Читать книгу A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - John Lord - Страница 24

During the period we have just been considering, the most marked peculiarity was, the struggle between Protestantism and Romanism. It is true that objects of personal ambition also occupied the minds of princes, and many great events occurred, which were not connected with the struggles for religious liberty and light. But the great feature of the age was the insurrection of human intelligence. There was a spirit of innovation, which nothing could suppress, and this was directed, in the main, to matters of religion. The conflict was not between church and state, but between two great factions in each. "No man asked whether another belonged to the same country as himself, but whether he belonged to the same sect." Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, Knox, Cranmer, and Bacon were the great pioneers in this march of innovation. They wished to explode the ideas of the middle ages, in philosophy and in religion. They made war upon the Roman Catholic Church, as the great supporter and defender of old ideas. They renounced her authority. The Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century. She summoned her friends and vassals, rallied all her forces, and, with desperate energy, resolved to put down the spirit of reform. The struggles of the Protestants in England, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, alike manifested the same spirit, were produced by the same causes, and brought forth the same results. The insurrection was not suppressed.

The hostile movements of Rome, for a while, were carried on by armies, massacres, assassinations, and inquisitions. The duke of Alva's cruelties in the Netherlands, St. Bartholomew's massacre in France, inquisitorial tortures in Spain, and Smithfield burnings in England, illustrate this assertion. But more subtle and artful agents were required, especially since violence had failed. Men of simple lives, of undoubted piety, of earnest zeal, and singular disinterestedness to their cause, arose, and did what the sword and the stake could not do—revived Catholicism, and caused a reaction to Protestantism itself. Rise of the Jesuits. These men were Jesuits, the most faithful, intrepid, and successful soldiers that ever enlisted under the banners of Rome. The rise and fortunes of this order of monks form one of the most important and interesting chapters in the history of the human race. Their victories, and the spirit which achieved them, are well worth our notice. In considering them, it must be borne in mind, that the Jesuits have exhibited traits so dissimilar and contradictory, that it is difficult to form a just judgment. While they were achieving their victories, they appeared in a totally different light from what distinguished them when they reposed on their laurels. In short, the earlier and the latter Jesuits were entirely different in their moral and social aspects, although they had the same external organization. The principles of their system were always the same. The men who defended them, at first, were marked by great virtues, but afterwards were deformed by equally as great vices. It was in the early days of Jesuitism that the events we have recorded took place. Hence our notice, at present, will be confined to the Jesuits when they were worthy of respect, and, in some things, even of admiration. Their courage, fidelity, zeal, learning, and intrepidity for half a century, have not been exaggerated.

The founder of the order was Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish gentleman of noble birth, who first appeared as a soldier at the siege of Pampeluna, where he was wounded, about the time that Luther was writing his theses, and disputing about indulgences. He amused himself, on his sick bed, by reading the lives of the saints. His enthusiastic mind was affected, and he resolved to pass from worldly to spiritual knighthood. He became a saint, after the notions of the age; that is, he fasted, wore sackcloth, lived on roots and herbs, practised austerities, retired to lonely places, and spent his time in contemplation and prayer. The people were attracted by his sanctity, and followed him in crowds. His heart burned to convert heretics; and, to prepare himself for his mission, he went to the universities, and devoted himself to study. There he made some distinguished converts, all of whom afterwards became famous. In his narrow cell, at Paris, he induced Francis Xavier, Faber, Laynez Bobadilla, and Rodriguez to embrace his views, and to form themselves into an association, for the conversion of the world. On the summit of Montmartre, these six young men, on one star-lit night, took the usual monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and solemnly devoted themselves to their new mission.

They then went to Rome, to induce the pope to constitute them a new missionary order. But they were ridiculed as fanatics. Moreover, for several centuries, there had been great opposition in Rome against the institution of new monastic orders. It was thought that there were orders enough; that the old should be reformed, not new ones created. Even St. Dominic and St. Francis had great difficulty in getting their orders instituted. But Loyola and his companions made extraordinary offers. They professed their willingness to go wherever the pope should send them, among Turks, heathens, or heretics, instantly, without condition, or reward.

How could the pope refuse to license them? His empire was in danger; Luther was in the midst of his victories; the power of ideas and truth was shaking to its centre the pontifical throne; all the old orders had become degenerate and inefficient, and the pope did not know where to look for efficient support. The venerable Benedictines were revelling in the wealth of their splendid abbeys, while the Dominicans and the Franciscans had become itinerant vagabonds, peddling relics and indulgences, and forgetful of those stern duties and virtues which originally characterized them. All the monks were inexhaustible subjects of sarcasm and mockery. They even made scholasticism ridiculous, and the papal dogmas contemptible. Erasmus laughed at them, and Luther mocked them. They were sensual, lazy, ignorant, and corrupt. The pope did not want such soldiers. But the followers of Loyola were full of ardor, talent, and zeal; willing to do any thing for a sinking cause; able to do any thing, so far as human will can avail. And they did not disappoint the pope. Rapid Spread of the Jesuit Order. Great additions were made. They increased with marvellous rapidity. The zealous, devout, and energetic, throughout all ranks in the Catholic church, joined them. They spread into all lands. They became the confessors of kings, the teachers of youth, the most popular preachers, the most successful missionaries. In sixteen years after the scene of Montmartre, Loyola had established his society in the affections and confidence of Catholic Europe, against the voice of universities, the fears of monarchs, and the jealousy of the other monastic orders. In sixteen years, from the condition of a ridiculed fanatic, whose voice, however, would have been disregarded a century earlier or later, he became one of the most powerful dignitaries of the church, influencing the councils of the Vatican, moving the minds of kings, controlling the souls of a numerous fraternity, and making his power felt, even in the courts of Japan and China. Before he died, his spiritual sons had planted their missionary stations amid Peruvian mines, amid the marts of the African slave trade, in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and in the cities of Japan and China. Nay, his followers had secured the most important chairs in the universities of Europe, and had become confessors to the most powerful monarchs, teachers in the best schools of Christendom, and preachers in its principal pulpits. They had become an organization, instinct with life, endued with energy and will, and forming a body which could outwatch Argus with his hundred eyes, and outwork Briareus with his hundred arms. It had forty thousand eyes open upon every cabinet and private family in Europe, and forty thousand arms extended over the necks of both sovereigns and people. It had become a mighty power in the world, inseparably connected with the education and the religion of the age, the prime mover of all political affairs, the grand prop of absolute monarchies, the last hope of the papal hierarchy.

The sudden Rapid Spread of the Jesuits. growth and enormous resources of the "Society of Jesus" impress us with feelings of amazement and awe. We almost attribute them to the agency of mysterious powers, and forget the operations of natural causes. The history of society shows that no body of men ever obtained a wide-spread ascendency, except by the exercise of remarkable qualities of mind and heart. And this is the reason why the Jesuits prospered. When Catholic Europe saw young men, born to fortune and honors, voluntarily surrendering their rank and goods, devoting themselves to religious duties, spending their days in hospitals and schools, wandering, as missionaries, into the most unknown and dangerous parts of the world, exciting the young to study, making great attainments in all departments of literature and science, and shedding a light, wherever they went, by their genius and disinterestedness, it was natural that they would be received as preachers, teachers, and confessors. That they were characterized, during the first fifty years, by such excellencies, has never been denied. The Jesuit missionary called forth the praises of Baxter, and the panegyric of Leibnitz. He went forth, without fear, to encounter the most dreaded dangers. Martyrdom was nothing to him, for he knew that the altar, which might stream with his blood, would, in after times, be a cherished monument of his fame, and an impressive emblem of the power of his religion. Francis Xavier, one of the first converts of Loyola, a Spaniard of rank, traversed a tract of more than twice the circumference of the globe, preaching, disputing, and baptizing, until seventy thousand converts attested the fruits of his mission. In perils, fastings, and fatigues, was the life of this remarkable man passed, to convert the heathen world; and his labors have never been equalled, as a missionary, except by the apostle Paul. But China and Japan were not the only scenes of the enterprises of Jesuit missionaries. As early as 1634, they penetrated into Canada, and, shortly after to the sources of the Mississippi and the prairies of Illinois. "My companion," said the fearless Marquette, "is an envoy of France, to discover new countries; but I am an ambassador of God, to enlighten them with the gospel." But of all the missions of the Jesuits, those in Paraguay were the most successful. They there gathered together, in reductions, or villages, three hundred thousand Indians, and these were bound together by a common interest, were controlled by a paternal authority, taught useful arts, and trained to enjoy the blessings of civilization. On the distant banks of the La Plata, while the Spanish colonists were hunting the Mexicans and Peruvians with bloodhounds, or the English slave traders were consigning to eternal bondage the unhappy Africans, the Jesuits were realizing the ideal paradise of More—a Utopia, where no murders or robberies were committed, and where the blessed flowers of peace and harmony bloomed in a garden of almost primeval loveliness.

In that age, the Extraordinary Virtues of the Older Jesuits. Jesuit excelled in any work to which he devoted his attention. He was not only an intrepid missionary, but a most successful teacher. Into the work of education he entered heart and soul. He taught gratuitously, without any crabbed harshness, and with a view to gain the heart. He entered into the feelings of his pupils, and taught them to subdue their tempers, and avoid quarrels and oaths. He excited them to enthusiasm, perceived their merits, and rewarded the successful with presents and favors. Hence the schools of the Jesuits were the best in Europe, and were highly praised even by the Protestants. The Jesuits were even more popular as preachers than they were as teachers; and they were equally prized as confessors. They were so successful and so respected, that they soon obtained an ascendency in Europe. Veneration secured wealth, and their establishments gradually became magnificently endowed. But all their influence was directed to one single end—to the building up of the power of the popes, whose obedient servants they were. Can we wonder that Catholicism should revive?

Again, The Constitution of the Jesuits. their constitution was wonderful, and admirably adapted to the ends they had in view. Their vows were indeed substantially the same as those of other monks, but there was among them a more practical spirit of obedience. All the members were controlled by a single will—all were passive, instruments in the hands of the general of the order. He appointed presidents of colleges and of religious houses; admitted, dismissed, dispensed, and punished at his pleasure. His power was irresponsible, and for life. From his will there was no appeal. There were among them many gradations in rank, but each gradation was a gradation in slavery. The Jesuit was bound to obey even his own servant, if required by a superior. Obedience was the soul of the institution, absolute, unconditional, and unreserved—even the submission of the will, to the entire abnegation of self. The Jesuit gloried in being made a puppet, a piece of machinery, like a soldier, if the loss of his intellectual independence would advance the interests of his order. The esprit de corps was perfectly wonderful, and this spirit was one secret of the disinterestedness of the body. "Ad majorem Dei gloriam," was the motto emblazoned on their standards, and written on their hearts; but this glory of God was synonymous with the ascendency of their association.

The unconditional obedience to a single will, which is the genius of Jesuitism, while it signally advanced the interests of the body, and of the pope, to whom they were devoted, still led to the most detestable and resistless spiritual despotism ever exercised by man. The Jesuit, especially when obscure and humble, was a tool, rather than an intriguer. He was bound hand and foot by the orders of his superiors, and they alone were responsible for his actions.

We can easily see how the extraordinary virtues and attainments of the early Jesuits, and the wonderful mechanism of their system, would promote the growth of the order and the interests of Rome, before the suspicions of good people would be aroused. Degeneracy of the Jesuits. It was a long time after their piety had passed to fraud, their simplicity to cunning, their poverty to wealth, their humility to pride, and their indifference to the world to cabals, intrigues, and crimes, before the change was felt. And, moreover, it was more than a century before the fruits of the system were fully reaped. With all the excellences of their schools and missions, dangerous notions and customs were taught in them, which gradually destroyed their efficacy. A bad system often works well for a while, but always carries the seeds of decay and ruin. It was so with the institution of Loyola, in spite of the enthusiasm and sincerity of the early members, and the masterly wisdom displayed by the founders. In after times, evils were perceived, which had, at first, escaped the eye. It was seen that the system of education, though specious, and, in many respects, excellent, was calculated to narrow the mind, while it filled it with knowledge. Young men, in their colleges, were taught blindly to follow a rigid mechanical code; they were closely watched; all books were taken from them of a liberal tendency; mutilated editions of such as could not be denied only were allowed; truths of great importance were concealed or glossed over; exploded errors were revived, and studies recommended which had no reference to the discussion of abstract questions on government or religion. And the boys were made spies on each other, their spirits were broken, and their tastes perverted. The Jesuits sought to guard the avenues to thought, not to open them, were jealous of all independence of mind, and never sought to go beyond their age, or base any movement on ideal standards.

Again, as preachers, though popular and eloquent, they devoted their talents to convert men to the Roman church rather than to God. They were Evils in the Jesuit System. bigoted sectarians; strove to make men Catholics rather than Christians. As missionaries, they were content with a mere nominal conversion. They gave men the crucifix, but not the Bible, and even permitted their converts to retain many of their ancient superstitions and prejudices. And thus they usurped the authority of native rulers, and sought to impose on China and Japan their despotic yoke. They greatly enriched themselves in consequence of the credulity of the natives, whom they flattered, and wielded an unlawful power. And this is one reason why they were expelled, and why they made no permanent conquests among the millions they converted in Japan. They wished not only to subjugate the European, but the Asiatic mind. Europe did not present a field sufficiently extensive for their cupidity and ambition.

Finally, as confessors, they were peculiarly indulgent to those who sought absolution, provided their submission was complete. Then it was seen what an easy thing it was to bear the yoke of Christ. The offender was told that sin consisted in wilfulness, and wilfulness in the perfect knowledge of the nature of sin, according to which doctrine blindness and passion were sufficient exculpations. They invented the doctrine of mental reservation, on which Pascal was so severe. Perjury was allowable, if the perjured were inwardly determined not to swear. A man might fight a duel, if in danger of being stigmatized as a coward; he might betray his friend, if he could thus benefit his party. The Jesuits invented a system of casuistry which confused all established ideas of moral obligation. They tolerated, and some of them justified, crimes, if the same could be made subservient to the apparent interests of the church. Their principle was to do evil that good might come. Above all, they conformed to the inclinations of the great, especially to those of absolute princes, on whom they imposed no painful penance, or austere devotion. Their sympathies always were with absolutism, in all its forms and they were the chosen and trusted agents of the despots of mankind, until even the eyes of Europe were open to their vast ambition, which sought to erect an independent empire within the limits of despotism itself. But the corruptions of the Jesuits, their system of casuistry, their lax morality, their disgraceful intrigues, their unprincipled rapacity, do not belong to the age we have now been considering. These fruits of a bad system had not then been matured; and the infancy of the society was as beautiful as its latter days were disgraceful and fearful. In a future chapter, we shall glance at the decline and fall of this celebrated institution—the best adapted to its proposed ends of any system ever devised by the craft and wisdom of man.

The great patrons of the Jesuits—the popes and their empire in the sixteenth century, after the death of Luther—demand some notice. The Catholic church, in this century, was remarkable for the reformation it attempted within its own body, and for the zeal, and ability, and virtue, which marked the character of many of the popes themselves. Had it not been for this counter reformation, Protestantism would have obtained a great ascendency in Europe. But the Protestants were divided among themselves, while the Catholics were united, and animated with singular zeal. They put forth their utmost energies to reconquer what they had lost. They did not succeed in this, but they secured the ascendency, on the whole, of the Catholic cause in Europe. For this ascendency the popes are indebted to the Jesuits.

At The Popes in the Seventeenth Century. the close of the sixteenth century, the popes possessed a well-situated, rich, and beautiful province. All writers celebrated its fertility. Scarcely a foot of land remained uncultivated. Corn was exported, and the ports were filled with ships. The people were courageous, and had great talents for business. The middle classes were peaceful and contented, but the nobles, who held in their hands the municipal authority, were turbulent, rapacious, and indifferent to intellectual culture. The popes were generally virtuous characters, and Nepotism of the Popes. munificent patrons of genius. Gregory XIII. kept a list of men in every country who were likely to acquit themselves as bishops, and exhibited the greatest caution in appointing them. Sixtus V., whose father was an humble gardener, encouraged agriculture and manufactures, husbanded the resources of the state, and filled Rome with statues. He raised the obelisk in front of St. Peter's, and completed the dome of the Cathedral. Clement VIII. celebrated the mass himself, and scrupulously devoted himself to religious duties. He was careless of the pleasures which formerly characterized the popes, and admitted every day twelve poor persons to dine with him. Paul V. had equal talents and greater authority, but was bigoted and cold. Gregory XIV. had all the severity of an ancient monk. The only religious peculiarity of the popes, at the latter end of the sixteenth century, which we unhesitatingly condemn, was, their religious intolerance. But they saw that their empire would pass away, unless they used vigorous and desperate measures to retain it. During this period, the great victories of the Jesuits, the establishment of their colleges, and the splendid endowments of their churches took place. Gregory XV. built, at his own cost, the celebrated church of St. Ignatius, at Rome, and instituted the Propaganda, a missionary institution, under the control of the Jesuits.

The popes, whether good or bad, did not relinquish their nepotism in this century, in consequence of which great families arose with every pope, and supplanted the old aristocracy. The Barberini family, in one pontificate, amassed one hundred and five millions of scudi—as great a fortune as that left by Mazarin. But they, enriched under Urban VII., had to flee from Rome in the Seventeenth Century. Rome under Innocent X. Jealousy and contention divided and distracted all the noble families, who vied with each other in titles and pomp, ceremony and pride. The ladies of the Savelli family never quitted their palace walls, except in closely veiled carriages. The Visconti decorated their walls with the portraits of the popes of their line. The Gaetana dwelt with pride on the memory of Boniface VIII. The Colonna and Orsini boasted that for centuries no peace had been concluded in Christendom, in which they had not been expressly included. But these old families had become gradually impoverished, and yielded, in wealth and power, though not in pride and dignity, to the Cesarini, Borghesi, Aldobrandini, Ludovisi, Giustiniani, Chigi, and the Barberini. All these families, from which popes had sprung, had splendid palaces, villas, pictures, libraries, and statues; and they contributed to make Rome the centre of attraction for the elegant and the literary throughout Europe. It was still the moral and social centre of Christendom. It was a place to which all strangers resorted, and from which all intrigues sprung. It was the scene of pleasure, gayety, and grandeur. And the splendid fabric, which was erected in the "ages of faith," in spite of all the calamities and ravages of time, remained still beautiful and attractive. Since the first secession, in the sixteenth century, Rome has lost none of her adherents, and those, who remained faithful, have become the more enthusiastic in their idolatry.

References.—Ranke's History of the Popes. Father Bouhour's Life of Ignatius Loyola. A Life of Xavier, by the same author. Stephens's Essay on Loyola. Charlevoix's History of Paraguay. Pascal's Provincial Letters. Macaulay's Review of Ranke's History of the Popes. Bancroft's chapter, in the History of the United States, on the colonization of Canada. "Secreta Monita." Histoire des Jésuites. "Spiritual Exercises." Dr. Williams's Essay. History of Jesuit Missions. The works on the Jesuits are very numerous; but those which are most accessible are of a violent partisan character. Eugene Sue, in his "Wandering Jew," has given false, but strong, impressions. Infidel writers have generally been the most bitter, with the exception of English and Scotch authors, in the seventeenth century. The great work of Ranke is the most impartial with which the author is acquainted. Ranke's histories should never be neglected, of which admirable translations have been made.(Back to Contents)