Jesuits

jez'u-its, a religious order of the Catholic Church. The members bind themselves to lead lives of purity, to renounce all personal possessions, and to yield obedience to their superiors. The order was founded at Paris by an enthusiastic Spanish nobleman, Ignatius Loyola, who had been disabled in battle and was studying for the priesthood. August 15, 1534, Loyola and six companions, five of them countrymen and one a Portuguese, met in the crypt of a chapel on Montmartre and bound themselves by vows for life. Three Frenchmen were soon admitted. The name chosen was Company of Jesus, in reference to the military form of organization. The popular name of Jesuits was given later, it is said, by Calvin.

The organization of the Jesuits differs from that of other Catholic orders in that, instead of wearing habits and retiring within walls of monasteries for reflection, the Jesuit dresses like other men and, at the command of his superior, accepts positions that bring him into immediate contact with the world. The Jesuit is no recluse, but an active agent. He is forbidden to accept independent office. He may not become an archbishop or cardinal, but he may act as a secretary, librarian, confessor, nurse, missionary, teacher, professor, or college president; in short, he may occupy any honorable position that promises opportunity to win converts to the Mother Church. Perhaps no better idea of the many-sidedness of the Jesuit can be given than by quoting a famous sentence from Macaulay:

In spite of oceans and deserts, of hunger and pestilence, of spies and penal laws, of dungeons and racks, of gibbets and quartering blocks, the Jesuits were to be found under every disguise, in every country; scholars, physicians, merchants, servingmen, in the hostile court of Sweden, in the old manor houses of Cheshire, among the hovels of Connaught, arguing, instructing, consoling, animating the courage of the timid, holding up the crucifix before the eyes of the dying.

The Jesuits were organized at the time of the Protestant Reformation. They are credited by friend and foe alike with having stayed Protestantism within its present limits. It is difficult, especially when the bitterest opponents of the order have been jealous members of the same church, to separate calumny from fact; but without doubt the Jesuits saved Bohemia to Catholicism and drove the Huguenots from France.

The order is preeminently a body of missionaries. Missions were opened among the Five Nations of New York. At one time 3,000 Hurons were under the civilizing influence of the church. Father Marquette, the explorer of the Mississippi, was a Jesuit missionary. One of Parkman's interesting volumes is a history of the Jesuits in North America. The Jesuits founded missions among the Indians of South America and carried the cross throughout India and beyond the Himalayas into Tibet. Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the order, introduced Christianity into Japan and his followers established missions still existing in China.

The order has been noted for scholarship. A mere catalog of Jesuit writings fills several volumes. Philosophy, theology, history, philology, art, literature, science,--in short, every department of learning,--is represented. A complete system of Jesuit schools was evolved, extending from the child's school to the college. Bacon declared, "never has anything more perfect been invented." Compayre, the French pedagogist, dubbed it, "a mere system of memorizing." Without doubt, when both sides have been heard, it is but justice to state that the Jesuits evolved a system out of chaos, and set modern education on its way.

One of the ways in which the society obtained a powerful hold on Europe was the education of future princes, popes, prelates, professors, and writers. Voltaire was educated in a Jesuit school. He turned his sharpened wit against the order. Realizing that it was one of the bulwarks of the Catholic faith, he declared, "Destroy the Jesuits and we shall make an end of the beastly church." Bacon, Descartes, Tasso, Galileo, Buffon, Conde, Corneille, Canova, and Wallenstein were Jesuits. As teachers the Jesuits were noted for thorough preparation and definiteness of aim.

As stated, the order has been the subject of jealous opposition. One pope was induced to order its suppression. It has been suppressed in Catholic France as well as in Protestant Germany. The society has always been noted for able, active, membership, with capacity for public affairs. The presence of a force of restless intellectual men of this sort, to whom intrigues could be imputed by Protestant and Catholic alike, accounts for much of the long standing injustice done the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. This view of the Jesuits is stated by the phrase, "a naked sword whose hilt is at Rome and whose point is everywhere."

The first general of the order was Loyola. There have been in all twenty-three generals. Oddly enough, though the Jesuits were organized in France, a Frenchman has never been at the head. At the present time, there are between 15,000 and 20,000 Jesuits. About 2,000 reside in the United States, engaged in mission work among the Indians and the management of numerous schools and colleges. Baltimore, St. Louis, and Montreal may be called American centers of the order.

See Galileo; Monasticism; Dominicans; Roger Bacon; Parkman; Catholicism