A History of the Reformation Volume II Part 28

His sojourn in Paris could not fail to make a deep impression on the middle-aged Spaniard, consumed with zeal to maintain in its minutest details the old religion, and to destroy heresy and disobedience. Two pa.s.sions possessed him, both eminently Spanish. He could say with St.

Teresa that he suffered so much to see the Lutherans, whose baptism had rendered them members of the Church, lose themselves unhappily, that had he several lives he would willingly give them to deliver only one of them from the horrible torments which awaited them; but he also believed that it was for G.o.d a point of honour to avenge Himself on those who despised His word, and that it belonged to all the faithful to be instruments of the vengeance of the Almighty.

His keen practical nature grasped the religious situation in Paris (City and University), and suggested his lifework. He saw the strength of the Roman Catholic democracy face to face with the Reformation, and to what power it might grow if it were only organised and subjected to a more than military discipline. Ignatius was in Paris during the years when partisan feelings ran riot.

Francis I. was by taste and training a man of the Renaissance. It pleased him to be called and to imagine himself to be the patron of men of letters. He was as devoted as his selfish, sensual nature permitted him to be, to his sister Marguerite d'Angouleme, and for her sake countenanced such Reformers as Lefevre and the "group of Meaux." He had a grudge against the Sorbonne and the _Parlement_ of Paris for their attempts to baffle the Concordat of 1516; while he recognised the power which these two formidable a.s.sociations possessed. He was an anti-Sorbonnist, who feared the Sorbonne (the great theological faculty of the University of Paris), and could not help displaying his dread. He had long dreamed of inst.i.tuting a _College de France_, a free a.s.sociation of learned teachers, men who could introduce the New Learning and form a counterpoise to the Sorbonne which dominated the University. The project took many forms, and never came to full fruition until long after the days of Francis; but the beginnings were sufficient to encourage Reformers and to irritate to fury the supporters of the Sorbonne. The theological faculty of the University was then ruled by Noel Beda, a man of no great intellectual capacity, who hated everything which seemed to menace mediaevalism. Beda, by his dogged courage, by his unflinching determination, by his intense conviction that he was in the right, was able to wage a pitiless warfare against the New Learning and every appearance of religious reform. He was able to thwart the King repeatedly, and more than once to attack him through Marguerite, his sister. His whole att.i.tude and activity made him a forerunner of the Romanist League of two generations later, and, like the Leaguers, he based his power on organising the Romanist fanaticism lying in the populace of Paris and among the students of the Sorbonne. All this Loyola saw under his eyes during his stay in Paris. He heard the students of the Sorbonne singing their ferocious song:

"Prions tons le Roi de gloire Qu'il confonde ces chiens mauldicts, Afin qu'il n'en soit plus memoire, Non plus que de vielz os pourris.

Au feu, au feu! c'est leur repere Fais-en justice! Dieu l'a permys";

and the defiant answer:

"La Sorbonne, la bigotte, La Sorbonne se taira!

Son grand hoste, l'Aristote, De la bande s'ostera!

Et son escot, quoi qu'il coste, Jamais ne la soulera!

La Sorbonne, la bigotte, La Sorbonne se taira!

La saincte Escriture toute Purement se preschera, Et toute doctrine sotte Des hommes on oublira!

La Sorbonne, la bigotte, La Sorbonne se taira!"[671]

Amidst this seething crowd of warring students and teachers, Ignatius went, silent, watchful, observing everything. He cared little for theological speculation, being a true and typical Spaniard. The doctrines of the mediaeval theology were simply military commands to his disciplined mind; things to be submitted to whether understood or not.

Heresy was mutiny in the ranks. He had a marvellous natural capacity for penetrating the souls of others, and had cultivated and strengthened it by his habits of daily introspection and of writing down whatever, good or bad, pa.s.sed through his own soul. It is told of him that in company he talked little, but quietly noted what others said, and that he had infinite genius for observing and storing details.[672] He sought to learn the conditions of life and thought outside Paris and France, and made journeys to the Low Countries and to England, saying little, thinking much, observing more. All the time he was winning the confidence of fellow-students, and taking infinite pains to do so--weighing and testing their character and gifts. He played billiards with some, paid the college expenses of others, and was slowly, patiently making his selection of the young men whom he thought fit to be the confidants of his plans for the regeneration of Christendom, and to be a.s.sociates with him in the discipline which the _Exercises_ gave to his own soul.[673]

He finally chose a little band of nine disciples--Peter Faber, Diego Lainez, Francis Xavier, Alonzo Salmeron, Nicholas Boabdilla, Simon Rodriguez, Paul Broet, Claude Jay, and Jean Codure. Codure died early.

Faber, the first selected, was a Savoyard, the son of a poor peasant, with the unbending will and fervent spiritual imagination of a highlander. No one of the band was more devoted to his leader. Francis Xavier belonged, like Loyola himself, to an ancient Basque family; none was harder to win than this proud young Spaniard. Lainez and Salmeron were Castilians, who had been fellow-students with Ignatius at Alcala.

Lainez had always been a prodigy of learning, "a young man with the brain of an ancient sage." He, too, had been hard to win, for his was not a nature to kindle easily; but once subdued he was the most important member of the band. Salmeron, his early companion, was as impetuous and fiery as Lainez was cool and logical. He was the eloquent preacher of the company. Boabdilla, also a Spaniard, was a man of restless energy, who needed the strictest discipline to make him keep touch with his brothers. Rodriguez, a Portuguese, and Jay, from Geneva, were young men of insinuating manners, and were the destined diplomatists of the little company. Broet, a phlegmatic Netherlander among these fiery southerners, endeared himself to all of them by his sweet purity of soul.

Such were the men whom Ignatius gathered together on the Feast of the Ascension of Mary in 1534 in the Church of St. Mary of Montmartre, then outside the walls of Paris. There they vowed that if no insuperable difficulty prevented, they would go together to Palestine to work for the good of mankind. If this became impossible, they would ask the Pope to absolve them from their vow and betake themselves to whatever work for the good of souls His Holiness directed them to do. No Order was founded; no vows of poverty and obedience were taken; the young men were a band of students who looked on each other as brothers, and who promised to leave family and friends, and, "without superfluous money,"

work together for a regeneration of the Church. Faber, already in priest's orders, celebrated Ma.s.s; the company dined together at St.

Denys. Such was the quiet beginning of what grew to be the Society of Jesus.

The companions parted for a season to meet again at Venice.

-- 3. _The Spiritual Exercises._

All the nine a.s.sociates had submitted themselves to the spiritual guidance of Ignatius, and had all been subjected to the training contained in the _Exercitia Spiritualia_. It is probable that this manual of military drill for the soul had not been perfected at the date of the meeting at Montmartre (1534), for we know that Loyola worked at it from 1522 on to 1548, when it was approved by Pope Paul III.; but it may be well at this stage to give some account of this marvellous book, which was destined to have such important results for the Counter-Reformation.[674]

The thought that the spiritual senses and faculties might be strengthened and stimulated by the continuous repet.i.tion of a prescribed course of prayer and meditation, was not a new one. The German Mystics of the fourteenth century, to name no others, had put their converts through such a discipline, and the practice was not unusual among the Dominicans. It is most likely that a book of this kind, the _Exercitatorio dela vida spirital_ of Garcia de Cisneros, Abbot of the Monastery of Montserrat (1500), had been studied by Ignatius while he was at Manresa. But this detracts nothing from the striking and unique originality of the _Exercitia Spiritualia_, they stand alone in plan, contents, and intended result.[675] They were the outcome of Loyola's protracted spiritual struggles, and of his cool introspection of his own soul during these months of doubt and anguish. Their evident intention is to guide the soul through the long series of experiences which Loyola had endured unaided, and to lead it to the peace which he had found.

It is universally admitted that Ignatius had always before him the conception of military drill. He wished to discipline the soul as the drill-sergeant moulds the body. The _Exercises_ are not closet-rules for solitary believers seeking to rise to communion with G.o.d by a ladder of meditation. A guide was indispensable, _the Master of the Exercises_, who had himself conquered all the intricacies of the method, and who, besides, must have as intimate a knowledge as it was possible to acquire of the details of the spiritual strength and weakness of his pupil. It was the easier to have this knowledge, as the disciple must be more than half won before he is invited to pa.s.s through the drill. He must have submitted to one of the fathers in confession; he must be made to understand the absolute necessity of abandoning himself to the exercises with his whole heart and soul; he must promise absolute submission to the orders of the director; he must by frequent confession reveal the recesses of his soul, and describe the most trivial thoughts which flit through it; above all, he must enter on his prolonged task in a state of the liveliest expectation of the benefits to be derived from his faithful performance of the prescribed exercises.[676] A large, though strictly limited, discretion is permitted to the _Master of the Exercises_ in the details of the training he insists upon.

The course of drill extends over four weeks[677] (twenty-five days). It includes prolonged and detailed meditations on four great subjects:--sin and conscience; the earthly Kingdom of Christ; the Pa.s.sion of Jesus; and the Love of G.o.d with the Glory of the Risen Lord.[678] During all this time the pupil must live in absolute solitude. Neither sight nor sound from the world of life and action must be allowed to enter and disturb him. He is exhorted to purge his mind of every thought but the meditation on which he is engaged; to exert all his strength to make his introspection vivid and his converse with the Deity unimpeded.

True meditation, according to Ignatius, ought to include four things--a preparatory prayer; _praeludia_, or the ways of attuning the mind and sense in order to bring methodically and vividly some past historical scene or embodiment of doctrine before the soul of the pupil; _puncta_, or definite heads of each meditation on which the thoughts are to be concentrated, and on which memory, intellect, and will are to be individually exercised; _colloquia_, or ecstatic converse with G.o.d, without which no meditation is supposed to be complete, and in which the pupil, having placed the crucifix before him, talks to G.o.d and hears His voice answering him.

When the soul's progress on the long spiritual journey in which it is led during these meditations is studied, one can scarcely fail to note the cra.s.s materialism which envelops it at every step. The pupil is required to _see_ in the mirror of his imagination the boundless flames of h.e.l.l, and souls encased in burning bodies; to _hear_ the shrieks, howlings, and blasphemies; to _smell_ the sulphur and intolerable stench; to _taste_ the saltness of the tears, and to _feel_ the scorching touch of the flames.[679] When the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane is the subject of meditation, he must have in the _camera obscura_ of his imagination a garden, large or small, see its enclosing walls, gaze and gaze till he discerns where Christ is, where the Apostles sleep, perceive the drops of sweat, touch the clothes of our Lord.[680] When he thinks of the Nativity, he must conjure up the figures of Joseph, Mary, the Child, _and a maid-servant_, hear their homely family talk, see them going about their ordinary work.[681] The same cra.s.s materialism envelops the meditations about doctrinal mysteries. Thinking upon the Incarnation is almost childishly limited to picturing the Three Persons of the Trinity contemplating the broad surface of the earth and men hurrying to destruction, then resolving that the Second is to descend to save; and to the interview between the angel Gabriel and the Virgin.[682]

A second characteristic of this scheme of meditation is the extremely limited extent of its sphere. The attention is confined to a few scenes in the life of our Lord and of the Virgin. No lessons from the Old Testament are admitted. All theological speculation is strictly excluded. What is aimed at is to produce an intense and concentrated impression which can never be effaced while life lasts. The soul is alternately torn by terror and soothed by the vision of heavenly delights. "The designed effect was to produce a vivid and varied hypnotic dream of twenty-five days, from the influence of which a man should never wholly free himself."[683]

The outstanding feature, however, of the _Exercises_ and of the _Directory_ is the minute knowledge they display of the bodily conditions and accompaniments of states of spiritual ecstasy, and the continuous, not to say unscrupulous, use they make of physical means to create spiritual abandon. They master the soul by manipulating the body.

Not that self-examination, honest and careful recognition of sins and weaknesses in presence of temptation, have no place in the prolonged course of discipline. This is inculcated with instructions which serve to make it detailed, intense, almost scientific. The pupil is ordered to examine himself twice a day, in the afternoon and in the evening, and to make clear to himself every sin and failure that has marked his day's life. He is taught to enter them all, day by day, in a register, which will show him and his confessor his moral condition with arithmetical accuracy. But during his own period of spiritual struggle and depression at Manresa, Ignatius, in spite of the mental anguish which tore his soul, had been noting the bodily accompaniments of his spiritual states; and he pursued the same course of introspection when rejoicing in the later visions of G.o.d and of His grace. The _Exercises_ and the _Directory_ are full of minute directions about the physical conditions which Ignatius had found by experience to be the most suitable for the different subjects of meditation. The old Buddhist devotee was instructed to set himself in a spiritual trance by the simple hypnotic process of gazing at his own navel; the Ignatian directions are much more complex. The glare of day, the uncertainty of twilight, the darkness of night are all pressed into service; some subjects are to be pondered standing upright motionless, others while walking to and fro in the cell, when seated, when kneeling, when stretched p.r.o.ne on the floor; some ought to be meditated upon while the body is weak with fasting, others soon after meals; special hours, the morning, the evening, the middle of the night, are noted as the most profitable times for different meditations, and these vary with the age and s.e.x of the disciple. Ignatius recognises the infinite variety that there is in man, and says expressly that general rules will not fit every case. The _Master of Exercises_ is therefore enjoined to study the various idiosyncrasies of his patients, and vary his discipline to suit their mental and physical conditions.

It is due chiefly to this use of the conditions of the body acting upon the mind that Ignatius was able to promise to his followers that the ecstasies which had been hitherto the peculiar privilege of a few favoured saints should become theirs. The Reformation had made the world democratic; and the Counter-Reformation invited the mob to share the raptures and the visions of a St. Catherine or a St. Teresa.

The combination of a clear recognition of the fact that physical condition may account for much in so-called spiritual moods with the use made of it to create or stimulate these moods, cannot fail to suggest questions. It is easy to understand the Mystic, who, ignorant of the mysterious ways in which the soul is acted upon by the body, may rejoice in ecstasies and trances which have been stimulated by sleepless nights and a prolonged course of fasting. It is not difficult to understand the man who, when he has been taught, casts aside with disdain all this juggling with the soul through the body. But it is hard to see how anyone who perceived with fatal clearness the working of the machinery should ever come to think that real piety could be created in such mechanical ways. To believe with some that the object Ignatius had was simply to enslave mankind, to conquer their souls as a great military leader might master their lives, is both impossible and intolerable. No one can read the correspondence of Loyola without seeing that the man was a devout and earnest-minded Christian, and that he longed to bring about a real moral reformation among his contemporaries.

Perhaps the key to the difficulty is given when it is remembered that Ignatius never thought that the raptures and the terrors his course of exercises produced were an end in themselves, as did the earlier Mystics. They were only a means to what followed. Ignatius believed with heart and soul that the essence of all true religion was the blindest submission to what he called the "true Spouse of Christ and our Holy Mother, which is the orthodox, catholic, and hierarchical Church." We have heard him during his time of anguish at Manresa exclaim, "Show me, O Lord, where I can find Thee; I will follow like a dog, if I only learn the way of salvation!" He fulfilled his vow to the letter. He never entered into the meaning of our Lord's saying, "Henceforth I call you not servants ... but friends"; he had no understanding of what St. Paul calls "reasonable service" (=logike latreia=). The only obedience he knew was unreasoning submission, the obedience of a dog. His most imperative duty, he believed, lay in the resignation of his intelligence and will to ecclesiastical guidance in blind obedience to the Church. It is sometimes forgotten how far Ignatius carried this. It is not that he lays upon all Christians the duty of upholding every portion of the mediaeval creed, of mediaeval customs, inst.i.tutions, and superst.i.tions; or that the philosophy of St. Thomas of Bonaventura, of the Master of the Sentences, and of "other recent theologians," is to be held as authoritative as that of Holy Writ;[684] but "if the Church p.r.o.nounces a thing which seems to us white to be black, we must immediately say that it is black."[685] This was for him the end of all perfection; and he found no better instrument to produce it than the prolonged hypnotic trance which the _Exercises_ caused.

-- 4. _Ignatius in Italy._

In the beginning of 1537 the ten a.s.sociates found themselves together at Venice. A war between that Republic and the Turks made it difficult for them to think of embarking for Palestine; and they remained, finding solace in intercourse with men who were longing for a moral regeneration of the Church. Contarini did much for them; Vittoria Colonna had the greatest sympathy with their projects; Caraffa only looked at them coldly. The mind of Ignatius was then full of schemes for improving the moral tone of society and of the Church--daily prayer in the village churches, games of chance forbidden by law; priests' concubines forbidden to dress as honest women did, etc.;--all of which things Contarini and Vittoria had at heart.

After a brief stay in Venice, Ignatius, Lainez, and Faber travelled to Rome, and were joined there by the others in Easter week (1538). No Pontiff was so accessible as Paul III., and the three had an audience, in which they explained their missionary projects. But this journey through Italy had evidently given Ignatius and his companions new ideas.

The pilgrimage to Palestine was definitely abandoned, the money which had been collected for the voyage was returned to the donors, and the a.s.sociates took possession of a deserted convent near Vicenza to talk over their future. This conference may be called the second stage in the formation of the Order. They all agreed to adopt a few simple rules of life--they were to support themselves by begging; they were to go two by two, and one was always to act as the servant for the time being of the other; they were to lodge in public hospitals in order to be ready to care for the sick; and they pledged themselves that their chief work would be to preach to those who did not go to church, and to teach the young.

The Italian towns speedily saw in their midst a new kind of preachers, who had caught the habits of the well-known popular _improvisatori_.

They stood on the kerb-stones at the corners of streets; they waved their hats; they called aloud to the pa.s.sers-by. When a small crowd was gathered they began their sermons. They did not preach theology. They spoke of the simple commands of G.o.d set forth in the Ten Commandments, and insisted that all sins were followed by punishment here or hereafter. They set forth the prescriptions of the Church. They described the pains of h.e.l.l and the joys of heaven. The crowds who gathered could only partially understand the quaint mixture of Italian and Spanish which they heard. But throughout the Middle Ages the Italian populace had always been easily affected by impa.s.sioned religious appeals, and the companions created something like a revival among the ma.s.ses of the towns.

It was this experience which made Ignatius decide upon founding a _Company of Jesus_. It was the age of military companies in Italy, and the mind of Ignatius always responded to anything which suggested a soldier's life, Other Orders might take the names of their founders; he resolved that his personality should be absorbed in that of his Crucified Lord. The thought of a new Order commended itself to his nine companions. They left their preaching, journeyed by various paths to Rome, each of them meditating on the Const.i.tution which was to be drafted and presented to the Pope.

The a.s.sociates speedily settled the outlines of their Const.i.tution.

Cardinal Contarini, ever the friend of Loyola, formally introduced them to the Pope. In audience, Ignatius explained his projects, presented the draft Const.i.tution of the proposed new Order, showed how it was to be a militia vowed to perpetual warfare against all the enemies of the Papacy, and that one of the vows to be taken was: "That the members will consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the Lord and the Roman Pontiff as G.o.d's Vicar upon earth, in such wise that they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation or excuse all that the reigning Pontiff or his successors may enjoin upon them for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or any other infidels, to the farthest Ind, as well as in the region of heretics, schismatics, or unbelievers of any kind." Paul III. was impressed with the support that the proposed Order would bring to the Papacy in its time of stress. He is reported to have said that he recognised the Spirit of G.o.d in the proposals laid before him, and he knew that the a.s.sociates were popular all over Italy and among the people of Rome. But all such schemes had to be referred to a commission of three Cardinals to report before formal sanction could be given.

Then Loyola's troubles began. The astute politicians who guided the counsels of the Vatican were suspicious of the movement. They had no great liking for Spanish Mysticism organised as a fighting force; they disliked the enormous powers to be placed in the hands of the General of the "Company"; they believed that the Church had suffered from the multiplication of Orders; eight months elapsed before all these difficulties were got rid of. Ignatius has placed on record that they were the hardest months in his life.

During their prolonged audience Paul III. had recognised the splendid erudition of Lainez and Faber. He engaged them, and somewhat later Salmeron, as teachers of theology in the Roman University, where they won golden opinions. Ignatius meanwhile busied himself in perfecting his _Exercises_, in explaining them to influential persons, and in inducing many to try their effect upon their own souls. Contarini begged for and received a MS. copy. Dr. Ortiz, the Amba.s.sador of Charles V. at Rome, submitted himself to the discipline, and became an enthusiastic supporter. "It was then," says Ignatius, "that I first won the favour and respect of learned and influential men." But the opposition was strong. The old accusations of heresy were revived. Ignatius demanded and was admitted to a private audience of the Pope. He has described the interview in one of his letters.[686] He spoke with His Holiness for more than an hour in his private room; he explained the views and intentions of himself and of his companions; he told how he had been accused of heresy several times in Spain and at Paris, how he had even been imprisoned at Alcala and Salamanca, and that in each case careful inquiry had established his innocence; he said he knew that men who wished to preach incurred a great responsibility before G.o.d and man, and that they must be free from every taint of erroneous doctrine; and he besought the Pope to examine and test him thoroughly.[687] On Sept.

27th, 1540, the Bull _Regimini militantis ecclesiae_ was published, and the _Company of Jesus_ was founded. The student band of Montmartre, the a.s.sociation of revivalist preachers of Vicenza, became a new Order, a holy militia pledged to fight for the Papacy against all its a.s.sailants everywhere and at all costs. In the Bull the members of the Company were limited to sixty, whether as a concession to opponents or in accordance with the wishes of Ignatius, is unknown. It might have been from the latter cause. In times of its greatest popularity the number of members of full standing has never been very large--not more than one per cent of those who bear the name.[688] The limitation, from whatever motive it was inserted, was removed in a second Bull, _Injunctum n.o.bis_, dated March 14th, 1543.

-- 5. _The Society of Jesus._

On April 4th, 1541, six out of the ten original members of the Order (four were absent from Rome) met to elect their General; three of those at a distance sent their votes in writing; Ignatius was chosen unanimously. He declined the honour, and was again elected on April 7th.

He gave way, and on April 22nd (1541) he received the vows of his a.s.sociates in the church of _San Paolo fuori le mura_.

The new Order became famous at once; numbers sought to join it; and Ignatius found himself compelled to admit more members than he liked. He felt that the more his Society increased in numbers and the wider its sphere of activity, the greater the need for a strict system of laws to govern it. All other Orders of monks had their rules, which stated the duties of the members, the mode of their living together, and expressed the common sentiment which bound them to each other. The Company of Jesus, which from the first was intended to have a strict military discipline, and whose members were meant to be simply dependent units in a great machine moved by the man chosen to be their General, required such rules even more than any other. Ignatius therefore set himself to work on a Const.i.tution. All we know of the first Const.i.tution presented by the ten original members when they had their audience with Pope Paul III., is contained in the Bull of Foundation, and it is evident that it was somewhat vague. It did contain, however, four features, perhaps five, if the fourth vow of special obedience to the Pope be included, which were new. The Company was to be a fighting Order, a holy militia; it was to work for the propagation of the faith, especially by the education of the young; the members were not to wear any special or distinctive dress; and the power placed in the hands of the General was much greater than that permitted to the heads of any other of the monastic Orders. At the same time, const.i.tutional limitations, resembling those in other Orders, were placed on the power of the General. There was to be a council, consisting of a majority of the members, whom the General was ordered to consult on all important occasions; and in less weighty matters he was bound to take the advice of the brethren near him. Proposed changes tending to free the General from these limitations were given effect to in the Bulls, _Licet debitum pastoralis officii_ (Oct. 18th, 1549) and _Exposcit pastoralis officii_ (July 21st, 1550); but the Bulls themselves make it clear that the Const.i.tution had not taken final form even then. It is probable that the completed Const.i.tution drafted by Ignatius was not given to the Society until after his death.

The way in which he went to work was characteristic of the man, at once sternly practical and wildly visionary. He first busied himself with arrangements for starting the educational work which the Company had undertaken to do; he a.s.sorted the members of his Society into various cla.s.ses;[689] and then he turned to the Const.i.tution. He asked four of his original companions, Lainez, Salmeron, Broet, and Jay, all of whom were in Rome, to go carefully over all the promises which had been made to the Pope, or what might be implied in them, and from this material to form a draft Const.i.tution. He gave them one direction only to guide them in their work: they were to see that nothing was set down which might imply that it was a deadly sin to alter the rules of the Company in time to come. The fundamental aim of his Company was different from that of all other Orders. It was not to consist of societies of men who lived out of the world to save their own souls, as did the Benedictines; nor was it established merely to be a preaching a.s.sociation, like the Dominicans; it was more than a fraternity of love, like the Franciscans.

It was destined to aid fellow-men in every way possible; and by fellow-men Ignatius meant the obedient children of the catholic hierarchical Church. It was to fight the enemies of G.o.d's Vicar upon earth with every weapon available. The rules of other Orders could not help him much. He had to think all out for himself. During these months and years Ignatius kept a diary, in which he entered as in a ledger his moods of mind, the thoughts that pa.s.sed through it, the visions he saw, and the hours at which they came to him.[690] Every possible problem connected with the Const.i.tution of his Company was pondered painfully.

It took him a month's meditation ere he saw how to define the relation of the Society to property. Every solution came to him in a flash with the effect of a revelation, usually in the short hour before Ma.s.s. Once, he records, it took place "on the street as I returned from Cardinal Carpi." It was in this way that the Const.i.tution grew under his hands, and he believed that both it and the _Exercises_ were founded on direct revelations from G.o.d.

This was the Const.i.tution which was presented by Lainez to the a.s.sembly which elected him the successor of Loyola (July 2nd, 1558). The new General added a commentary or _Directorium_ of his own, which was also accepted. It received papal sanction under Pius IV.

In this Const.i.tution the Society of Jesus was revealed as an elaborate hierarchy rising from Novices through Scholastics, Coadjutors, Professed of Four Vows, with the General at its head, an autocrat, controlling every part, even the minutest, of the great machine. Nominally, he was bound by the Const.i.tution, but the inner principle of this elaborate system of laws was apparent fixity of type qualified by the utmost laxity in practice. The most stable principles of the Const.i.tution were explained or explained away in the _Directorium_, and by such an elaborate labyrinth of exceptions that it proved no barrier to the will of the General. He stood with his hand on the lever, and could do as he pleased with the vast machine, which responded in all its parts to his slightest touch. He had almost unlimited power of "dispensing with formalities, freeing from obligations, shortening and lengthening the periods of initiation, r.e.t.a.r.ding or advancing a member in his career."

Every member of the Society was bound to obey his immediate superiors as if they stood for him in the place of Christ, and that to the extent of doing what he considered wrong, of believing that black was white if the General so willed it. The General resided at Rome, holding all the threads of the complicated affairs of the Society in his hands, receiving minute reports of the secret and personal history of every one of its members, dealing as he pleased with the highest as well as the lowest of his subordinates.

"Yet the General of the Jesuits, like the Doge of Venice, had his hands tied by subtly powerful though almost invisible fetters. He was subjected at every hour of the day and night to the surveillance of five sworn spies, especially appointed to prevent him from altering the type or neglecting the concerns of the Order.

The first of these functionaries, named the Administrator, who was frequently also the confessor of the General, exhorted him to obedience, and reminded him that he must do all things for the glory of G.o.d. Obedience and the glory of G.o.d, in Jesuit phraseology, meant the maintenance of the Company. The other four were styled a.s.sistants. They had under their charge the affairs of the chief provinces; one overseeing the Indies, another Portugal and Spain, a third France and Germany, a fourth Italy and Sicily.

Together with the Administrator, the a.s.sistants were nominated by the General Congregation (an a.s.sembly of the Professed of the Four Vows), and could not be removed or replaced without its sanction.