. This principle justified unlimited lying when one's interests or convenience seemed to require. Where the same word or phrase has more than one sense, it may be employed in an unusual sense with the expectation that it will be understood in the usual (amphibology). Such evasions may be used under oath in a civil court. Equally destructive of good morals was the teaching of many Jesuit casuists that moral obligation may be evaded by directing the intention when committing an immoral act to an end worthy in itself; as in murder, to the vindication of one's honor; in theft, to the supplying of one's needs or those of the poor; in fornication or adultery, to the maintenance of one's health or comfort. Nothing did more to bring upon the society the fear and distrust of the nations and of individuals than the justification and recommendation by several of their writers of the assassination of tyrants, the term "tyrant" being made to include all persons in authority who oppose the work of the papal church or the order. The question has been much discussed, Jesuits always taking the negative side, whether the Jesuits have taught that "the end sanctifies the means." It may not be possible to find this maxim in these precise words in Jesuit writings; but that they have always taught that for the "greater glory of God," identified by them with the extension of Roman Catholic (Jesuit) influence the principles of ordinary morality may be set aside, seems certain. The doctrine of philosophical sin, in accordance with which actual attention to the sinfulness of an act when it is being committed

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is requisite to its sinfulness for the person committing it, was widely advocated by members of the society. The repudiation of some of the most scandalous maxims of Jesuit writers by later writers, or the placing of books containing scandalous maxims on the Index, does not relieve the society or the Roman Catholic Church from responsibility, as such books must have received authoritative approval before publication, and the censuring of them does not necessarily involve an adverse attitude toward the teaching itself, but may be a mere measure of expediency.

7. Internal Development and Moral Declension.

Lainez, who succeeded Ignatius in the office of general (1558-65), manifested in the administration of the affairs of the society more of worldly wisdom and less of pietistic enthusiasm than the founder. Paul IV. became alarmed at the remarkable growth and aggressiveness of the society. He sought (1558) to curb the almost irresponsible power of the generals by limiting their tenure of office to three years, and to limit the freedom of the body by requiring the observance of the canonical hours for singing in the choir. These changes would have placed the society on somewhat the same basis as the other orders and would have stripped it of half its power. These measures were earnestly resisted and the death of the pope (1559) prevented the calamity. Pius IV. let Lainez have his ambitious and aggressive way and employed his services in the later sessions of the Council of Trent. Francis of Borgia had spent his fortune in founding a college in Gandia and the Collegium Romanum and came to the office of general (1565) with all of the ascetical enthusiasm of Ignatius, but with little of his worldly wisdom. He was succeeded in 1572 by Mercurian, whose administration was relatively feeble. The greatest of all the generals was Claudius Acquaviva (1581-1615), a Neapolitan. He had to contend with a powerful and determined Spanish faction in the society that resented Italian control. The Spanish Jesuits secured the support of the Inquisition, of Philip II., and of Clement VIII. The latter summoned a General Congregation (1592) to deal with the difficulties. Acquaviva managed the meeting with such adroitness that he was triumphantly vindicated and thoroughly established in his office. Molina's Pelagian teaching provoked a fresh Dominican onslaught on the society. Acquaviva and his supporters espoused the cause of Molina (q.v.), though he had been condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. The pope transferred the dispute to Rome (1596) and for a time it looked as if the Dominicans would triumph; but Acquaviva's consummate skill again averted calamity. At the General Congregation he confounded his opponents by springing upon the assembly the news that Henry IV. of France had espoused his cause. Under Acquaviva the Counter-Reformation was carried forward with astonishing success. The failure of Dominicans, Inquisition and pope to silence the Pelagian anthropology of the order encouraged its members to go to the greatest extremes in their moral theology. Under the administration of Mutius Vitelleschi (1615-45) the Counter-Reformation was carried almost to its completion and the Thirty Years' War almost ran its course. In 1640 the jubilee of the society was celebrated with great éclat. It now numbered 15,000 members distributed into thirty-nine provinces. The ascetical requirements of Ignatius had been put aside. The professed had increased in numbers in far greater proportion than the membership, and now freely accepted positions of honor and influence, enjoyed regular incomes, and lived like gentlemen, leaving the drudgery of the educational and church work to younger and less experienced men. They constituted a sort of aristocracy that neutralized to some extent the autocracy of the General. Degeneration continued unimpeded under Caraffa (d. 1649) and Piccolomini (d. 1651). The German Nickel (1651-64) proved so unsatisfactory as general that Oliva was made his vicar (1661). Oliva was a favorite of the pope and lived in splendor. His independent administration (1664,81) was favorable to the development of the worst features of Jesuitism. He was an advocate and promoter of Probabilism and other immoral forms of teaching and encouraged to the utmost the disposition to meddle with national and international politics that had become characteristic of the society. Ignatius had opposed with all his might the promotion of Jesuits to high ecclesiastical positions. In 1593 Tolet was made a cardinal; in 1599, Bellarmine; in 1629, Pazmany; in 1643, De Lugo, and many afterward. Their literary activity in all religious and secular branches of learning was very great during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The same may be said of the more recent time.

8. Decline and Proscription.

The growing secularization of the society and its need of vast resources for the maintenance and extension of its world-wide work and the diminution of free-will offerings that had sufficed in the times when religious enthusiasm was at its height led the society to engage in great speculative business enterprises, those conducted in Paraguay and Martinique resulting in disaster to many innocent investors (1753 onward), and brought upon the society much reproach in Portugal and France. In Portugal the Marquis of Pombal, one of the foremost statesmen of his time, became convinced that the liberation of the country from ecclesiastical rule, in which Jesuits had long been predominant, required the exclusion of the latter. An insurrection in Portuguese Paraguay by the natives furnished an occasion to Pombal for denouncing the Jesuits to the king and for demanding papal prohibition of their commercial undertakings. The papal prohibition was issued in 1758 and priestly privileges were withdrawn from Jesuits in Portugal. An attempt upon the life of the king (Sept. 3, 1758) was attributed to Jesuit influence and led to a decree for the expulsion of the society and the confiscation of its property (Sept. 3, 1759). The pope tried in vain to protect them and his nuncio was driven from the country. Malgrida, a Jesuit, was burned at the stake in 1761. Speculations by Jesuits in Martinique, in which vast sums of money were lost by French citizens, led to a public investigation of the methods of the society. and on April 16, 1761, the Parliament

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of Paris decreed a suppression of Jesuit establishments in France and on May 8 declared the entire order responsible for the debts of the principal promoter of the collapsed enterprise. Other parliaments followed that of Paris. King, pope, and many bishops protested in vain. Eighty of their colleges were closed in April, 1762. Their constitution was denounced as godless, sacrilegious, and treasonable, and the vows taken by Jesuits were declared to be null and void. On Nov. 26, 1764, the king agreed to a decree of expulsion. In Spain 6,000 Jesuits were suddenly arrested at night and conveyed to papal territory (Sept. 2-3, 1768). Refused admission by the pope, they took refuge in Corsica. A similar seizure and transportation of 3,000 had occurred at Naples (Nov. 3-4, 1767). Parma dealt with them similarly (Feb. 7, 1768), and soon afterward they were expelled from Malta by the Knights of St. John. The Bourbon princes urged Clement XIII. to abolish the society. He refused, and when he died (Feb. 2, 1769) there was much intriguing among friends and enemies of the Jesuits in seeking to secure the election of a pope that would protect or abolish the society. Cardinal Ganganelli was elected and it is highly probable that he had bargained with the Bourbons for the destruction of the Jesuits. From the beginning of his pontificate powerful pressure was brought to bear upon him by Spain, France, and Portugal for the abolition of the order. He gave promises of early action, but long hesitated to strike the fatal blow. He began by subjecting the Jesuit colleges in and around Rome to investigation. These were promptly suppressed and their inmates banished. Maria Theresa of Austria, who had been greatly devoted to the Jesuits, now regretfully abandoned them and joined with the Bourbons in demanding the abolition of the society by the pope. This combined pressure of the chief Catholic powers was more than the pope could withstand ("Coactus feci," he is reported to have afterward said). On July 21, 1773, he signed the Brief Dominus ac Redemptor noster, which abolished the society, and on August 16 the general and his chief assistants were imprisoned and all their property in Rome and the States of the Church confiscated (Eng. transl. of this brief is most easily accessible in Nicolini, Hist. of the Jesuits, pp. 387-406, London, 1893). The brief recites at length the charges of immoral teaching and intolerable meddlesomeness in matters of church and state, of the abuse of the unlimited privileges that the society has enjoyed, and virtually admits that it has become totally depraved and a universal nuisance. To restore peace to Christendom its abolition is declared to be necessary. A papal coin was struck the same year in commemoration of the event, with Christ sitting in judgment and saying to the Jesuit fathers arraigned on his left, "Depart from me all of you, I never knew you."

9. Illicit Continuance and Restoration.

At the time of its abolition the society had about 22,000 members. It would have been unreasonable to expect that so large a body of trained men, adepts at secret and evasive methods of work, and with centuries of successful effort behind them, would suddenly vanish in response to a papal brief extorted by the Roman Catholic powers. Thousands of them, without change of principles, became members of societies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; others of the society of Fathers of the Faith, founded by Nicolo Paccanari (q.v.); others became Redemptorists or Liguorists (see LIGUORI, ALFONSO MARIA DE). Frederick II. of Prussia encouraged and protected them with a view, no doubt, to using their political knowledge and skill against the Bourbons, the Hapsburgers, and the pope. Catherine II. of Russia hoped by showing them favor to conciliate her new Polish subjects and to use them against Bourbons and Hapsburgers. In Naples and in France the papal decree was only imperfectly executed. Pius VI. gave full papal approval (1783) to the perpetuation of the society in Russia, while Pius VII. (1801) approved of their designating their vicar-general as general. The same pope approved of the restoration of the society in Naples and Sicily (July, 1804) so that the head of the society now became "General for Russia and Naples." The Napoleonic disturbance of Europe having come to an end and Pius VII. having been released from his French captivity, the need of the society for leadership in an aggressive movement for the restoration of the Roman Catholic Church to its former power was profoundly felt by the Curia. On Aug. 7, 1814, Pius VII. issued the bull Solicitudo omaium ecclesiarum, by which he restored the society. Since that time it has suffered many reverses and much persecution. Most of the states of Europe have repeatedly expelled its members. Yet it has steadily grown in power and has for nearly a century dictated the policy of the papal administration. Jesuits are to-day the chief diplomats of the Roman Catholic Church and they are surpassed in astuteness and the ability to achieve results by those of no civil government. The promulgation of the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary (1854), the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864, the Vatican Council with its decree of papal infallibility (1869-70), the recent drastic measures against Biblical criticism and in opposition to freedom of research and freedom of teaching and publishing, are commonly attributed to Jesuit influence. The society had in 1902, 15,231 members, 6,743 being priests and 4,542 students for the priesthood. There are about 1,800 in the United States, and they are numerous in Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Cuba, and the Philippines. [The Jesuits have from the beginning laid especial stress upon education and adopted a high standard. But they have had to run the gantlet of sharp criticism not only from Protestants but from Roman Catholics. Nor can it be explained away that the order was for a considerable period under the papal ban. Their secrecy, superior skill and learning, and especially the casuistry advocated in books written by members of the order, have concentrated much attention on them, not always to their approval. They can not claim exemption from the common failings of mankind, or any special divine leadership. They have had ambitious and unscrupulous members and have been under unworthy leadership. Their meddling

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in politics has not always been to their credit. But when all has been said against them the Jesuits still retain their preeminence. They were the authors of the Counter-Reformation which prevented the collapse of the Roman Catholic Church in lands in which Protestantism had gotten a hold. They gave their church its theology and raised its standard of education and of clerical morality. They cleansed it of much of its foulness, put new breath into its foreign missions, and everywhere displayed a zeal, patience and piety which revived the whole church. And these services in the past are continued into the present, and every year the Roman Catholic Church is still heavier in their debt.]

The number of Jesuits throughout the world is small. In 1902 there were but 15,231 of all grades. The Official Catholic Directory for 1909, pp.746-747, gives these figures for the United States:

III. Female Orders in Imitation of Jesuits:

A. H. NEWMAN.