CHAPTER XIV
IN the midst of these crosses, never out ot sight, another case of the first importance was engaging Ignatius's attention. The great and long-delayed Council of Trent had at last begun its sittings in the outset of 1546. Two future Popes and our English Cardinal Pole presided over an assembly of ecclesiastics and ambassadors embracing some of the most illustrious men of the day under the asgis of the Emperor, though the European disorders, which withheld many bishops, prevented it from being altogether representative. At Trent, Ignatius witnessed the culmination of his young and new Society in the eyes of Europe. Their presence in the Council was itself a signal tribute to an influence beyond all proportion to the Society's yet slender numbers.
For the Order had itself no voice in the Council, its members held no offices, no dignities, which should give them place in that august convocation; yet the most diverse authorities sought and sent them as delegates. From Italy came Lainez and Salmeron as theologians of the Pope; in Spain, Favre was delayed from assuming the same duties. From Cologne, later, came Peter Canisius, to represent the Prince-Bishop. From Germany also came Le Jay, with the mandate of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Augsburg. Belgium sent Jean Cuvillon, chosen by the Duke of Bavaria. Unsought and unforeseen, it was a veritable demonstration of the new force that had arisen in the world. Ignatius felt the importance of the occasion, and gave the tv/o Papal nominees lessons as to how they should bear themselves in their novel post. It might not seem altogether unnecessary, where the one (Salmeron) was but thirty, and the other but some four years older. To guide their own speech by attentive observation of the previous speakers; to set forth the arguments on either side of a question; to avoid quoting living authorities; to deliver their views " with great peace, calm, and modesty'* — these were the chief points he advised in regard to debate. He was specially emphatic on the point of a quiet and unhurried delivery, recommending them always to end by some such phrase as "with deference to better judgment"; and he was earnest that they should avoid every sharp or wounding word. Their duties at the Council were not to absolve them from the customary evangelising and charitable duties of a Jesuit outside the Council: these Papal Jesuits were to visit the hospitals every fourth day, at least, to preach to the people; even to catechise little children. God's glory and the Church's good must be sole motive of their conciliar actions. Of a morning they should resolve together on their course for the day, and of an evening review in common what had been transacted.
These unprecedented Papal delegates had such patched and worn cassocks that it was thought needful and seemly to supply them with new ones — which they discarded when they emerged from the Council-chamber. But when Salmeron opened the discussion in an eloquent Latin oration, there was no question of his cassock. Lainez summed up the day's proceedings (an office committed to him because of his remarkable memory); and after the discussion in May of the Immaculate
Conception, the position of the two Jesuit Fathers was assured. To Lainez was given the onerous task of collecting the heretical errors, old and new, to be condemned, with all the authorities against them.
Then the first interruption of the hapless Council came in an outbreak of fever at Trent. The Franciscan General and a Bishop were among its first victims, and the Fathers fled to Bologna. But too few reassembled for continuance of the Council, and its sessions were at an end. Salmeron lay fever-stricken at Verona, counting on Ignatius's prayers for his convalescence. Not only in the fever did the Legates acknowledge indebtedness to him; they had been in consultation with him while the Council lasted, and Lainez lamented that the Saint's valuable service was not rendered there in person.
It was in the second assembling of the Council that the Jesuits were especially prominent; and though this did not take place till after the accession of Pope Julius III., for the convenience of continuity we may treat and dismiss it here. It opened under the Presidency of Cardinal Crescenzi. The debate in September 1551 was on the Sacraments; and Lainez's defence of the Eucharist evoked universal admiration. Opening the discussion with the humility enjoined by his Founder, he declared that he should quote no authority whose works he had not read through. He quoted thirty-six, reciting long passages from an unfailing memory. Be it added that the works of one such author alone filled twenty-five folios. The audience was profoundly impressed, by the manner no less than the matter; and when Sal- meron had been heard in the eveni n g, the Co u n c i 1 affirmed the day memorable. The Bishop of Modena exclaimed that he held himselffortunate to live in an age when he could hear.such men. The Council gave a signal evidence of its esteem: for Lainez, falling ill of an ague, it resolved to sit only on the days when the fits left him. Ignatius would have sent Nadal to replace him but Salmcron answered that he could not be replaced; two men in health could not do what
Lainez was doing in illness. The Council sat till May 1552, by which time the Protestant theologians had arrived. Then its ill-fortune again intervened. Maurice of Saxony turned against the Emperor, for whom he had fought, surprised and all but took him prisoner at Innsbruck; and the unlucky Fathers fled from the sword as they had fled from fever. The Council was dissolved again, for two years; and the Jesuits once more*departed, each to his place.
But, in relating here the second assemblage of the Council, we have anticipated events; and must return to the interruption of the first session by the futile removal to Bologna. An incident then occurred which first gave footing for the often-repeated charge that the Jesuits sought to control and intimidate secular princes. By his victory over the Protestants at Miihlburg, the Emperor was for a time absolute in Germany; and, until the Council should meet again, he sought to regulate the ecclesiastical troubles of the country by an ordinance famous as the Interim. It made some relaxations in favour of the Reformers, especially the liberty of marriage to priests and the admission of Communion under both kinds. Alone in Catholic Germany, Bobadilla spoke against the Interim, and blamed Charles to his face. Charles replied by forbidding him the Court and the limits of the Empire; supplying money for his journey, however, and avoiding any ignominious procedure. Ignatius might have approved the opposition; but the intemperance of the public rebuke to the Emperor so angered him that he would not receive Bobadilla when the latter reached Rome. The charges promptly made against the Society in fact justified his disapproval; and intemperance was always particularly unpleasing to his own sagacious moderation, in which he little resembled the intolerant zealot of Protestant conceptions.
long ti-me followed by the dcatli of Pope Paul III., heart-broken at the treachery of relatives' for whom he had cared to the extent of nepotism. It took place in the end of 1549; and, some months later, Julius III. was elected — one of the Presidents over the first session of the Council of Trent. The Jubilee year of 1550 brought the heads of the Society to Rome; and Ignatius seized the first chance to put before them his completed
Constitutions, asking their censure and corrections. Copies he sent, with like purpose, to men who — like Simon Rodriguez, kept by the King in Portugal— could not come to the Holy City. He wished to assure finality, and adaptation to all countries, by this wide census of opinion: profiting from the mishaps of previous Orders which had exercised less caution in the draughting of their rules, and had been forced to subsequent modification or exceptions. In the light of his brethren's suggestions he revised and finished his work; yet, even then, he was so anxiously careful that he would not have it considered more than a provisional and working model until it had beer approved by a special general assembly of hi brethren. This did not come about till Lainez followed him in the Generalship; when the Saint's thoroughness was evidenced by the Constitutions being confirmed without alteration.
All this was but preliminary to a more cherished design. During the Council, Ignatius, now nearer sixty than fifty years of age, had privately off^ered to resign the Generalship in favour of Lainez or any one whom the brethren should appoint. Now, having finished with the Constitutions, he formally asked relief from his office, on the ground of illhealth and unfitness. He made the request by letter; but the Fathers, after deliberation, unanimously refused any other General during his life. Only Oviedo at first was for acquiescence, in the persuasion that a Saint must know what he was doing better than they could know. And as if to justify the vain appeal, Ignatius soon after fell dangerously ill — so much to his own delight that the doctors enjoined him to restrain his joyous anticipations, as dangerous to his life. This time he was disappointed.
The same year saw the sending of Canisius and Salmeron to Ingolstadt, where the Duke of Bavaria desired Professors of Theology. With them, by request, went Le Jay; but Ignatius required a promise that a Jesuit College should be founded, since his subjects were too few to be exhausted on temporary posts in estabUshments which produced only secular priests. The promise was given; and the Jesuits were excellently welcomed; Canisius becoming Rector of the University. But the promise was not kept; and other places called off the services of the Jesuits. Salmeron went to Verona, replaced by Schorich and Goudanus; while, later, first Le Jay and Schorich, then Canisius and Goudanus, were withdrawn to Vienna, where Ferdinand, King of the Romans, desired teachers. Ignatius could only promise their return when the Vienna College should be effectively set on foot.
But while these things were adoing in the eyes 281 2 N of the world, a thing of far greater moment was passing unnoted of the world, the most important event in the Society since the adherence of Xavier. After the death of Favre, the Duke of Gandia wrote asking admission to the Society. He had before corresponded with Ignatius, who knew well what a recruit his Company had in the Spanish hidalgo; and his request met with no delay. By Papal permission his vows were taken in the chapel of his own Gandia palace, without a Roman journey. His membership remained equally private. By a striking anomaly, the almost princely Novice continued the direction of his great temporalities: to the world he was Duke of Gandia; to the Society, Brother Francis. Ignatius counselled him by letter in his spiritual progress; and one such letter is of special interest, for it shows how completely the Saint had taken warning from the results of his own too zealous rigours at Manresa. Borgia had consulted him, among other matter, as to austerities. Ignatius replied:
" As to fasting and abstinence, I think it more to the glory of God to preserv^e and strengthen the digestion and natural powers than to weaken them.... I desire then that you will consider that, as soul and body are given you by God, your Creator and Maker, you will have to give account of both, and for His sake you should not weaken your bodily nature, because the spiritual could not act with the same energy. If before I was pleased to see you fast rigorously, I cannot be so in future, because I see that this fasting and abstinence prevent the stomach from even digesting the simple aliments necessary to sustain life. I advise you rather to cat of all
permitted food, and as often as you are hungry, giving no offence to your neighbour, for we ought to love the body, and wish it well, when it obeys and assists the soul; and thus the soul has more
strength and energy to serve and glorify our Creator and Master. As to the third point — of personal penance — I desire you for Our Lord's sake to avoid drawing the smallest drop of blood; and, in place of seeking to draw blood, seek more directly Our Lord of all, that is to say, His Most Holy Gifts, as, for example, an overflow or'somc drops of tears; whether, first, because of our sins and those of others; or, secondly, in the contemplation of the mysteries of Christ Our Lord in this life or the next; or, thirdly, in the consideration of the love of the Divine Persons.**
This letter, from a Saint to a Saint, is of peculiar instruction because it shows Ignatius explicitly condemning the very excesses of ardour in which he himself had indulged. In a just humility before the inspiration of the Saints, we are apt to think that none of their "fair and flagrant" extremities can be questioned or questionable. This letter evidences that a sane and modest criticism of the human fallibility, from which grace and genius do not preserve them, may be adventured and justified. But be it noted that Ignatius was writing to a man whose zeal he could trust to err always on the further side of self-indulgence; with whom he knew the rein was more needed than the spur. Not fast, not austerity, but the too fiery impulses of austerity, are the things he checks: and these in a body which he discerned to be delicate. " A sound mind in a sound body is the most useful instrument wherewith to serve God," is the conclusion he draws for his fervid disciple. He was equally quick to check Oviedo, Rector in Borgia's College of Gandia, when Oviedo, inspired by a contemplative Franciscan, Texeda, craved for solitude. The Saint warned him that the impulse was a snare to seduce him from his vocation; that, labouring in the world against the world, the world was wilderness enough for hin.. Fven Francis Borgia was a little shadowed by the General's displeasure at this incident, since Texeda was his protege.
The Jubilee year brought Francis Borgia to Rome. The long Quixote-faced man with the great hooked nose, illustrious outwardly as a Spanish grandee, more illustrious to Ignatius as a Grandee of the Eternal Court, was assigned special apartments at Santa Maria della Strada. Honoured with all observance of his princely rank, in private he v^as the Novice before his General. Entering the house at the dinner-hour, he waited on the Fathers, whose meal he shared, and then gaily — surely gaily — washed the dishes in the kitchen. He humbly confessed himself to Ignatius, and took counsel with him concerning his interior life. During this visit it was that he broached the project of the Roman College, to which he gave six thousand crowns in gold. He had married his eldest son and his daughters; and, having provided for his family, there was little left to hinder his final admission to the Society. But before Christmas an unforeseen peril threatened. The Emperor, learning his entrance into the Order, asked the Pope to make him a Cardinal. Forthwith he fled from Rome, writing to several before he left in protest against the idea. Ignatius, on his part, retired into three days' prayer, and finally resolved to withstand the design, which he found well afoot. From the Cardinals he could gain nothing; but, betaking himself to the Pope, he prevailed on him that the thing was against the spirit of the Society and Borgia's own wishes. Wary conduct was none the less needed, since Charles V. had no love for the Society since Bobadilla's imprudence in the matter of the Interim. So it was agreed that the hat should be offered to Borgia; and, upon his foreseen refusal, the affair was dropped.
Then Francis went from Rome to the Basque provinces, and fixed his residence at Onate. There he solemnly renounced his property and was ordained priest. Oiiate was commended to him by its nearness to Loyola, where he entered the room in which his brother Saint was born, and, kneeling, kissed the ground. Ignatius speedily ordered him to begin the evangelisation of Spain, ultimately appointing him Commissary of Spain and Portugal. So entirely did he fulfil his Commission that he became the true Founder of Jesuitism in Spain.
Ignatius, cast out from his own land, returned in the person of his son. Francis Borgia exerted all the vast influence of his connections among the nobility and at Court, preached to the people, and filled the cities with Houses and Colleges. In ten years he had personally set up Houses in as many towns. His brilliant success brought on him again the menace of a Cardinal's hat from Charles's son Philip; and, once again, it had to be repelled. Thenceforth he was unmolested in the heavenly commonership he had chosen. But kindred dangers more than once beset the Society, of which the most pressing was King Ferdinand's attempt to make Canisius a Bishop at Vienna. Like his attempt on Lainez, it was foiled; but only after much difficulty, and by a compromise which suffered him for a year to assume the duties without the revenues of a See.
But the career of Saint Francis Borgia has carried us forward beyond the Jubilee year. Already, before that year, the Society had spread in southern Italy, and attracted the notice of the Sicilian Viceroy. In Naples, one of its early pupils had been a boy of seven, sozealous that he set forth to school in the dark hours of morning, lit by the torches of the servants his mother sent with him; so quick that before he emerged from boyhood he composed in Latin verse and prose, with some knowledge of Greek. It was Torquato Tasso. With the Viceroy's patronage, the Society spread^through Sicily. Nadal and nine comrades were sent to open a College at Messina, speeded by Ignatius's customary formula:
" Ite^ omnia inflammate et accendite: " "Go, all things fire and set alight."
Palermo followed with a College, to which Ribadeneira, the fiery, but not over strong, was appointed. In Goa, Ignatius set afoot a House for native converts, which became a focus for the dissemination of Christianity, for he had learned from Xavier that converts often relapse for lack of proper nourishing.