CHAPTER VII
SUCCESS after long heart-sickness; prominence so unforeseen by the struggling fraternity which had gravitated Romeward after the bringing to naught of the purpose which had first bound them together — a prominence partly forced and conferred on them by the very loudness of the clamour which had attempted their ruin; the sudden concentration of official tolerance, if not favour, from all quarters; the necessity of the time, calling them to action and by assault compelling them to coalescence; a consensus of these and other circumstances drove the Company to entertain the idea of formal organisation.
Of necessity it had been entertained and debated already, in casual and fragmentary fashion, timidly and with much half-frightened dissent. Now Ignatius himself saw that it must be faced. It must be decided, in effect, whether they should — explicitly or virtually — constitute themselves a new Order. That is necessarily an anxious and timorous matter for a handful of men or women newly come together, with forms to be gone through, barriers broken down, influence conciliated, opposition and (worst of all) passively stubborn reluctance overcome. What need for novelty? That is the cry hardest to refute; and the feeling it represents most tenacious in sluggish resistance. How, too, can the humble innovators themselves feel sure there is indeed call for novelty, or that the call is precisely for their novelty?
But here the question was of peculiar anxiety; congregations, fraternities, societies, offered all manner of expedients for evading the point-blank creation of a new Order, and increased the tremoi of these first Jesuits at the idea of drifting, almost despite themselves, into the setting-up of a veritable Order of their own. A new Order? Why, old Orders were in no favour; nay, in almost utter discredit. The Church, stricken and sapped within, under attacks from without seemed to be disintegrating, and the Religious Orders shared the disintegration; one might say the disintegration could not have come about unless these banks of the Church had silted. With rottenness in the monasteries, there was little enough disposition to set up new Orders; be sure the trend was rather to rid the Church of the Orders which remained, as gangrened limbs which must otherwise infect the whole body. Under this very Paul III. a measure was advanced which practically could not have come far short of such amputations. The Commission which he deputed to examine Church abuses absolutely recommended that the existing Orders and Communities should be restrained from receiving novices. The intention was to let the corrupt generation die out; when a new and uncorrupted generation might be reared in the primitive spirit oF the Founders. In practice the edict would have meant the enforced suicide of every Order in the Church; and, though it was rejected, its proposition is a terrible witness to the obloquy which had fallen upon Religious Orders even in the councils of supreme ecclesiastical authority. To seek the incorporation of a new Order, or what might appear a new Order, when Rome could barely and sorrowfully endure the old, it might well seem that this way lay madness. To
US of the twentieth century it may be plain that in the general decadence of the old lay concealed the germ of a new and vital Order, which should address itself to the clamorous needs of its day even as the Orders now seemingly languishing had arisen to meet the specific needs of their day.
Ignatius and his comrades prepared themselves, therefore, by prayer, fast, and individual reflection for a decision so difficult. Then, that they might not prejudice their work, they met for discussion by night. First, it was debated whether they should form an organic body, or should remain individual missioners at the Pope's disposal. The Pope had already used some of them in this way; so that it was no academic question. But against that idea they were unanimous: it would, obviously, have made them an ephemeral congeries of individuals, with no power of holding together or perpetuating themselves. Upon this decision followed inevitably the test question, in which all was involved: should they take the vow of obedience, as they had already taken the vows of poverty and chastity?
That was the decisive point. Some were for thirty or forty days' prayer in solitude before answering; others would delegate three or four to do this on behalf of the rest; again it was suggested that they should devote half the day to such prayer. But it was determined that they should simply have recourse to prayer in the ordinary way and Mass; consider the matter dispassionately as if they had to advise a stranger, and avoid discussion or canvassing among themselves. Then, at the next meeting, they were to adduce such reasons as had occurred to them against the vow;
and in the subsequent meeting the reasons which they had found in its favour.
The reasons against were such as we have already considered. The general unpopularity of a Religious Order might deter men from joining or aiding them if they took the vow of obedience. Above all, and this was the real point, they would thereby have to seek Papal approbation, with the possibility — nay, the likelihood — of refusal. Or, worse still, they might be commanded to enter some existing Order to the perishing of their hopes.
The opposing considerations, unlike these, went to the very root of the matter. From the disciplinary standpoint, it was plain that, without obedience, men would be apt to shirk tasks they hked not, if they could shift them on to others. Above all, without obedience the Society could not endure, it must lack coherence, and lapse. From the interior standpoint it was urged that obedience stimulated the heroic virtues, actions from which men, of their own initiative, would shrink. It was, moreover, the supreme specific against pride and self-will. Finally, it was set forth that obedience to the Pope could not efficiently replace obedience to one of the Society, since no Pope could charge himself with the multiplicity and minuteness of their private affairs. The decisive argument was plainly the impossibility that they should hold together and perpetuate themselves without obedience. That made the issue certain from the beginning. In effect, they could only survive as a Religious Order; and when, on April 15, 1539, they received Communion on this resolution of Holy Obedience, after signing a form to such effect, "should it be confirmed by our Lord the Pope," they had virtually engaged themselves to seek recognition as a Religious Order.
On the third of the sequent May they passed a series of resolutions, among v^hich the first was, from this aspect, the most significant, namely, that whoever entered the Society should take an explicit vow of obedience to the Pope, and by it off^er to go to any province or country whatsoever, whether of believers or unbelievers; such vow to be made before the Superior of the Society, or before the whole Society, but not before the Pope in propria persona. Herein the principle of separate government of the Society, as an Order, was implicitly affirmed. The further resolutions were: (2) To teach the Commandments to children or any one else. (3) To take a fixed time — an hour more or less — to teach the Commandments and catechism in an orderly way. (4) To give forty days in the year for this work. (5) That all candidates for the Society should go through the " Spiritual Exercises" and the other tests of the Society.
That last resolution is memorable, because here we have the simple germ whence evolve the elaborate tests, without parallel for searching strictness, of the modern Jesuits. These early Jesuits were for binding themselves to it by vow. Bobadilla firmly objected, and was suffered to carry his point, though to protect themselves from " obstruction " they passed a resolution that no single person should thereafter be regarded when he opposed the majority. On June 12 (the evening of the Octave of Corpus Christi) they decided the all-important matter of the Superior. He was to be for the entire Society, and elected for life — with restrictions afterward to be determined. It was further decided, in case of the spread of the Society, or dispersal of its members amongst foreign countries, that the Constitutions should be settled by the brethren in Italy; who might either be called to Rome, or their votes gathered by writing. This fixed Italy as the centre of the Order. The drawing-up of all remaining resolutions was delegated to Ignatius and Codure — the approval of the Society reserved. By the twenty-fourth of June, the Baptist'3 feast, the task was completed. It was left for Ignatius to draft their decisions, in five chapters, for the inspection of the Pope.
Then came the conflict. Not unduly had the associates dreaded the result of presenting themselves as a would-be Order. At first, indeed, all went well. The opposition did not come from the Pope. He listened favourably to Cardinal Contarini's advocacy of the petition, and remitted Ignatius's manuscript, presented by the Cardinal, to the Master of the Sacred Palace for examination. That official read and returned it to Contarini with approval. Armed with the opinion of the Dominican Master of the Palace, Contarini sought the Pope at his Tivoli castle; and, adding his own petition to that of Ignatius, read the famous five chapters. Paul discerned the timeliness of the new weapon ofi^ered to his hands. After listening and examining, he cried, " The finger of God is here." Contarini thought that all was won, and wrote to Ignatius that he might expect the instant preparation of the necessary Brief so soon as the Pope returned to Rome. He was disappointed. Paul submitted the chapters to three Cardinals for consideration and decision. One was Guidiccioni of Lucca; and Guidiccioni was precisely of those most wrath with the degeneration of the Religious
Orders, and therefore most hostile to the creation of new Orders. " What, another! " Why, he was for the sweeping away of all existing fraternities save four, and the rigid reformation of those. This man, poet as well as theologian, would not
SO much as read the chapters. To him, doubtless, the Dominican's approbation was of scant weight; a ReUgious was a prejudiced witness in favour of a would-be Religious. His powerful personality dominated his colleagues; and the fate of the petition seemed sealed. Ignatius fell back on his customary weapons. Mass and prayer. Months passed, however, and nothing resulted, until a sudden change came. Without apparent cause, or himself knowing why he changed his mind, Guidiccioni the prejudiced asked that the chapters should be read to him. He was impressed, examined them, and announced that without receding from his opinion (of course without receding a hair's-breadth from his fixed opinion) he found the proposed Community unique and so fitted to the needs of the day that he would make an exception in its favour. He carried his still acquiescing colleagues with him, and they united in a commendatory report to Paul III. The issue was the Bull " Regimini," which established the Society, but stipulated that the number of professed be restricted to sixty; a restriction, three years afterwards, withdrawn.
Thus the Company of Jesus, in the latter days of 1540, became an accomplished fact. A new power was born into the Church, a veritable ecclesiastical portent. Yet such is man, even beneath the tonsure, that far from the high impoit of the fresh arrival being even conjectured, the special favour shown in its obtaining sanction at such a time of reaction provoked present jealousy and prophecies of ill. Its very name was a stumblingblock. Thus, it is related, at a later time the Cardinal de Cueva spoke strongly against it in talk with two of the Society; it was presumptuous, said he, and would move men to envy.
" Let them call us the Congregation or Order of Jesus, if they will not call us the Company of Jesus," was Ignatius's comment when this was told him; "but I do not think the name of Jesus can ever be taken from us."
And when, during the vehement attack of the Sorbonne upon the Society, in 1554, Aliguel Torres wrote from Spain that some of their Society doubted the wisdom of the title because of the jealousy it stirred, Ignatius answered: " The name has a deeper root than the world wots of, and cannot be changed."
He was right. Even so late as Acquaviva's Generalship, no less a power than Sixtus V. determined against the title, and enjoined on the General its abolition. Acquaviva obeyed, and brought the Pope a decree forbidding the Provincials to continue the use of the name, as Sixtus had required of him. But the voice of the dead Ignatius prevailed. The satisfied Pope went no further in the affair, and the Society kept its title unchanged to all posterity. But the name 'Jesuit^ be it noted, was none of the Order's mintage. It was a fling of contempt, Hke many another name now honourably borne — hke the names Whig or Tory, Hke the name Christian itself — and is said to have been coined by Calvin.
The exemption of the new Society from the duty of singing Divine Office in choir was another matter for soreness with the older Orders, as though their choir-singing were, indeed, a burden to them! The Dominican theologian, Dominic Soto, protested that without such observance no community was an Order at all. His was the old devotion to the letter which killeth, ignoring the active duties which made the exemption advisable.
Scarce had the new Company been Papally constituted— it was yet without a formal and official General — when it was strengthened by the adhesion of a very young and very remarkable recruit — the boy who was to be Ignatius's greatest biographer. It was almost a matter of course with this early band that he should be a Spaniard. Whether they took the sword of the flesh or of the spirit, these Spaniards were the finest swordsmen and greatest soldiers of the age; the only men who had broken the heretofore invincible phalanx of the dreaded Swiss mercenaries and scattered their serried spears. This Spanish Company of Captain Inigo was to be no less feared among the Swiss ranks of Calvin. Now took service with it a youth after Ignatius's own heart, Pedro de Ribadeneira. Audacious, wilful, gallant, turbulent, hot-tempered, quick alike at letters and all manly exercise or accomplishment, he was the stuff out of which greatness comes for good or ill, a Clive, a Byron, or — a Saint. For it is the crudest of fallacies to suppose that Saints are fashioned customarily from tea and carpet-slippers. This was emphatically a forward lad. Son of a widow at Toledo, like most widows' sons, one may guess, he was " spoiled,'' and had for his wilful petulance easy, if not unchecked, scope. His bold temper early showed itself: at seven years of age he got a hurt in trying to stop a runaway mule; and, later, succeeded in getting a broken leg from a playmate. When the Cardinal Farnese visited Toledo bearing Papal condolence to Charles V. on the death of Isabella the Empress, young Ribadeneira attached himself to the party (the Nunciature being over against his mother's house) and waited on Farnese at his meals. Guidiccioni, who so nearly thwarted the recognition of the Jesuit Order, was one of the embassage, and even his austerity was captivated by the boy. He suggested that Farnese should take Pedro back with hun to Rome; and the Cardinal, no less charmed, readily agreed.
Horsemanship, fencing, dancing, and letters all came alike to Ribadeneira in his new environment, as once to the young Ignatius himself. But he showed himself scarce less a handful to manage in the Farnese household than in his mother's home. Not the Papal presence could awe him. At an entertainment given by Paul to his Farnese kinsfolk, the pages attended with lighted torches. One of the lads made a face at Ribadeneira, or Ribadeneira said he made a face. Instantly Master Pedro sprang forward and darted his torch at the page's head. At Candlemas, in receiving his taper, he kissed the Papal hand instead of the Papal slipper. The Pope, lenient towards the scapegrace as every one else, merely asked his name. Finally, the Cardinal commanded his attendance into the country, and the page instead played truant over Rome. When night fell he dared not go back to the palace. Ortiz, Ignatius's enemy turned friend, had told him to visit the Saint when he arrived in Rome. He now remembered the injunction; and in the dark of the evening Ignatius, himself answering the convent bell, found at the door a runaway page imploring shelter and intercession. Here, too, Ribadeneira found indulgence and a lodging for the night. When Ignatius arrived at the palace next day on his errand of pleading, Farnese laughed, and bade him send the truant back, secure of pardon. But the truant would not come. He had fallen deep in love with his new friends, and was minded to make his stay permanent. So sudden a change appeared incredible, and one might have thought was little likely to be more lasting than any other whim of the wilful fifteen-year-old boy. Ignatius was of another opinion, though he bade Ribadeneira consult his friends; and when the lad maintained his intent, received him as an inmate, and ultimately a novice.
This strange postulant had not so much as made his first Communion (a sign of the times to be noted if we are to read this history aright), and things did not go smoothly with him. They kept him in secular dress at first, till they saw what was like to come of him; and soon he grew tired and petulant. Ignatius's reprimands met with no more docility than any one else's from the young do-as-I-please: but from his own early nature he must needs have understood the wayward lad, and gauged him better worth the winning than stuff more facile and pliant. When the Almighty Himself had to choose a people, one remembers He elected what Himself many times pronounced to be a " stiff-necked race." So Ignatius fell to prayer, as was ever his way with what are counted impossibilities, and then summoned Ribadeneira, who on his first w^ords began to sob: " I will make them. Father, I will make them." He meant the " Exercises," through which he had not yet passed; and make them he did, 'confession following, and Communion on the Christmas of the same memorable year, 1540.
That did not end matters, by any means, and the tale of his novitiate one reads with kindly amusement— it is so very human. He went to bed in his clothes, because he did not like early rising. His impetuosity broke out in everything. He came leaping down stairs, and ran all over the house; he H5 T choked the brethren when he swept; and it required Ignatius himself to appease the harried Master of Novices. The boy tried hard, after his own fashion; he absolutely made less noise; he tied something to his legs to remind him that he must not run downstairs. But this did not prevent him from " making faces " at his fellow-novice, or taking breakfast into his own room, against the rule, by way of saving time. Set to dress dinner when Ignatius had a guest, he brought in an egg-pasty cooked by himself, hoping a compliment; but the pasty was burned to nothing, and his eagerness had its reproof. He had, however, his luckier turns. The Saint asked him what it was to be a secretary, and was answered, " It is to be faithful in keeping secrets.'' Whereon Ignatius made him his own secretary.
But whatever the virtue of his secrecy, his writing and spelling were very bad. As a rule Ignatius was patient; but once, by way of spur, he cast the writings on the floor, saying, " This foolish boy will never do any good." And then the lad, warm-hearted as careless, beat his cheeks and sobbed Despite all which, he justified Ignatius's confidence and care, and came successfully through the two years of his arduous novitiate.