Jesuit Writings of the

Early Modern Period, 1540–1640

 Jesuit Writings of the
Early Modern Period, 1540–1640

Edited and Translated by

John Patrick Donnelly, S.J.

Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

Indianapolis/Cambridge
Copyright © 2006 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
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Cover design by Abigail Coyle

Interior design by Elizabeth Wilson
Composition by Binghamton Valley Composition, LLC
Printed at Edwards Brothers, Inc.

Map on p. xx provided courtesy of Brill Academic Publishers. The reproduction

of Nadal’s woodcut on p. 168, from the CD-ROM accompanying Annotations
and Meditations of the Gospels, Vol. 1: The Infancy Narratives (trans. Homann,
ed. Melion, 2003), is used by permission of St. Joseph’s University Press. All
other images in this book are taken, with permission, from Ars Jesuitica, a CD-
ROM published in 2000 by the Institute of Jesuit Sources, 3700 West Pine
Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jesuit writings of the early modern period, 1540–1640 / edited and translated
by
John Patrick Donnelly. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-839-1
(pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-87220-839-7 (pbk.) ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-840-7 (cloth) ISBN-
10: 0-87220-840-0 (cloth)
1. Jesuits—History—Sources. I. Donnelly, John Patrick, 1934—
BX3706.3.J47 2006
271'.53—dc22
2006007237

Adobe PDF ebook ISBN: 978-1-62466-010-8

 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Map xx

Chapter 1: Writings of Ignatius of Loyola 1

Introduction 1
Autobiography 2
The Spiritual Exercises 8
Letter to Jerome Nadal: Suggestions for Charles V in Dealing
with the Turkish Menace in the Mediterranean 16
Letter to João Nunes Barreto, Patriarch of Ethiopia 21

Chapter 2: Jesuit Education 32

Introduction 32
Letter from Juan Polanco to Antonio Araoz on Jesuit Schools 33
The Jesuit Constitutions 37
Juan Polanco, selections from Chronicon, on the Jesuit college
at Messina 46
Joseph Simons, selections from Vitus, a drama 55

Chapter 3: Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas 64

Introduction 64
Francis Xavier’s Letters 65
Writings of Matteo Ricci 88
Nicholas Trigault, The Christian Expedition Undertaken among
the Chinese by the Society of Jesus, from the Commentaries of
Father Matteo Ricci of the Same Society 90
Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven 95
Roberto de Nobili, The Report on the Customs of the
Indian Nation 101

v
vi Contents

Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, The Spiritual Conquest Accomplished

by the Religious of the Society of Jesus in the Provinces of
Paraguay, Parana, Uruguay, and Tape 111
Jean de Brébeuf, “Important Advice to Those Whom It Shall Please
God to Call to New France, Especially the Country of
the Hurons” 121

Chapter 4: Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism 131

Introduction 131
Loyola’s Letter To Canisius on How King Ferdinand Should
Oppose Protestantism in Austria 132
Edmund Campion, “The Brag” or “Challenge” 138
Robert Bellarmine, De Controversiis Christianae Fidei (Selections
on Scripture and tradition) 143

Chapter 5: Jesuit Spirituality 156

Introduction 156
Alfonso Rodriguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues 158
Jerome Nadal, Annotations and Meditations on the Gospels 166
Luis de La Puente, Meditations on the Mysteries of Our
Holy Faith 174
Robert Bellarmine, The Ascent of the Mind to God 179

Chapter 6: Special Pastoral Ministries 188

Introduction 188
Juan Polanco, selections from Chronicon, on healing vendettas
and caring for reformed prostitutes 189
Claudio Acquaviva, “Instruction for Those Going Out on Missions
to Evangelize Peasants” 193
Friedrich Spee, Cautio Criminalis 198
Juan Polanco, selections from Chronicon, on the Jesuit opposition
to bullfighting and carnival celebrations 205

Chapter 7: Jesuits and Politics 208

Introduction 208
The Fifth General Congregation of the Jesuit Order,
Canons 12 and 13 209
Contents vii

Juan Mariana, On a King and the Education of a King 210

Claudio Acquaviva, Rules for the Confessors of Princes 216
Robert Bellarmine, The Office of a Christian Prince 221

Chapter 8: Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies 231

Introduction 231
Juan Polanco, selections from Chronicon 234
Étienne Pasquier, Le Catéchisme des Jésuites 245
English Catholic Attacks on the Jesuits 250
Christopher Bagshaw, A Sparing Discoverie of Our English
Jesuits (1601) 251
William Watson, “Preface to the Reader” in John Mush’s A
Dialogue betwixt a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman 254

Index 259
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“No man is an island.” Though authors and editors have their names
printed on a book’s title page, books almost always depend on many people
working in collaboration. As editor of this collection of documents illus-
trating early Jesuit history, I owe debts of gratitude to many people for their
help and encouragement. Rick Todhunter of Hackett Publishing gave me
steady encouragement and sage advice. Without the generous cooperation
of the directors of the two main publishers of Jesuit primary sources—John
Padberg, S.J., of the Institute of Jesuit Sources and George Lane, S.J., of
Loyola University Press—this project would have been far more difficult. I
am also grateful for the use of documents granted me by Paulist Press and
E. J. Brill.
Robert Bireley, S.J., Thomas McCoog, S.J., and Eugene Merz, S.J., sug-
gested sources that were valuable for this collection. Though my computer
skills are very limited, I had help from Thomas Caldwell, S.J., Richard
Sherburne, S.J., and Roland Teske, S.J.—all colleagues at Marquette Uni-
versity. I am indebted to two research assistants in Marquette’s history de-
partment, Michael Sanders and Eric Otremba, as well as to Matthew
Blessing, head of the Marquette University Archives, for scanning selections
for me. Joseph Mueller, S.J., fine-tuned my translation of a 16th-century
French document. John Paul, S.J., and Robert Lambeck, S.J., proofread
parts of the text and helped me avoid many a slip. Without the help of
them all, this project would have been impossible. Thank all of you!
John Patrick Donnelly, S.J.
August 1, 2005
Professor of History
Marquette University

ix
 INTRODUCTION

The Roman Catholic Church dominated religious faith and practice in Eu-
rope—from Ireland to Russia and the Balkans—from the fall of the Roman
Empire until Martin Luther (1483–1546) challenged the Church’s author-
ity in 1517. Though the other Protestant leaders—such as Huldreich
Zwingli (1484–1531) and John Calvin (1509–64)—who emerged in sub-
sequent decades agreed with Luther on most theological points, their doc-
trinal differences from Luther gave rise to the different Protestant
denominations that continue to thrive in Europe and America today. Be-
cause historians tend to highlight what is new in historical periods, scholars
studying the Reformation have traditionally devoted most of their atten-
tion to the emergence of these Protestant churches, and rightly so; the
Protestant challenge to Catholic doctrine had profound theological, cul-
tural, and social repercussions. But in focusing on the work of the major
Protestant reformers, historians tend to overlook the changes and develop-
ments that were simultaneously occurring in the Roman Catholic Church.
Until 1517 the Church was one of the most powerful institutions in the
world; its teachings and practices influenced the lives of millions of Euro-
peans who looked to it to tell them how to live their lives in this world (and
ensure their place in the next). Thus, though the changes enacted within
the Church were not as novel or as dramatic as those proposed by Luther
and his followers, they affected the lives of more people. When the dust set-
tled after the last of the religious wars in 1648, two-thirds of Christians
west of Russia and the Balkans remained Catholic (and Catholics still out-
number Protestants by roughly two to one).
During the century covered in this book, the Catholic Church under-
went many changes, most of which reinvigorated it. It provided better
training for priests in seminaries, increased its focus on preaching and the
teaching of catechism, established thousands of religious confraternities for
the laity, and provided more effective charity for the poor. The Council of
Trent (1545–63) clarified Catholic doctrine, and the Church increased its
efforts to evangelize rural villages and uproot superstition. All of these re-
forms contributed to a more vibrant Catholicism, as did a series of popes
who devoted more attention to religious renewal (and less to politics and
art patronage) than did their Renaissance predecessors.
During the 16th century, the Portuguese and Spaniards took the lead in
exploring and establishing colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Catho-
lic missionaries followed the explorers Christopher Columbus (1451–1506),

xi
xii Introduction

Hernan Cortes (1485–1547), and Vasco da Gama (1469?–1529). To many

Catholics, gathering the inhabitants of these “new worlds” into the Catholic
Church made up for those members lost to the Protestants in northern
Europe.
Perhaps the best gauge of the Catholic Church’s vitality in any era is the
number of new religious orders formed during that period. These orders are
usually founded by laymen and laywomen who see a need and answer a
call; they are rarely founded by bishops, never by popes. Though no reli-
gious orders of historical significance were founded in the 15th century,
some twenty orders for men and ten for women were founded during the
Reformation (1517–1648). Not surprisingly, none of the new religious or-
ders arose in Luther’s Germany; Italy and Spain took the lead in forming
new orders, followed by France after 1600. Such older orders as the Fran-
ciscans, Dominicans, and Carmelites embraced reform. Many of the roots
of the Catholic Reformation reach back before 1517, but the challenge of
the Protestant Reformation gave a new urgency to reforming the Catholic
Church.
The Jesuits’ impact on society and Church reform made them the most
important of the new religious orders. They had two clear advantages over
most of the new orders: first, they were founded in Rome and quickly es-
tablished close ties with the papacy; second, their order was international in
origin. Though the Capuchins, a new and austere branch of the Francis-
cans, outnumbered the Jesuits during the 16th century, they were generally
confined to working with the peasants and the poor in Italy. The Jesuits, on
the other hand, adopted an international perspective right from the start.
The first men who helped Ignatius of Loyola found the Jesuit Order came
from three nations; by Loyola’s death in 1556 Jesuits from a dozen nations
were working on four continents. Other new Catholic orders were much
slower to branch out from their mother country. The Jesuits also worked
primarily in cities, where their schools enrolled the sons of influential no-
bles, merchants, doctors, lawyers, and administrators.

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), a Spanish nobleman of Basque descent,

founded the Jesuit Order in 1540. After spending his youth as a page at the
courts of two leading Spanish noblemen, he embarked on a promising ca-
reer as a courtier. This career was cut short, however, when he volunteered
to help defend the town of Pamplona, near Castle Loyola, from the invad-
ing French army. During the battle, a cannonball badly smashed one of his
legs. The French soldiers, who quickly overtook Pamplona, were impressed
by Loyola’s valor and carried him back to Castle Loyola. There, during a
long convalescence, he began to read religious books and experienced his
first conversion. He turned away from his boisterous past as a courtier and
Introduction xiii

determined to devote his life to serving God. Indulging his strong romantic
streak, he shed his elegant clothing, discarded his sword, and set off as a pil-
grim for Jerusalem. Along the way, he made an unplanned stop of nine
months at the small town of Manresa, where he began to keep notes on his
mystical religious experiences. These notes became the seeds of his most
important book, The Spiritual Exercises, first published in 1548. Chapter 1
of this book includes Loyola’s description of his conversion experience, two
of his letters, and selections from The Spiritual Exercises.
From Manresa Loyola traveled to Barcelona, then to Rome and Venice,
and finally to Jerusalem. Though he wanted to spend the rest of his life in
Palestine, the Franciscan friars, who were in charge of Christian pilgrims in
Jerusalem, would not allow him to do so. Upon returning to Barcelona,
Loyola decided he needed a formal education if he was to devote the rest of
his life to helping others find God. Since all university instruction in Eu-
rope was in Latin, he first enrolled in the 16th-century equivalent of a sec-
ondary school to learn the language. When he moved on to Alcalá and
Salamanca, Spain’s two leading universities, he ran into trouble with the In-
quisition, which objected to his teaching laypeople before he had studied
theology. Loyola then packed his bags for the University of Paris where,
since he could not speak French, he would not be tempted to preach Chris-
tian living and would be able to focus on his studies. Thanks to the Paris
curriculum, which was more structured than the curriculum at Spanish
universities, he made good progress. (Later Jesuit colleges followed this
“Paris method.”) In Paris Loyola first met the students who were to become
“the companions,” the disciples he regarded as his cofounders of the Society
of Jesus, the Jesuits. The most famous of these companions was St. Francis
Xavier (1506–52), whom we will meet in Chapter 3.
Loyola shared his religious ideas and prayer methods with his compan-
ions in Paris, and they soon came to share his desire to go to Jerusalem. On
August 15, 1534, Loyola and six companions took a vow to go to
Jerusalem and spend their lives there helping pilgrims and working for
souls. Because they planned to become priests, they also took vows of
poverty and chastity. After finishing his master’s degree in philosophy,
Loyola returned to Azpeitia, his hometown, and nearby Castle Loyola.
There he preached to the common folk and settled his affairs. This would
be his last visit to Spain.
Loyola and his companions planned to gather in Venice to take ship for
Palestine. Loyola and five of the other companions prepared for the trip by
becoming ordained priests in Venice in 1537. But the war that had broken
out between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Palestine,
spoiled their plans. Neither Loyola nor his companions ever saw Jerusalem
again. The destruction of their plans was a blessing in disguise, however:
xiv Introduction

the Turks would never have allowed Loyola and his followers to proselytize
in Palestine, and the young priests would probably have ended up rowing
Turkish galleys, or worse. Luckily, the vows Loyola and his companions had
taken in Paris included a back-up plan: if they could not go to Jerusalem,
they would put themselves at the pope’s disposal. Paul III (pope, 1534–49)1
sent several of the companions to preach in northern Italian cities. But they
wanted to give formal structure to their work for souls rather than be scat-
tered individually across the countryside. So, in April 1539 Loyola and the
companions gathered in Rome to discuss their plans. They decided that
they could serve God and neighbor more effectively if they continued to
work as a group. A group needs a leader, so the companions elected Loyola
their superior. The companions had already made vows of poverty and
chastity in Paris; in electing Loyola as their leader, they took a vow of obe-
dience, the last of the three vows at the heart of any Catholic order. They
also commissioned Loyola to draw up their plans for a new religious order
and to present those plans to Pope Paul III for his approval. Despite oppo-
sition from some cardinals, that papal approval was granted on September
27, 1540. The Society of Jesus was born.
Loyola spent the rest of his life in Rome, leaving the city only briefly on
a few short excursions. Meanwhile, the Jesuit Order began to grow: its
members numbered one thousand by Loyola’s death in 1556, three thou-
sand by 1565. Loyola spent his last ten years writing letters and memos to
Jesuits and their benefactors. (Some sixty-seven hundred of his letters have
survived and been published.) He also drafted the Jesuit Constitutions,
which were far more detailed than those of previous religious orders, and
dictated his short autobiography.

This book presents primary documents written by or about the Jesuits from
the foundation of the Jesuits, in 1540, until 1640. These documents illus-
trate the history, work, and mentality of the Jesuits during those years. The
book is divided into eight chapters, each of which is focused on a different
aspect of Jesuit history. Every chapter begins with a brief introduction of its
subject; then three to six documents follow, usually in chronological order,
each with its own introduction. Students should examine both the content
of the documents and the context and mentality that shaped them. Foot-
notes explain difficult expressions in the texts, indicate the sources from
which the documents are taken, and provide bibliographic information for
those seeking more information.
People of the early modern era tended to be far more explicit about their
values and prejudices than people would normally be today. Thus the letter

1. The dates for kings and popes give the years they reigned.
Introduction xv

of Ignatius of Loyola to Peter Canisius (1521–97) included here makes

clear Loyola’s hatred of Protestantism. In turn, contemporary Protestants
generally regarded the Jesuits as the shock troops of the papal Antichrist,
servants of Satan; the more talented and energetic Jesuits were, the more
evil and dangerous they seemed. The first seven chapters of this book offer
documents in which Jesuits express their worldview and their enthusiasm
for the religious order to which they had dedicated their lives. To balance
that pro-Jesuit perspective, the eighth chapter prints documents illustrating
how even many Roman Catholics loathed the Jesuits for a wide range of
reasons.
The documents printed here illustrate the major themes and efforts of
the early Jesuits. Unfortunately, limited space prevents me from including
texts related to many other significant Jesuit ministries. Readers of this col-
lection should bear in mind that the Jesuits served in many ways not ad-
dressed here. They worked in hospitals and prisons and served as military
chaplains; they founded and supervised many confraternities and sodalities;
they encouraged frequent confession and Communion. There is little here
about Jesuit contributions to culture, art, and the sciences; fortunately,
these are areas of much ongoing research.2
Loyola and his companions did not originally plan to teach academically
or to operate schools. They planned, instead, to devote themselves to
preaching, encouraging frequent confession and Communion, and admin-
istering the Spiritual Exercises to devout souls. To those ends, they planned
to establish what they called Professed Houses where priests could live and
work. These houses, attached to churches, would charge no fees for their
services; they would depend entirely on freewill offerings for their mainte-
nance. The idea of Professed Houses never caught on, however, and only a
few were established. Meanwhile, Jesuit colleges flourished and multiplied.
One hundred forty-four Jesuit schools had been established by 1580, 372
by 1615. These early Jesuit institutions taught teenage boys a curriculum
advocated by Renaissance humanists: Latin and Greek language and litera-
ture, with some philosophy and catechism added. A few of the colleges be-
came full universities. Relying on endowments from rich benefactors or
local communities, the Jesuit colleges charged no tuition. Usually there was

2. See the wealth of articles in Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, edited by
Mordichai Feingold (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); The Jesuits: Cultures, Sci-
ences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John O’Malley et al. (Toronto: Toronto
University Press, 1999); The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540–1773,
edited by John O’Malley et al. (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2005). For early
Jesuit art, see Gauvin A. Bailey, Between Renaissance and Baroque: Jesuit Art in Rome,
1565–1610 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2003).
xvi Introduction

a Jesuit church next to the colleges for preaching, celebrating Mass, hearing
confessions, and teaching catechism. Many secular schoolmasters resented
the Jesuit colleges; they claimed the Jesuits stole their students by not
charging tuition. Established universities at Paris, Padua, Louvain, Kraków,
and Lima felt that the new Jesuit colleges were encroaching on their terri-
tory by offering more advanced courses as the colleges expanded. These
universities often resorted to legal maneuverings to force Jesuit schools to
close completely or cut back their course offerings. Chapter 2 explores Je-
suit education through four primary sources: a selection from the Jesuit
Constitutions regarding education; some letters from Loyola and Juan
Polanco (1510–76), Loyola’s secretary, instructing Jesuits how to set up Je-
suit colleges in Italy and Spain; Polanco’s description of the first Jesuit col-
lege for lay students at Messina; and part of one of the thousands of dramas
written and produced by Jesuits and performed by the students at their
colleges.
Chapter 3, the longest in this book, is concerned with Jesuit missions in
India, Japan, China, Latin America, and Canada. The selections included
in this chapter record Jesuit missionaries’ dealings with simple fishermen in
southern India, the Guarani Indians of Paraguay, and the Hurons of Can-
ada; some debates with sophisticated defendants of the Buddhist and
Hindu traditions are also recorded here. As these selections make clear, Je-
suit missionaries had to struggle to accommodate the customs and beliefs of
non-Western cultures without betraying the basic tenets of the Christian
faith they were trying to spread around the world.
The next chapter, Chapter 4, examines Jesuit opposition to Protes-
tantism. Jesuit theological efforts to prevent the triumph of Protestant ideas
took many forms: young Jesuit teachers left their colleges on weekends to
teach catechism in the countryside; Jesuit scholars turned out books in
which they challenged the tenets of Protestant theology. Robert Bellarmine
(1542–1621) rejected Luther and Calvin’s claims that the Bible is the sole
criterion for Christian faith and practice; Bellarmine’s rejection is included
in Chapter 4.
Since both Protestantism and Catholicism recognized that the survival of
their faiths depended, in large part, on who controlled the government, the
battle between the two churches was often as political as it was theological.
The documents in Chapter 4 illustrate some of the ways in which the Je-
suits tried (and sometimes failed) to wrest political power away from the
Protestants. In one of Loyola’s harshest letters, he sent King Ferdinand
(1531–64) of Bohemia and Austria suggestions on how to block Protestant
influence in his lands. The Jesuits did not oppose the Inquisition; indeed,
they supported it. But they tried to avoid serving as Inquisitors and often
found themselves the victims of religious persecution at the hands of the
Introduction xvii

Protestants. After the Protestant English government made it an act of trea-

son to serve as a Catholic priest in that country, dozens of English Jesuits
died for their faith. One such martyr was Edmund Campion (1540–81),
who challenged the English government to hold a theological debate in
which he would take on all Protestant comers. Campion was captured fol-
lowing the publication of his challenge (which is included in Chapter 4). A
rigged debate was staged, and he was executed.
Works of spirituality have always been far more popular than theological
tracts. The invention of printing afforded a wonderful opportunity to
deepen the faith of those who could read, and both Protestants and
Catholics made good use of the printing press. Chapter 5 presents four Je-
suit spiritual writings. In the first, Alfonso Rodriguez (1541–1616) defines
the Jesuit identity for young Jesuits. Jerome Nadal (1507–80), Loyola’s top
assistant, arranged for the publication of an illustrated edition of Loyola’s
Exercises to be published with illustrations;3 he also wrote meditations of his
own, which were closely tied to superb engravings. In this chapter we will
read Nadal’s spiritual reflections on Christmas. The most popular bulky
meditation book of the 16th century was written by Luis de La Puente
(1554–1624); La Puente’s meditation on Christ’s parable of the sower is of-
fered here. The chapter closes with Bellarmine’s reflections on how nature—
the sun, moon, and stars—can deepen our appreciation of God’s grandeur.
Chapter 6 deals with special Jesuit ministries. The chapter begins with a
selection from Juan Polanco’s Chronicon in which Polanco offers ways in
which Jesuits can end vendettas and help former prostitutes find a better
life. Claudio Acquaviva (1543–1615), superior general of the Society of
Jesus from 1581 to 1615, wrote a set of rules for Jesuits assigned to visit
small towns and invigorate the faith of the peasants; these rules are printed
here for the first time in English. (Acquaviva’s rules for Jesuits assigned to
the prestigious but difficult job of being royal confessors or spiritual advis-
ers are found in Chapter 7.) The persecution of witches claimed far more
lives during the Reformation than did persecutions based on faith. Most of
the so-called witches were actually impoverished women who, once sus-
pected of witchcraft, had no way to prove their innocence and escape tor-
ture and execution. In the selection included here from his Cautio
Criminalis, Jesuit Friedrich Spee (1591–1635) denounces this dreadful in-
justice. The chapter ends with Jesuit opposition to bullfighting and wild
celebrations at Mardi Gras.
Chapter 7 examines four Jesuit writings that illustrate Jesuit involve-
ment in politics. The first document presents rules from the Fifth General

3. There is a recent edition of his illustrations: The Illustrated Spiritual Exercises, ed-
ited by Jerome Nadal (Scranton: Scranton University Press, 2001).
xviii Introduction

Congregation of the Jesuits (1593–94) forbidding Jesuits to meddle in

politics. The second document is from Juan Mariana’s book, On a King
and the Education of a King, that he wrote for his pupil, the future Philip
III of Spain. Its Chapter 6 discusses whether and when the assassination of
tyrannical princes can be justified. Even though the Jesuits officially repu-
diated Mariana’s book, it caused great hostility toward Jesuits, particularly
in France. Jesuits served as royal confessors in several Catholic countries;
this could easily lead to political involvement. In the third document,
Claudio Acquaviva lays down rules restricting the work of confessors to
moral and spiritual matters. The chapter closes with an excerpt from Bel-
larmine’s The Office of a Christian Prince, which he wrote for the future
king of Poland.
Few organizations have been praised as much as the Jesuits; few have
been so bitterly condemned. The last chapter of this volume allows readers
to see the Jesuits through the eyes of their Spanish, French, and English en-
emies. In each country the opposition took a different focus.4 Protestants
condemned all Catholic religious orders on theological grounds, of course.
But they also condemned the Church because monks and friars seemed lazy
and proud, were often badly trained, sometimes had wealth, or were given
to sexual activity. In reality, few of these charges—except for the charge of
pride—accurately described the Jesuits. The Jesuits also faced a great deal of
opposition from within the Catholic Church itself. Members of other
Catholic orders felt that the very title Society of Jesus was arrogant. Some
members of older religious orders, especially the Dominicans, thought that
the Jesuits had abandoned practices central to the life of religious orders.
For instance, the Jesuits wore no distinctive uniform, such as the white and
black robes of the Dominicans; they simply adopted the dress of the local
parish clergy. Many Catholics thought that all members of religious orders
should wear a distinctive habit or uniform that would identify them. Many
bishops, parish priests, and friars resented the privileges given to the Jesuits
by the pope. Other Catholics opposed the Jesuits because the Order seemed
to be dominated by Spaniards, starting with Loyola himself. France and
England were often at war with Spain, and so French and English Jesuits
were frequently suspected by their countrymen to be potential or actual
traitors. Many Catholics felt the Jesuits were too involved in politics, for

4. There are many histories of the Jesuit Order. Solid but a bit dry is William
Bangert, S.J., A History of the Society of Jesus, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit
Sources, 1986); newer and more lively is Jonathan Wright, God’s Soldiers: Adventure,
Politics, Intrigue and Power; A History of the Jesuits (New York: Doubleday, 2004).
The best book on the early Jesuits is John O’Malley’s The First Jesuits (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Introduction xix

Jesuits often served as royal confessors in Paris, Lisbon, Vienna, and Mu-
nich. Others objected to the extreme centralization of the Jesuits, where
a superior general, elected for life, personally appointed all of his major
subordinates; to such critics, the Jesuit general seemed like a dictator. Most
medieval Catholics went to Communion only once or twice a year, and
the Jesuits came under fire for encouraging frequent confession and Com-
munion. Chapter 8 contains documents illustrating such opposition to
the Jesuits.
Principal Jesuit Foundations in Europe 1540–1618. Map provided courtesy of Brill Academic Publishers.
 CHAPTER 1

WRITINGS OF IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA

Introduction

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), whose life was briefly discussed in the In-
troduction to this book, was the founder of the Society of Jesus, popularly
called the Jesuits. In his actions and writings, Loyola inspired the early Je-
suits and served as the embodiment of the ideals toward which they were
striving. Though he was not an eloquent writer (and the culture of the
Renaissance valued nothing in a writer so much as eloquence), his writings
are clear, sincere, thoughtful, and well organized. He wrote or dictated
three books in his lifetime, the first and most important of which was The
Spiritual Exercises (1548), a manual of directions and spiritual reflections
for people who wanted to spend a month reorganizing their lives and
learning to pray more effectively. It is the only one of his books published
during his lifetime and has remained a best seller ever since. This chapter
contains several meditations and directions for spiritual growth from The
Spiritual Exercises.
Loyola’s second book was The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, which
his early companions authorized him to write shortly after Pope Paul III ap-
proved the Jesuits as a religious order in 1540. Because Loyola wanted to
learn from the experiences of his fellow Jesuits before laying down elaborate
rules for them to follow, progress on the book was very slow for the first
eight years. Though the basic Spanish text was finished by 1552, Loyola
continued to make minor corrections and additions to the manuscript until
his death in 1556. The Constitutions were then translated into Latin, offi-
cially approved by the First General Congregation, the highest governing
body of the Society, and published in 1558. Loyola’s Constitutions are far
longer and more detailed than the rules of most other religious orders.
(Chapter 2 contains a section from The Constitutions on how Jesuit schools
should be organized.)
This chapter begins with a selection from Loyola’s autobiography in
which he describes the conversion he experienced while he was recovering
from a wound he sustained during a battle with the French in Pamplona,
Spain. Though he did not like to discuss his religious experiences with

1
2 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

others, and did not want to write an autobiography, his early companions
urged him to tell them more about his life before he joined them as a fellow
student at the University of Paris. His autobiography stops abruptly in
1538.
Loyola kept detailed personal notes of his own private religious experi-
ences but refused to share them with anyone except his confessor. Two
bundles of his notes, covering some thirteen months (early February 1544
to late February 1545), somehow escaped his attempts to destroy them and
were published in 1892. These notes reveal that the mystical revelations he
experienced shortly after his conversion in 1522 came flooding back to him
during his last sixteen years in Rome.
Loyola’s responsibilities during those last years can be compared to the
duties commonly held by the chief executive officer of a modern interna-
tional corporation. He spent most of his time writing and dictating letters
and memos, mostly to fellow Jesuits scattered around Europe or working as
missionaries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Of the 6,742 extant items
of his correspondence, 6,590 come from his last ten years. Two of Loyola’s
letters end this chapter: the first offers Loyola’s suggestions on how Em-
peror Charles V (1519–56) might prevent Turkish ships from raiding his
lands; the second presents Loyola’s thoughts on how the new Jesuit patri-
arch in Ethiopia should deal with the king and people of that land. (Chap-
ter 2 contains a letter from Loyola to Antonio Araoz on why Jesuits should
work as teachers. Chapter 4 contains Loyola’s letter to Peter Canisius on
how to prevent the spread of Protestantism in Austria.)

Autobiography1

[In 1552 Loyola’s health was declining, and his closest Jesuit coworkers feared he
might die soon. Three of these colleagues—Pedro de Ribadeneira (1526–1611),
Jerome Nadal (1507–80), and Luís Gonçalves da Câmara (1519–75)—
wanted to know more about Loyola’s life, so they began hounding him to write
an account of his early years. Loyola’s autobiography makes it clear that the
greatest sin of his younger years was a thirst for glory, and he seemed fearful later
in life that leaving an autobiography would be an act of self-aggrandizement.
Loyola finally yielded to his coworkers’ requests and asked for help from
Gonçalves—who was available in Rome and had a fine memory—to assist
him in writing the book. Loyola related his life story to Gonçalves when his

1. These sections of Loyola’s autobiography are taken with the publisher’s permis-
sion from Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, edited by
George Ganss, S.J., et al. (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), pp. 68–73.
Autobiography 3

other work allowed him some free

time: his autobiography was com-
posed in August and September
1553, March 1555, and September
and October 1555. Gonçalves
would listen to Loyola’s narrative
and then write notes on what he
had heard. Later Gonçalves would
dictate his notes to a secretary. Like
most 16th-century autobiographies,
Loyola’s is not written in the first
person. Instead, Loyola refers to
himself as “the Pilgrim,” doubtless
because he considered his life a pil-
grimage to God and heaven, one
Loyola reads in bed during his recovery. with many twists and turns.
The section printed here relates
Loyola’s conversion from being a courtier whose life was dominated by a thirst
for personal glory to a man dedicated to serving God and other people for the
glory of God. Though Gonçalves periodically inserted marginal notes of his
own into the text, his notes have been omitted here.2]

Chapter 1: Pamplona and Loyola

Mid-May 1521 to Late February 1522
1. Up to the age of twenty-six he was a man given to the vanities of the
world; and what he enjoyed most was warlike sport, with a great and fool-
ish desire to win fame. And so, whilst in a fortress that the French were at-
tacking, when all were of the view that they should surrender, with their
lives safeguarded—for they saw clearly that they could not offer resis-
tance—he gave so many reasons to the commander that he actually per-
suaded him to resist, even against this view of all the officers, who drew
courage from his spirit and determination. When the day came on which
the bombardment was expected, he confessed to one of these companions
in arms. And after the bombardment had lasted a good while, a shot struck
him on one leg, shattering it completely; and as the cannon ball passed be-
tween both legs, the other also was badly injured.

2. The best study of Loyola’s autobiography is Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Loyola’s

Acts: The Rhetoric of the Self (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), al-
though it is more a literary and psychological study than a historical analysis.
4 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

2. So with his fall those in the fortress soon surrendered to the French,
who on taking possession of it treated the wounded man very well—treated
him with courtesy and kindness. And after he had been in Pamplona for
twelve or fifteen days, they took him home in a litter. Here he felt quite un-
well. All the doctors and surgeons who were summoned from many places
decided that the leg ought to be broken again and the bones reset, saying
that because they had been badly set the other time, or had got broken on
the road, they were out of place, and this way he could not mend. And once
again this butchery was gone through. During it, as in all the others he un-
derwent before or after, he never said a word nor showed any sign of pain
other than to clench his fists tightly.
3. Yet he kept getting worse, not being able to eat, and with the other
symptoms that usually point to death. When St. John’s day came, because
the doctors were far from confident about his health, he was advised to con-
fess. He received the sacraments on the eve of St. Peter and St. Paul. The
doctors said that if he did not feel any improvement by midnight, he could
be taken for dead. It happened that this sick man was devoted to St. Peter,
so Our Lord deigned that he should begin to get better that very midnight.
His improvement proceeded so well that some days later it was judged that
he was out of danger of death.
4. And his bones having knit together, one bone below the knee was left
riding on another, which made the leg shorter. The bone protruded so
much that it was an ugly business. He could not bear such a thing because
he was set on a worldly career and thought that this would deform him; he
asked the surgeons if it could be cut away. They said that it could indeed be
cut away, but that the pain would be greater than all that he had suffered,
because it was already healed and it would take a while to cut it. And yet he
chose on his own to make himself a martyr though his elder brother was
shocked and said that he himself would not dare suffer such pain; but the
wounded man bore it with his wonted endurance.
5. After the flesh and excess bone were cut away, remedial measures were
taken that the leg might not be so short. Ointment was often applied, and it
was stretched continually with instruments that tortured him for many days.
But Our Lord kept giving him health, and he felt so well that he was quite fit
except that he could not stand easily on his leg and had perforce to stay in bed.
As he was much given to reading worldly books of fiction, commonly labeled
chivalry, when he felt better he asked to be given some of them to pass the
time. But in that house none of those that he usually read could be found, so
they gave him a life of Christ and a book of the lives of the saints in Castilian.
6. As he read them over many times, he became rather fond of what he
found written there. But, interrupting his reading, he sometimes stopped to
Autobiography 5

think about the things he had read

and at other times about the things
of the world that he used to think of
before. Of the many foolish ideas
that occurred to him, one had taken
such a hold on his heart that he was
absorbed in thinking about it for
two and three and four hours with-
out realizing it. He imagined what
he would do in the service of a cer-
tain lady; the means he would take
so he could go to the place where
she lived; the quips—the words he
would address to her; the feats of
arms he would perform in her ser-
vice. He became so infatuated with
this that he did not consider how
impossible of attainment it would
be, because the lady was not of ordi-
Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuit Consti- nary nobility, not a countess nor a
tutions. Engraving by Hieronymus duchess; but her station was higher
Wierx, 1556. than any of these.
7. Nevertheless Our Lord assisted him, by causing these thoughts to be
followed by others which arose from the things he read. For in reading the
life of Our Lord and of the saints, he stopped to think, reasoning within
himself, “What if I should do what St. Francis did, and what St. Dominic
did?”3 Thus he pondered over many things that he found good, always pro-
posing to himself what was difficult and burdensome; and as he so pro-
posed, it seemed easy for him to accomplish it. But he did no more than
argue within himself, saying, “St. Dominic did this, therefore I have to do
it; St. Francis did this, therefore I have to do it.” These thoughts also lasted
a good while; then, other things coming in between, the worldly ones men-
tioned above returned and he also stayed long with them. This succession
of such diverse thoughts lasted for quite some time, and he always dwelt at

3. St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226) was the most beloved of medieval saints; he
founded the Franciscan religious order, which stressed a lifestyle of austere poverty.
St. Dominic (1170–1221), a Spaniard, founded the Order of Preachers, known as
the Dominicans. The Dominicans stressed theological learning and the ability to
preach—skills most medieval parish priests lacked. (The Jesuits, on the other hand,
stressed poverty, learning, and preaching.) Dominic himself preached against heresy
in southern France.
6 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

length on the thought that turned up, either of the worldly exploits he
wished to perform or of these others of God that came to his imagination,
until he tired of it and put it aside and turned to other matters.
8. Yet there was this difference. When he was thinking of those things of
the world he took much delight in them, but afterwards when he was tired
and put them aside, he found himself dry and dissatisfied. But when he
thought of going to Jerusalem barefoot, and of eating nothing but plain
vegetables and of practicing all the other rigors that he saw in the saints, not
only was he consoled when he had these thoughts but even after putting
them aside he remained satisfied and joyful.
He did not notice this, however; nor did he stop to ponder the distinc-
tion until the time when his eyes were opened a little and he began to mar-
vel at the difference and to reflect upon it, realizing from experience that
some thoughts left him sad and others joyful. Little by little he came to rec-
ognize the difference between the spirits that were stirring, one from the
devil, the other from God.
9. From this lesson he derived not a little light, and he began to think
more earnestly about his past life and about the great need he had to do
penance for it. At this point the desire to imitate the saints came to him,
though he gave no thought to details, only promising with God’s grace to do
as they had done. But the one thing he wanted to do was to go to Jerusalem
as soon as he recovered, as mentioned above, with as much of disciplines and
fasts as a generous spirit, fired with God, would want to perform.
10. And so he began to forget the previous thoughts with these holy de-
sires he had, and they were confirmed by a spiritual experience in this man-
ner. One night while he was awake he saw clearly an image of Our Lady
with the holy Child Jesus. From this sight he received for a considerable
time very great consolation, and he was left with such loathing for his
whole past life and especially for the things of the flesh that it seemed to
him that his spirit was rid of all the images that had been painted on it.
Thus from that hour until August 1553 when this was written, he never
gave the slightest consent to the things of the flesh. For this reason it may
be considered the work of God, although he did not dare to claim it nor
said more than to affirm the above. But his brother as well as all the rest of
the household came to know from his exterior the change that had been
wrought inwardly in his soul.
11. Not worried at all, he persevered in his reading and his good resolu-
tions, and all his time of conversation with members of the household
he spent on the things of God; thus he benefitted their souls. As he very
much liked those books, the idea came to him to note down briefly some of
the more essential things from the life of Christ and the saints. So he set
Autobiography 7

himself very diligently to write a

book (because he was now begin-
ning to be up and about the house
a bit) with red ink for the words of
Christ, blue ink for those of Our
Lady, on polished and lined paper,
in a good hand because he was a
very fine penman.
12. And taking stock of what he
might do after he returned from
Jerusalem, so he could always live as
a penitent, he thought he might
enter the Carthusian house in
Seville,4 without saying who he was,
so that they would make little of
Pope Paul III approves the Jesuit Order in him; and there he would never eat
1540. anything but plain vegetables. But
when he thought again of the
penances he wished to do as he went about the world, the desire to enter
the Carthusians cooled, with the fear that he would not be able to give vent to
the hatred that he had conceived against himself. Still he instructed one of the
household servants who was going to Burgos to get information about the rule
of the Carthusians, and the information he obtained about it seemed good.
But for the reason mentioned above, and because he was wholly ab-
sorbed in the journey he was planning soon to make and that matter did
not have to be dealt with until his return, he did not look much into it.
Rather, finding now that he had some strength, he thought the time to de-
part had come; and he said to his brother, “Sir, the Duke of Nájera, as you
know, is aware now that I am well. It will be good that I go Navarrete.”
(The duke was there at that time.)5
His brother took him to one room and then another, and with much feel-
ing begged him not to throw himself away; also, to consider what hopes had

4. The Carthusians were considered the strictest and most austere of the monastic
religious orders.
5. Loyola served as a courtier at the court of the duke of Nájera, who was viceroy of
Navarre. Charles V was raised in Belgium, and several towns, including Nájera, op-
posed his becoming king of Spain in 1518. Loyola and other nobles at Charles’
court helped the duke crush the rebellion at Nájera in September 1518. Loyola al-
most certainly helped the duke negotiate peace with his home region of Guipúzcoa,
which rebelled against Charles V in April 1521. Loyola was wounded the next
month.
8 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

been placed in him by the people,

and how much he could achieve,
and other such words, all with the
purpose of dissuading him from his
good intention. But he answered in
such a way that, without departing
from the truth, for he was now very
scrupulous about that, he slipped
away from his brother.

Chapter 2: Road to Montserrat

Late February 1522
13. And so, as he mounted a
mule, another brother wished to
go with him as far as Oñate. On
the road he persuaded him to join
in a vigil at Our Lady of Aránzazu.
That night he prayed there that he Loyola writes the Constitutions and sends
might gain fresh strength for his Jesuits on assignment.
journey. He left his brother in
Oñate at the house of a sister he was going to visit, and himself went on to
Navarrete. . . .
14. On the way something happened to him which it would be well to
record, so one may understand how Our Lord dealt with his soul, which
was still blind, though greatly desirous of serving him as far as his knowl-
edge went. Thus, he decided to do great penances, no longer with an eye to
satisfying for his sins so much as to please and gratify God. So when it oc-
curred to him to do some penance that the saints practiced, he determined
to do the same and even more. . . .

The Spiritual Exercises

[Loyola’s most important work, The Spiritual Exercises, was first published in
Rome in 1548. Though he never intended for people to read it as a literary
work, the book has enjoyed more than five thousand editions in the past five cen-
turies and remains a spiritual classic. Loyola wanted his Exercises to serve as a
guidebook or manual for spiritual directors, mainly Jesuits, who were directing
people through the thirty days of prayer and meditation called the “Spiritual Ex-
ercises.” Loyola began collecting notes on his own spiritual experiences during the
months of 1522 when he devoted himself to prayer at Manresa, in Spain, shortly
after his conversion. He continued to add to his notes until he entered the Uni-
versity of Paris in 1528. In Paris he personally directed his first companions
The Spiritual Exercises 9

The Gesù, mother church of the Jesuit Order. To its right is the Jesuit house where
Loyola worked and died.

through this intense month of prayer. Later, new members of the Jesuits were re-
quired to make the Exercises, and many of them used their own notes on the ex-
perience in directing other retreatants or exercitants (the people making the
Exercises) through the same experience. Sometimes exercitants were given a week-
long condensed version. Sometimes a gifted nun would make the full Exercises
under a Jesuit director—and would then direct the other nuns in her convent
through the whole process. When the need for an official printed version of the
Exercises finally became clear, Loyola had his Spanish notes translated into Latin;
they were then submitted for papal approval and printed.
Loyola did not want The Spiritual Exercises to be read by people who had
not already completed the full thirty-day retreat because he feared that the
book would seem like a confusing maze of meditations and directions. The
main purpose of the Exercises was to teach people how to improve their prayer
and reshape their lives to better follow God’s will for them. Those who have
only read the text of the Exercises will have little feel for their cumulative spir-
itual power.
The Exercises are broken into four segments, or weeks. The first week largely
dwells on our purpose in life and on sin. The second week focuses on the life of
Jesus from his birth until Palm Sunday. The third week dwells on Christ’s Pas-
sion and death; the fourth on his Resurrection. Interspersed among the medita-
tions are many rules and concrete directions on how to pray and to better
organize various aspects of one’s life.
Sometimes Loyola assigns only a passage from the Gospels and expects the re-
treat director to craft a meditation on the passage suited to a particular re-
treatant’s talents and needs; sometimes Loyola develops the meditations in
considerable detail. Three of the latter meditations—the meditations on the First
10 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

Principle and Foundation of our lives, the Incarnation of Christ, and the Con-
templation to Attain Love—are printed here. We begin with Loyola’s introductory
explanations or directions for those making the Exercises; we then move on to the
three meditations and end with his practical directives for giving alms.6]

Introductory explanations, to gain some understanding of the

Spiritual Exercises which follow, and to aid both the one who gives
them and the one who receives them
The First Explanation. By the term Spiritual Exercises we mean every
method of examination of conscience, meditation, contemplation, vocal or
mental prayer, and other spiritual activities, such as will be mentioned later.
For, just as taking a walk, traveling on foot, and running are physical exer-
cises, so is the name of Spiritual Exercises given to any means of preparing
and disposing our soul to rid itself of all its disordered affections and then,
after their removal, of seeking and finding God’s will in the ordering of our
life for the salvation of our soul.
The Second. The person who gives to another the method and procedure
for meditating or contemplating should accurately narrate the history con-
tained in the contemplation or meditation, going over the points with only
a brief or summary explanation. For in this way the person who is contem-
plating, by taking this history as the authentic foundation, and by going
over it and reasoning about it for oneself, can thus discover something that
will bring better understanding or a more personalized concept of the his-
tory—either through one’s own reasoning or to the extent that the under-
standing is enlightened by God’s grace. This brings more spiritual relish
and spiritual fruit than if the one giving the Exercises had lengthily ex-
plained and amplified the meaning of the history. For, what fills and satis-
fies the soul consists, not in knowing much, but in our understanding the
realities profoundly and in savoring them interiorly.
The Third. In all the following Spiritual Exercises we use the acts of the
intellect in reasoning and of the will in eliciting acts of the affections. In re-
gard to the affective acts which spring from the will we should note that
when we are conversing with God our Lord or his saints vocally or men-
tally, greater reverence is demanded of us than when we are using the intel-
lect to understand.

6. The passages printed here are from The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, trans-
lated by George Ganss, S.J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), pp. 21–4,
32, 56–8, 94–5, 129–30. They are used with the permission of the Institute of Je-
suit Sources.
The Spiritual Exercises 11

The Fourth. Four Weeks are taken for the following Exercises, correspon-
ding to the four parts into which they are divided. That is, the First Week is
devoted to the consideration and contemplation of sins; the Second, to the
life of Christ our Lord up to and including Palm Sunday; the Third, to the
Passion of Christ our Lord; and the Fourth, to the Resurrection and Ascen-
sion. To this week are appended the Three Methods of Praying. However,
this does not mean that each week must necessarily consist of seven or eight
days. For during the First Week some persons happen to be slower in find-
ing what they are seeking, that is, contrition, sorrow, and tears for their sins.
Similarly, some persons work more diligently than others, and are more
pushed back and forth and probed by different spirits. In some cases, there-
fore, the week needs to be shortened, and in others lengthened. This holds
as well for all the following weeks, while the retreatant is seeking for what
corresponds to their subject matter. But the Exercises ought to be com-
pleted in thirty days, more or less.
The Fifth. The persons who receive the Exercises will benefit greatly by
entering upon them with great spirit and generosity toward their Creator
and Lord, and by offering all their desires and freedom to him so that his
Divine Majesty can make use of their persons and of all they possess in
whatsoever way is according to his most holy will.
The Sixth. When the one giving the Exercises notices that the exerci-
tant is not experiencing any spiritual motions in his or her soul, such as
consolations or desolations, or is not being moved one way or another by
different spirits, the director should question the retreatant much about
the Exercises: Whether he or she is making them at the appointed times,
how they are being made and whether the Additional Directives are being
diligently observed. The director should ask about each of these items in
particular. . . .
The Seventh. When the giver of the Exercises sees that the one making
them is experiencing desolation and temptation, he or she should not treat
the retreatant severely or harshly, but gently and kindly. The director
should encourage and strengthen the exercitant for the future, unmask the
deceptive tactics of the enemy of our human nature, and help the re-
treatant to prepare and dispose himself or herself for the consolation which
will come.
The Eighth. According to the need perceived in the exercitant with re-
spect to the desolations and deceptive tactics of the enemy, and also the
consolations, the giver of the Exercises may explain to the retreatant the
rules of the First and Second Weeks for recognizing the different kinds of
spirits.
The Ninth. This point should be noticed. When an exercitant spiritu-
ally inexperienced is going through the First Week of the Exercises he or
12 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

she may be tempted grossly and openly, for example, by being shown ob-
stacles to going forward in the service of God our Lord, in the form of
hardships, shame, fear about worldly honor, and the like. In such a case
the one giving the Exercises should not explain to this retreatant the rules
on different kinds of spirits for the Second Week. For to the same extent
that the rules of the First Week will help him or her, those of the Second
Week will be harmful. They are too subtle and advanced for such a one to
understand.7

The first week: principle and foundation8

Human beings are created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord,
and by means of this to save their souls. The other things on the face of the
earth are created for the human beings, to help them in working toward the
end for which they are created.
From this it follows that I should use these things to the extent that they
help me toward my end, and rid myself of them to the extent that they hin-
der me. To do this, I must make myself indifferent to all created things, in
regard to everything which is left to my freedom of will and is not forbid-
den. Consequently, on my own part I ought not to seek health rather than
sickness, wealth rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a long life
rather than a short one, and so in all other matters.
I ought to desire and elect only the thing which is more conducive to the
end for which I am created.

This first contemplation is devoted to the Incarnation9

It contains, after the preparatory prayer, three preludes, three points, and a
colloquy.
The usual Preparatory Prayer.
The First Prelude is to survey the history of the matter I am to contem-
plate. Here it is how the Three Divine Persons gazed on the whole surface or
circuit of the world, full of people; and how, seeing that they were all going
down into hell, they decided in their eternity that the Second Person would
become a human being, in order to save the human race. And thus, when
the fullness of time had come, they sent the angel St. Gabriel to Our Lady.

7. In all Loyola gives twenty introductory explanations.

8. These short reflections on the purpose of life come at the start of the first week
of the Exercises.
9. This meditation comes on the first day of the second week, which covers Christ’s
life from the Incarnation up to Palm Sunday.
The Spiritual Exercises 13

The Second Prelude is a composition, by imagining the place. Here it will

be to see the great extent of the circuit of the world, with peoples so many
and so diverse; and then to see in particular the house and rooms of Our
Lady, in the city of Nazareth in the province of Galilee.
The Third Prelude will be to ask for what I desire. Here it will be to ask
for an interior knowledge of Our Lord, who became human for me, that I
may love him more intensely and follow him more closely.
Note. It should be noted here that this same preparatory prayer, without
any change, should be made throughout this and the following weeks, as was
stated at the beginning. Similarly the same three preludes are to be made
throughout this and the following weeks; but their content is changed in ac-
cordance with the subject matter.
The First Point. I will see the various persons, some here, some there.
First, those on the face of the earth, so diverse in dress and behavior: some
white and others black, some in peace and others at war, some weeping and
others laughing, some healthy and others sick, some being born and others
dying, and so forth.
Second, I will see and consider the Three Divine Persons, seated, so to
speak, on the royal throne of their Divine Majesty. They are gazing on the
whole face and circuit of the earth; and they see all the peoples in such great
blindness, and how they are dying and going down to hell.
Third, I will see Our Lady and the angel greeting her. Then I will reflect
on this to draw some profit from what I see.
The Second Point. I will listen to what the persons on the face of the earth
are saying; that is, how they speak with one another, swear and blaspheme,
and so on. Likewise, I will hear what the Divine Persons are saying, that is,
“Let us work the redemption of the human race,” and so forth. Then I will
listen to what the angel and Our Lady are saying. Afterward I will reflect on
this, to draw profit from their words.
The Third Point. Here I will consider what the people on the face of the
earth are doing: How they wound, kill, go to hell, and so on. Similarly,
what the Divine Persons are doing, that is, bringing about the most holy
Incarnation, and other such activities. Likewise, what the angel and Our
Lady are doing, with the angel carrying out his office of ambassador and
Our Lady humbling herself and giving thanks to the Divine Majesty. Then
I will reflect on these matters, to draw some profit from each of them.
Colloquy. At the end a colloquy should be made. I will think over what I
ought to say to the Three Divine Persons, or to the eternal Word made
flesh, or to our Mother and Lady. I will beg favors according to what I feel
in my heart, that I may better follow and imitate Our Lord, who in this way
has recently become a human being. Our Father.
14 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

Contemplation to attain love10

Two preliminary observations should be made.
First: Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words.
Second: Love consists in a mutual communication between the two per-
sons. That is, the one who loves gives and communicates to the beloved
what he or she has, or a part of what one has or can have; and the beloved
in return does the same to the lover. Thus, if the one has knowledge, one
gives it to the other who does not; and similarly in regard to honors or
riches. Each shares with the other.
The usual Preparatory Prayer.
The First Prelude. A composition. Here it is to see myself as standing be-
fore God our Lord, and also before the angels and saints, who are interced-
ing for me.
The Second Prelude is to ask for what I desire. Here it will be to ask for in-
terior knowledge of all the great good I have received, in order that, stirred
to profound gratitude, I may become able to love and serve his Divine
Majesty in all things.
The First Point. I will call back into my memory the gifts I have re-
ceived—my creation, redemption, and other gifts particular to myself. I
will ponder with deep affection how much God our Lord has done for me,
and how much he has given me of what he possesses, and consequently
how he, the same Lord, desires to give me even his very self, in accordance
with his divine design.
Then I will reflect on myself, and consider what I on my part ought in all
reason and justice to offer and give to his Divine Majesty, namely, all my
possessions, and myself along with them. I will speak as one making an of-
fering with deep affection, and say:
“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and
all my will—all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I
now give it back to you, O Lord. All of it is yours. Dispose of it according to
your will. Give me your love and your grace, for that is enough for me.”
The Second Point. I will consider how God dwells in creatures; in the ele-
ments, giving them existence; in the plants, giving them life; in the animals,
giving them sensation; in human beings, giving them intelligence; and finally,
how in this way he dwells also in myself, giving me existence, life, sensation,
and intelligence; and even further, making me his temple, since I am created as
a likeness and image of his Divine Majesty. Then once again I will reflect on
myself, in the manner described in the first point, or in any other way I feel to
be better. This same procedure will be used in each of the following points.

10. This is the last and culminating meditation of The Spiritual Exercises.
The Spiritual Exercises 15

The Third Point. I will consider how God labors and works for me in all
the creatures on the face of the earth; that is, he acts in the manner of one
who is laboring. For example, he is working in the heavens, elements,
plants, fruits, cattle, and all the rest—giving them their existence, conserv-
ing them, concurring with their vegetative and sensitive activities, and so
forth. Then I will reflect on myself.
The Fourth Point. I will consider how all good things and gifts descend
from above; for example, my limited power from the Supreme and Infinite
Power above; and so of justice, goodness, piety, mercy, and so forth—just as
the rays come down from the sun, or the rains from their source. Then I
will finish by reflecting on myself, as has been explained. I will conclude
with a colloquy and an Our Father.

In the ministry of distributing alms the

following rules ought to be followed
The First Rule. That love which moves me and brings me to give the alms
should descend from above, from the love of God our Lord, in such a way
that I perceive beforehand that the love whether greater or less, which I
have for the persons is for God, and that God may shine forth in the reason
for which I have a preferential love for these persons.
The Second. I will imagine a person whom I have never seen or known.
Desiring all perfection for him or her in his ministry and state of life, I will
consider how I would wish him to hold to a good mean in his manner of
distributing alms, for the greater glory of God and the perfection of his
soul. Then I, acting in the same way, neither more nor less will keep the
rule and norm which I would desire and judge proper for this other person.
The Third. I will consider, as if I were at the point of death what procedure
and norm I will at that time wish I had used in the duty of my administration.
Then guiding myself by that norm, I will apply it in the acts of my distribution.
The Fourth. Imagining how I will find myself on judgment day, I will
think well how at that time I will wish that I had carried out this office and
duty of my ministry. The rule which I will then wish I had used is what I
will follow now.
The Fifth. When I perceive myself inclined and affectionately attached to
others to whom I want to distribute alms, I should delay and think over the
four rules mentioned above. I should examine and test my affection by
means of them and not give the alms until, in conformity with those rules,
the inordinate affection has been completely removed and banished.
The Sixth. There is clearly no fault in accepting the goods of God our
Lord in order to distribute them, when one has been called by our God and
Lord to that ministry of distributing alms. However, there is place for doubt
16 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

about culpability and excess in regard to the amount one takes and applies to
oneself from what one holds for distribution to others. Hence one can re-
form one’s way of living in his state, by means of the rules mentioned above.
The Seventh. For the reasons already mentioned and many others, in re-
gard to our own persons and household arrangements it is always better and
safer to curtail and reduce our expenses. The more we do this, the more do
we draw near to our high priest, model and rule, who is Christ our Lord. In
conformity with this the Third Council of Carthage (at which St. Augus-
tine was present) decided and ordered that the furniture of the bishops
should be inexpensive and poor.
The same consideration should be applied to all the styles of living, in ac-
cordance with the person’s condition and state. For example, in that of
marriage we have Saints Joachim and Anne. They divided their possessions
into three parts, gave the first to the poor, the second to the ministry and
service of the Temple, and kept the third for their own support and that of
their family.11

Letter to Jerome Nadal: Suggestions for Charles V in

Dealing with the Turkish Menace in the Mediterranean12
[As noted at the beginning of this chapter, we have 6,590 letters to and from
Loyola in the last ten years of his life. Most of Loyola’s letters were concerned
with offering spiritual advice or directives for Jesuit communities. Many of his
letters were, in fact, drafted by his very able secretary Juan Polanco (1517?–
76) after the two men discussed what the letter should contain. Loyola would
examine Polanco’s draft letter and make revisions; finally a clean copy would
be made and sent to the recipient. This letter to Jerome Nadal was drafted by
Polanco. In it, he refers to Loyola several times. The letter was sent to Nadal so
that he could propose the plans it contains to Emperor Charles V.13 Loyola sent

11. Joachim and Anne are the names traditionally given to the father and mother of
the Virgin Mary. Their names and the threefold division of their possessions were
part of the popular piety of Loyola’s time and are not found in the New Testament.
12. The translation of this letter is taken from Letters of St. Ignatius of Loyola, trans-
lated by William J. Young (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1959), pp. 259–65. It
is reprinted with the permission of Loyola University Press.
13. Charles V (1519–56) was the most powerful European ruler between the reigns
of Charlemagne and Napoleon. His domains included Spain, Austria, the kingdom
of Naples and Sicily, the duchy of Milan, the Netherlands, Peru, Mexico, and other
scattered territories in Europe and the Americas. As Holy Roman Emperor, Charles
was the nominal ruler of Germany, but his real power there was severely restricted.
His main enemies were the Turks, the French, and the German Lutherans.
Letter to Jerome Nadal 17

Nadal, his right-hand man, scurrying across Europe to negotiate with mon-
archs and leading churchmen and to organize Jesuit communities.14
In March 1536 Suleiman, the Turkish sultan (1520–66), entered into an
alliance with Francis I of France against Charles V. The Turkish fleet operated
out of Toulon in southern France. In January 1550 Henry II of France
(1547–59) wrote the sultan to encourage him to break his truce with Charles.
Three months later it was rumored that French envoys had been sent to Turkey
and Algiers with offers of naval support for a Turkish attack on southern
Spain. From 1551 to 1562 Suleiman was at war with Ferdinand, the brother
of Charles V, who was king of Bohemia and imperial Hungary. In 1552
France entered into an alliance with the German Lutherans and forced
Charles V to flee from Austria to Italy. This war led to the abdication of
Charles V, who then turned over his German territories to Ferdinand in 1556.
The following letter, a very unusual one in Loyola’s correspondence, must be
read against this political background. It presents a grand strategy that urges
Charles to build a fleet of ships for offensive operations in the Mediterranean.
Such an offensive would force the Turks either to seek peace or to spend their
resources in building defenses and stationing garrisons and squadrons along the
enormous length of the Turk-controlled coastline stretching from Greece all the
way to Algiers. This letter, which includes Loyola’s suggestions on how to raise
funds to pay for the fleet, illustrates his ability both to devise grand strategy
and also to attend to the practical details of implementation.]

Rome, August 6, 1552

JESUS
In my former letter, which was more general in scope, I spoke briefly of
how the zeal and charity of our father [Ignatius] were stirred, and how he
also brought the light of reason to bear on the conviction that a large fleet
should and could be prepared.15 In this letter I will carry the argument fur-
ther and show, first, that it ought to be prepared and that it is high time it
was; second, that it can be done at little expense, even less in fact, than what
is now spent by his majesty on maritime affairs.
The reasons I have for thinking it should be done are:
1. God’s honor and glory suffer not a little when from nearly all parts
Christians, great and small, are seized and carried off to live among the

14. Nadal’s life is traced by William Bangert, S.J., and Thomas McCoog, S.J., in
Jerome Nadal, S.J., 1507–1580: Tracing the First Generation of Jesuits (Chicago: Loy-
ola University Press, 1992).
15. The first letter was written the same day and is quite short. It is translated in
Young, Letters of St. Ignatius of Loyola, pp. 260–61.
18 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

infidels, where every day we see many of them denying their faith in Christ
to the great pity of those who retain some zeal for the preservation and ad-
vancement of our holy Catholic faith.
2. The conscience of those who fail in their duty to make suitable provi-
sion is burdened with the loss of so many who from childhood and in every
age become Moors16 and Turks merely from the weariness of their toilsome
slavery and the countless evils they are made to suffer at the hands of the in-
fidels. On the day of judgment our rulers will see whether they should have
held in so little esteem the bodies and souls of so many thousands who are
worth more than all their incomes and honors and patents of nobility, since
for each and every one of them Christ our Lord paid the price of His life’s
blood.
3. Christendom will thus be rid of a great danger from these comings
and goings of the Turks, who up to the present have shown no warlike ac-
tivity at sea. But now they are beginning to learn their lesson and to take
matters into their own hands. Beginning with what little is left of Christen-
dom, they are employing the tactics which enabled them to take Constan-
tinople;17 that is, playing one prince against another, and then taking what
they please from both vanquished and survivor. They are now using this
strategy with France, and there is danger that later they will not only come
when called but will be able to apply pressure on Christian forces both by
land and by sea. This difficulty and those mentioned above will be obviated
if his majesty succeeds with the help of a strong fleet in getting mastery of
the sea.
4. This fleet will be able to free the kingdom of Naples in great measure
of the disturbances and uprisings which, if they had no help from the
Turks, these revolutionaries would have no reasonable hope of carrying
through to success. Not even France could offer them hope of help by sea,
and these rebels would then fear that the fleet would soon be upon them.
And not only would Naples be at peace, but all the rest of Italy and Sicily,
and all the other neighboring islands.
5. When the fleet is strong enough to deprive the king of France of any
hope of Turkish help in creating a costly diversion of your majesty’s forces,
he would understand that it would be better to keep the peace. Even if he
were unwilling to remain within his own frontiers, he would have no op-
portunity of returning to Italy. Being always inferior in sea-power, and

16. The Moors were the Muslim people of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
17. With their excellent heavy cannons, the Turks conquered Constantinople in
1453. By then the Byzantine Empire was largely reduced to a band of territory west
of the city walls.
Letter to Jerome Nadal 19

without any help coming by sea, he would be weaker, and consequently

much more disposed for peace.
6. We should be freed from the losses which the Turks and the pirates are
continually inflicting on all the coasts of Spain and Italy, and elsewhere, to
say nothing of the costs of the garrisons which must be maintained in all
ports, since we never know just where the Turkish fleet will strike.18 How
costly this is can easily be seen in the past two years in the kingdom of
Naples and Sicily and elsewhere. A fleet, being a worldwide wall, would
make these costs unnecessary.
7. The passage from Spain to Italy will be made safe, and it is known how
important this is for the good of these kingdoms in general and for the in-
dividual good of many who have so much to suffer if this path of commu-
nication is broken.
8. If we have a powerful fleet and mastery of the sea, it will be very
easy to recover what we have lost, and much more, on all the coasts of
Africa and even Greece and the islands of the Mediterranean. We can
even get a foothold on lands belonging to the Moors and other infidels,
and open a way to their conquest and ultimate conversion. But without
a fleet even other places of importance to Christendom, such as Tripoli,
will also fall.
9. The reputation and honor of his majesty are involved, a reputation
which must be sustained among the faithful and even the infidel. This will
be vastly improved by a fleet which could seek honor and reputation in for-
eign parts and defend them at home without effort. As it is now, much
credit and authority is lost. Even this authority can be a defense in many
places to one’s nationals even without the backing of arms.
These are the arguments from reason that convince our father [Ignatius]
that a fleet should be raised.
And now for the second part. The following occurs to him as a possible
method of procedure. It is taken for granted that his majesty has no short-
age of man-power, for by God’s grace he is better supplied with men than
any known sovereign in the world. Funds can be raised from various
sources:

18. The great historian Fernand Braudel writes about the situation in 1551: “But
no one knew what the Turkish fleet would do next. Would it sail to Malta, Africa or
Tripoli? Or would it sail westwards to rendezvous with the French galleys? What
would the French do then, wondered Charles V at Augsburg.” The Mediterranean
and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, translated by Sian Reynolds
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), vol. 2, p. 919. The Turks did strike at Malta—
where they took more than five thousand prisoners—and at Tripoli, which they cap-
tured after a short siege. Ibid., pp. 919–20.
20 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

1. An order could be issued that many of the rich Religious Orders in the
estates of his majesty, which could get along with much less than they have,
should provide a good number of galleys; for example, the Hieronymites so
many; the Benedictines, so many; the Carthusians, so many, and so forth.
Among them could be included the abbeys of Sicily and Naples which are
without monks.
2. A second source would be the bishoprics and their chapters and benefi-
ciaries, which taken all together could contribute a large sum of money with
which to equip a good number of ships for the benefit of Christendom.
3. The four Orders of knights which, like that of St. John, are bound by
their institutes to contribute men and money to the fleet against the infi-
del.19 And that all be done in due form, the pope could give permission to
make this levy, or to deal with superiors there in Spain and their other do-
minions, seeing that the universal good of Christendom is at stake.
4. A portion of the money which some of the grandees and nobles of their
kingdoms spend in hunting and feasting and extravagant entertainment
would be most justly used in equipping ships against the infidel and for God’s
glory. If they do not render personal service, they can render the service of their
wealth and possessions. There are resources here for a large number of galleys.
5. Merchants surely among themselves could contribute a sum sufficient
for a good number of galleys or ships, since over and above the good of
Christendom, they stand to reap a benefit for their own interests.
6. The cities and towns of your kingdom and realms, especially those on
the coast which suffer so many losses at the hands of the Turks and Moors
and other pirates, have been robbed of much more than they would lay out
in ships for the fleet to wipe out the robbers. Let them spend on the fleet
what they have been accustomed to spend on defense. This would put an
end to their expenditures and allow them to devote themselves entirely to
their commerce without being worried by thought of defense. A heavier
contribution could be expected from the regions that draw greater profit,
such as Naples and Sicily.
7. Some help could be expected from the king of Portugal, who could
apply to his kingdom this or a similar method for raising a certain number
of galleys and other sailing vessels.

19. During the medieval crusades several religious orders of monk-knights were set
up to fight the Muslims in The Holy Land. Later, four similar orders were set up in
Spain to support crusades against the Muslims in Spain. After the fall of Granada in
1492, the Spanish kings had the pope appoint them superior general of all four or-
ders, largely so they could siphon off the wealth of the orders for government needs.
In 1522 Suleiman drove the Knights of St. John from Rhodes. Charles V gave them
the island of Malta in 1530, after which they were known as the Knights of Malta.
Letter to João Nunes Barreto 21

8. There are the dukedoms. Genoa could provide a few galleys; Lucca
and Siena will always help, now that Venice cannot.20
9. The duke of Florence,21 who will reap some advantage over and above
the general good to Christendom, might be able to help in some such way
as was suggested for the king of Portugal, and from ecclesiastical and secu-
lar sources, as was pointed out above.
10. Some help could and should come from the pope and the states of
the Church, if God will inspire them. If not, they will at least allow what
has been outlined above, and this will be no small contribution.
From this you will see, dear father, what suggests itself to our father [Ig-
natius] as he examines the situation in the light of reason. Apart from what
the emperor himself could contribute from his own income, which is large, it
seems that from these ten sources enough could be collected to maintain a
large fleet. And with the help also of the royal exchequer it seems that without
much strain more than two hundred ships could be provided and main-
tained, and even three hundred, if necessary. The larger number of them, or
nearly all of them, could be galleys. A great benefit would accrue to what is
left of Christendom. It is hoped she could in this way even extend her bound-
aries, whereas now we see them dwindling and suffering considerable loss.
Give some thought to this and tell me what you think. If others, who
could do so more properly, do not speak out, it might be that one of the
poor members of the Society of Jesus should undertake to do so.
May God, who is eternal wisdom, grant to His majesty and to all of us
the light to know His most holy will in all things and grace perfectly to ful-
fill it.

Letter to João Nunes Barreto, Patriarch of Ethiopia22

[The fastest-growing province in the early years of the Jesuit Order was Portu-
gal, where King John III (1521–57) gave the Jesuits warm support and finan-
cial aid. The Portuguese had already built an empire that included Brazil;
trading posts and naval bases in Angola, Mozambique, Goa, and southern
India; and parts of Malaysia and modern Indonesia.

20. Genoa, Lucca, and Siena were Italian city-states allied with Charles V. Though
Venice usually had the strongest Christian fleet in the Mediterranean, her fleet was
badly beaten by the Turks in the battle of Prevesa in 1538. Venice had to pay the
Turks a heavy indemnity and thereafter sought good relations with them for com-
mercial reasons.
21. The Medici duke of Florence was an ally of Charles V.
22. This letter is also from Young, Letters of Ignatius of Loyola, pp. 381–90. Used
with the permission of the press.
22 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

Beginning in the fourth century, the patriarchs of Alexandria sent Egyptian

missionaries down the Nile; these missionaries gradually converted most
Ethiopians to Christianity. The liturgy and theology of the Ethiopians were
largely borrowed from the Coptic church of Egypt, and for centuries the patri-
archs of Alexandria appointed the patriarchs of Ethiopia. In 1520 the Por-
tuguese sent an embassy to the king of Ethiopia to seek an alliance with the
Christian Ethiopians against their common Muslim enemies. This embassy ac-
complished very little, however, and in 1528 Ethiopian Muslims, with Turkish
help, launched a decade-long attack on Ethiopia that conquered much of the
country. In 1541 a Portuguese expeditionary force with muskets and cannons
helped the Christian Ethiopian King Claudius (1540–59) defeat the invaders
and drive them back. Claudius then wrote to King John III of Portugal to re-
quest more military aid and to proclaim the pope head of the universal church.
Loyola saw this request as a marvelous opportunity to gain a Jesuit foothold in
Black Africa. Pope Paul III and John III encouraged his hopes. Three Jesuits
were consecrated bishops: João Nunes Barreto (c. 1519–71) as patriarch of
Ethiopia and André de Oviedo (1518–77) and Melchior Carneyro (1516–
83) as his coadjutors or assistant bishops. The three bishops and twelve other
Jesuit missionaries sailed from Lisbon for India and then on to East Africa.
The letter that follows contains Loyola’s instructions for their work.
The mission of Barreto and his companions was an almost total failure.
Claudius’ proclamation that the pope was head of the universal church was
simply a ploy to get Portuguese military aid. Barreto himself never reached
Ethiopia. He sailed to Goa in India with the Portuguese ambassador to
Ethiopia in 1556; there they learned that Claudius was becoming increasingly
hostile to Catholicism. The Portuguese viceroy in Goa discouraged them from
going to Africa. Oviedo, one of the two coadjutor bishops, and five other Jesuits
were sent on to Ethiopia where they found Claudius polite but unhelpful. After
leaving Claudius’ court in 1559, Oviedo wrote a scathing letter denouncing
Claudius and discouraging Rome from dealing with the schismatic Ethiopian
church. Claudius, meanwhile, was killed in battle against the Muslims.
Minas, his successor, forbade the Jesuits to preach and confiscated their
churches. Barreto died in Goa in 1571. Oviedo remained in Ethiopia where
he ministered to the Portuguese until his death in 1577.23
Aside from the mission’s failure, Loyola’s letter of instruction shows that he
was flexible toward many Jewish practices retained by the Ethiopian Christians
and felt that such minor local abuses as excessive fasting and corporal austerity
should be tolerated but gradually corrected. Loyola wanted the missionaries to

23. The background here for Loyola’s letter is taken from Philip Caraman, The Lost
Empire: The Story of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, 1555–1634 (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1985), pp. 11–5.
Letter to João Nunes Barreto 23

take advantage of the Ethiopian penchant for splendid ceremonies and vest-
ments. He also wanted to help the Ethiopian people by importing European
bridge builders and doctors and looked forward to opening Jesuit schools, per-
haps even colleges and a university. His hopes anticipated actual developments
in Black Africa by more than three centuries.
In his letter Loyola refers to the Ethiopian King Claudius as Prester John and
shows considerable knowledge of the customs of Ethiopian Christians. Loyola had
read True Relation of the Lands of Prester John, a book published by Francisco
Alvarez in 1540. Alvarez had been chaplain to the Portuguese ambassador to
Ethiopia and had lived there from 1520 to 1526. He named the Ethiopian king
Prester John, and Loyola followed his practice. Loyola also had several conversa-
tions with an Ethiopian monk who had been living in Rome since 1540.24]

Rome, Circa February 20, 1555

JESUS
Some suggestions which may help to bring the kingdoms of Prester John25
into union with the Catholic faith and Church.
Since, humanly speaking, the principal factor in this undertaking will be
found primarily in Prester John, king of Ethiopia, and secondarily in the
people, a few suggestions will be offered which may be of help in winning
over Prester John. They will be followed by others which may help in deal-
ing with the people and Prester John conjointly.
For the king
Besides the bulls which the pope addresses to him, the briefs which are writ-
ten him from here will afford some help in winning over the heart of Prester
John.26 They recall to mind the submission which his father David sent to
the Holy See and contain certain recommendations of those who are sent
and accredited to him. They also make other friendly advances. But the
principal and final help, after that of God our Lord, for winning the heart of
Prester John must come from the king [of Portugal]. Not merely letters from
his highness, but, if he will agree to it, a special ambassador will be required,

24. Ibid., pp. 7–15.

25. Prester John was the name given to a legendary medieval Christian ruler in Asia
or Africa. Medieval Christians hoped they could join forces with him. Gradually
these hopes focused on Ethiopia, a country with Christian roots dating to the
fourth century. The Portuguese sent several hundred troops to help the Ethiopians
fight Muslim invaders, who were encouraged by the Turks.
26. Bulls were formal major documents issued by the pope; briefs were less impor-
tant letters of the pope.
24 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

who on the part of the king will call on Prester John and present the patri-
arch, the coadjutor bishops, and the other priests, and explain the order that
will be followed, so that it will be no longer necessary to take patriarchs from
Moorish lands or from schismatic Christians. The more solemnly this pres-
entation is made on the part of his highness [the king of Portugal], the more
authority it seems the patriarch will have for God’s service.
It might be good to see whether his highness thinks that some presents
should be sent, especially of things that are held in esteem in Ethiopia; and
in offering them he could indicate that a true union of friendship will exist
among Christian princes when they all hold the one religion. When this is
recognized, he could send him every kind of official he desired, and God
will give him the grace to overcome the Moors, so far as this will be for
God’s greater service.
Some letters from the king to individuals will also be of help, especially
to those who are closer to Prester John and with whom he consults and
whom he holds in esteem, notably the Portuguese. Other letters, if the king
agrees, could be brought unaddressed, the proper addresses being supplied
in Ethiopia. But whether by letter or otherwise an effort should be made to
make such men friendly.
The [Portuguese] viceroy of India likewise could do much to add to the
authority of the patriarch with Prester John, by letter or a personal repre-
sentative, if the king does not send one.
The patriarch and those with him should try to be on familiar terms with
Prester John and gain his good will by every honorable means. Should he be
receptive and the opportunity present itself, give him to understand that
there is no hope of salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church, and
whatever she determines about faith or morals must be believed if one is to
be saved. If you succeed in convincing Prester John of this general truth,
you have already gained many particular points which depend on this fun-
damental truth and which can little by little be deduced from it.
If you can win over men of influence who have great weight with Prester
John, or, on the other hand, if you can get him to make the [Spiritual] Ex-
ercises and give him a taste for prayer and meditation and spiritual things,
this will be the most efficacious means of all to get them to think less of and
even to abandon the extreme views which they entertain concerning mate-
rial things.
Remember that the Ethiopians have a prophecy to the effect that in these
times a king from this part of the West (apparently they have no other in
mind than the king of Portugal) is destined to destroy the Moors. This is an
additional reason for a closer friendship with him, and this in turn will be
recommended by a closer uniformity. For if there is no opposition in the
matter of religion, there will be a closer union of love between them.
Letter to João Nunes Barreto 25

You should also remember that up to this [time] Prester John holds both
ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction. Consider whether it would be good to
let him know that kings and great princes of the Catholic Church usually
have the right of presentation to important positions, but that the actual
conferring of the dignity is done by the supreme pontiff and by bishops,
archbishops, and patriarchs in their respective spheres of authority. Con-
forming himself in this matter with the Roman Church and her princes
could be of much help to him.27
Take along with you the amplest faculties and see that you are able to ex-
plain them. The exterior appearance of the bulls or briefs should be as beau-
tiful to the eye as possible. It will be all the better if they are translated into
Abyssinian.
To the best of your ability you should have ready the proofs for the dog-
mas against which they err,28 with the definition of the Apostolic See or the
councils when there is any. For if they can be brought to admit this one
truth, that the Holy See cannot err when it speaks ex cathedra29 on matters
of faith and morals, it will be easy to convince them of the others. You
should be well prepared, therefore, to prove this thesis and you should ap-
proach this matter in a way that is accommodated to those people, or the
understanding of anyone.
Concerning the abuses which exist, first try to bring over Prester John
and a few individuals of wider influence, and then, without making a fuss
over it once these are disposed of, see what can be done about calling a
meeting of those in the kingdom who are held in high esteem for their
learning. Without taking away from them anything in which they are par-
ticularly interested or which they especially value, try to get them to accept
the truths of Catholicism and all that must be held in the Church, and en-
courage them to try to help the people to come to some agreement with the
Roman Catholic Church.
After having removed the more substantial abuses—those which are in con-
flict with a sincere belief, such as the obligatory observance of the Old Law—
it would be better to begin, with the support of Prester John, to remove or

27. At this time the kings of Portugal, Spain, and France had effective control of
choosing the bishops in their countries.
28. The Coptic church in Egypt and its daughter church in Ethiopia adhered to
Monophysite teachings on the relationship of the divine and human natures in
Christ. These teachings were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and the mainstream Protestants of Loyola’s
time all agreed with the council.
29. Ex cathedra statements (meaning “from the chair of St. Peter”) are the most for-
mal papal declarations and claim to be infallible. They are issued only very rarely.
26 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

lessen other abuses if it can be done. If this cannot be done, try at least to make
it as plain as possible that there can be no obligation to observe such practices
and that, even though they are tolerated, it would be better not to observe
them. In this way they will lapse, especially if some of the leading men can be
induced to give the example.
The austerities which they practice in their feasts and other corporal
penances might be gently moderated, it seems, and brought within a mea-
sure of discretion. This could be done in four ways. The first would be to
quote the testimony of Holy Scripture, to praise spiritual exercises over
those that are corporal, since these latter are but of little avail [1 Tim. 4:8].
But you should not withdraw your approval from external exercises, which
are necessary up to a certain point. Thus if they lose that esteem for things
which they now hold in honor, these things will fall of their own weight,
since they are rather repugnant to the flesh anyway. The second is rather to
praise and prefer a golden mean to its extremes. The third means is taken
from reason, which will convince them that it is against charity and the
common good so to weaken themselves for good works by their fasting that
their enemies invade their lands and put them to the sword, with so many
offenses against God our Lord. This is an argument which will readily ap-
peal to Prester John, and others too who have more than ordinary intelli-
gence. The fourth means is that of example, which could be given by some
of those whom they regard as holy, once you convince them that they
should so act for God’s greater service. It is quite likely that they will do so.
Observe too that God calls some individuals to a life of penance and aus-
terity; and when He does, praise what they do in this matter. But in general
a measure of discretion is necessary if such austerities are to be praised.
Perhaps some exterior feasts would be a great help in getting rid of cer-
tain abuses. I am thinking of Corpus Christi processions and others which
are in use in the Catholic Church. These would replace their [annual] bap-
tisms, and so forth. Our own people, who are not so coarse, are helped by
these feasts.30
Be very careful that public services such as Mass and Vespers are con-
ducted in a way that will be edifying to the people. The recitation should be

30. The Ethiopians enjoyed elaborate religious ceremonies, some of which the Je-
suits found objectionable. Here Loyola recognizes that the abolition of all such cere-
monies would be met with resistance and that it would be better to replace them
with similar ceremonies popular in Catholic Europe, such as that held on the Feast
of Corpus Christi. In this ceremony, some sixty days after Easter, a priest in elabo-
rate garments accompanied by a squad of altar boys and hundreds of people would
march through town holding high the Eucharist in a golden container for all the
spectators to see.
Letter to João Nunes Barreto 27

slow and distinct, since they do the opposite, and think that our way is
more perfect. If the king approves having a choir with organ, this might be
a help in the beginning. But let them be in charge of some non-Jesuits, as it
is foreign to our rules.
Vestments of priest, deacon, and subdeacon, altar ornaments, chalices,
altar stones, and equipment for making hosts ought to be of the best quality.
Try to get them into the habit of making hosts for the Blessed Sacrament as
they are made here. In bringing them to Communion let them know that
confession should precede, and that Communion is not distributed any day
one comes to the church. In the case of the sick who cannot come to the
church, see that the Blessed Sacrament is brought to their homes.
It would be good to instruct them in the ceremonies of baptism. It must
be conferred but once and not many times, accustomed as they are to bap-
tize every year.
As they have never made use of confirmation, it ought to be adminis-
tered to all the people after they have been prepared for the sacrament. You
should also introduce the practice of extreme unction,31 as they know noth-
ing about it here.
At first you could hear the confessions of those who can understand you.
For the others, it would be good for you to bend your efforts to learn the
Abyssinian language. The confessors they have among them could be in-
structed in the proper procedure by means of interpreters. They should be
told of reserved cases, which are restricted to bishops and patriarchs; and
very severe penalties should be meted out to confessors who reveal matter
of confession, something which they say is done there. Lastly, see that the
abuses regarding these sacraments are diligently corrected.
With regard to holy orders, some reform is necessary with respect to age,
integrity, competence, and other aspects in the candidate for orders, as far
as circumstances which prevail there permit.
As to matrimony, and generally speaking the same must be said of all the
sacraments, give heed to the form which must be observed. Ceremonies can
be introduced gradually, in the measure in which they contribute to greater
edification. These exterior rites should not be few in number, considering
that the people are much given to ceremonies.
It would be a great help for the complete conversion of those lands, both
at the beginning and throughout the rest of the time, to open a large num-
ber of elementary schools there, and secondary schools and colleges, for the
education of young men, and even of others who may need it, in Latin and
in Christian faith and morals. This would be the salvation of that nation.

31. Extreme unction is the sacrament of anointing the seriously sick and those
close to death.
28 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

For when these youngsters grow up, they would be attached to what they
have learned in the beginning and to that in which they seem to excel their
elders. Before long the errors and abuses of the aged would lapse and be
forgotten. If it appears hard to the people of that kingdom, habituated as
they are to their old ways, to see their children properly trained, think
about the advisability of Prester John’s sending abroad a large number of
those who have talent. A college could be opened in Goa and, if circum-
stances called for it, another in Coimbra, another in Rome, another in
Cyprus, on the opposite side of the sea.32 Then, armed with sound Catho-
lic teaching, they could return to their lands and help their fellow country-
men. If they came to love the practices of the Latin Church, they would be
all the more firmly grounded in her ways.
The patriarch could, by himself or through an interpreter or someone
else, begin to give discourses and exhortations to the people within the lim-
its of their capacity. The bishops and others could do likewise. Teaching the
catechism in many different places by good teachers would also be of great
importance.
Those among the native population who excel in talent and exercise
some influence by reason of their good lives should be won over by making
much of them. They could be given some ecclesiastical revenues and digni-
ties, but only under the probability that they would turn out to be faithful
ministers. You could even have some of these preach.
Some Portuguese who are acquainted with the Abyssinian language
would be good as interpreters, should any of our [Jesuits] preach, and for
conferences, after the manner of the Abyssinian preachers. Some could even
be brought from Goa or other parts of India; and if there were children’s
catechism classes in India, they could serve as a beginning for a children’s
school in the kingdom of Prester John. This would seem to be very much to
the point.
Take thought of beginning in the course of time some universities or lib-
eral arts courses.
Consider the abuses or disorders which can be corrected gently and in a
way that will give the people of the country a chance to see that a reform
was necessary, and that it begins with them. This will furnish you with au-
thority for the reform of other abuses.
Since Ours33 have to lessen the esteem for corporal penance which the
Abyssinians have, in the use of which they go to extremes, set before them

32. Goa was the Portuguese headquarters in India; Coimbra was the most impor-
tant university town in Portugal; the island of Cyprus was a Venetian possession in
the eastern Mediterranean.
33. The Jesuits used the term Ours to refer to fellow Jesuits.
Letter to João Nunes Barreto 29

charity in word and example. To this end it would be good to establish hos-
pitals where pilgrims and the sick, curable and incurable, could be gath-
ered, to give and cause others to give public and private alms to the poor, to
arrange for the marriage of young girls, and to establish confraternities for
the redemption of captives34 and the care of exposed children of both sexes.
They would thus see that there are better works than their fasts. It seems
that Prester John, who is generous with his alms, should if possible have a
finger in all these pious works.
In works of spiritual mercy also the people of the country should behold
in you a tender solicitude for souls. This would be shown in teaching them
virtue and their letters, all of which should be done without charge and for
the love of Christ. These works should be praised in sermons and conversa-
tions and supported with texts from Holy Scripture and the example and
sayings of the saints, as we indicated above.
Although you are ever intent on bringing them to conformity with the
Catholic Church, do everything gently, without any violence to souls long
accustomed to another way of life. Try to win their love and their respect
for your authority, preserving their esteem of learning and virtue, without
harm to your humility, so that they will be helped in proportion as they es-
teem those by whom they are to be helped.
Take along some good books, especially pontificals,35 and others which
explain the external rites of the Church, such as decrees of the Apostolic
See and the councils with which they have to be made acquainted. They
should know the number of bishops attending the councils (in Ethiopia
much importance is attached to this point), and all this will be a very effi-
cient help.
You should also take along some lives of the saints, and be well ac-
quainted with them, especially the life of Christ our Lord and His miracles,
for the reason given. You should have some calendars of the feasts. And
lastly, it would be good for you to be well-versed in matters ecclesiastical,
even the smallest items, because it is a branch of learning which they best
understand there, and they have for this reason a higher esteem for it than
for other branches that are more subtle, of which they understand nothing.
It will also be a help for you to go well supplied with church ornaments for
the altars, and vestments for priests, deacons, subdeacons, and acolytes;
chalices, crosses, vessels for holy water, and other items which are used in
external worship.

34. Confraternities for the redemption of captives were organizations of lay

Catholics dedicated to raising the funds necessary to buy back Christians captured
and enslaved by Muslims.
35. Pontificals were books of rules for celebrating Mass and other liturgical events.
30 Writings of Ignatius of Loyola

You might think over and suggest to his highness in Portugal whether it
would be a good idea to send along with you some men of practical genius to
give the natives instructions on the making of bridges, when they have to
cross rivers, on building, cultivating the land, and fishing. And other officials
too, even a physician or surgeon, so that it may appear to the Abyssinians that
their total good, even bodily good, is coming to them with their religion.
You should think also of the propriety of taking along with you a few
well-chosen books on law and civil relations, so that they may have a
sounder policy in their government and in the administration of justice.
Think also of the advisability of taking along some relics of the saints for
the devotion of the people.
Recall that, according to their prophecies or traditions, their patriarchs
were expected to come from Rome after a hundred had come from Alexan-
dria. The Alexandrian line ended in Abimamarco, and so they received a
pseudopatriarch who went to them in the name of the Apostolic See.36 It
would appear, therefore, that they are ready to give a good reception to the
patriarch and, consequently, to his teaching. Be sure that you are informed
in every respect of all that is known of the history of those kingdoms. It will
be good to know this, for it will protect you from dangers and enable you
to give greater help to the people.
Consider whether it would be well if the patriarch were able to dispose of
abbeys and other revenues which become vacant, as a reward for the good
ministers among them.
The bishops should set aside all pomp and circumstance and, as far as
possible, personally discharge the office of pastors. They and their assistants
should avoid all appearance of avarice.
The patriarch should have his council, which he should consult on mat-
ters of importance. After hearing their opinions he should come to a deci-
sion. The council should consist of four, and for the present among them
shall be the two coadjutor bishops. As a rule they should live together,

36. For centuries the Ethiopians received their patriarchs or head bishop from the
Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. The last of the Coptic patriarchs (or Abuna, as the
head of the Ethiopian church was called) was named Marqos; Loyola calls him Abi-
mamarco. He was more than one hundred years old when, in 1538, he consecrated
as his successor João Bermudes, a Portuguese physician. Bermudes, who had come
to Ethiopia in 1520 with the Portuguese ambassador, remained there when the am-
bassador returned home in 1526. Bermudes took for himself the title papal legate.
Although the pope refused to recognize the validity of Bermudes’ consecration as
bishop, the Portuguese king did recognize him as patriarch. Later Bermudes worked
to turn King Claudius away from union with the Catholic Church, not least be-
cause such a union could result in Barreto’s replacing him as patriarch. Caraman,
The Lost Empire, pp. 7–9.
Letter to João Nunes Barreto 31

except for temporary separations which may be required by some affair of

importance, especially in the beginning. If one happens to be absent for a
short time, the three, together with the patriarch, ought to choose another
in his place.
If one of the four chosen in Portugal should die or be necessarily absent,
the patriarch and the others of the Society [of Jesus] who were sent with
him ought to choose as a substitute him who receives the largest number of
votes.
Once the dioceses are set up, consider who of the natives would be suit-
able as bishops and archbishops. If there are any such, they could be conse-
crated. But if there is none, write to the king of Portugal and to Rome for
others to be sent from here.
It also seems good to set up benefices for priests, and give them to per-
sons of good lives and sound learning, as far as possible. Revenues should
be assigned and conferred by the election of the bishops with the approval
of the patriarch.
You will have to be very expert if you are going to neutralize the author-
ity of the Book of Abtilis,37 which, so they say, contains the canons of the
apostles. It is the source of their abuses and excesses, and because they look
upon it as part of the canonical Scriptures, from which there can be no dis-
pensation, their errors, up to the present, have been as it were irremediable.
Consider whether it would not be better to eat apart by yourselves. The
people, being much given to fasting, do not ordinarily eat before night.
This will avoid giving them a bad example or making them suffer.
The churches of canons should be visited and also the monasteries of
both monks and nuns. Find out what is in need of reform and make what
provisions are possible.
Everything set down here will serve as directive; the patriarch should not
feel obliged to act in conformity with it; rather [he should follow] whatever
will be dictated by a discreet charity, considering existing circumstances and
the unction of the Holy Spirit, who must direct him in everything. Thus
with your own prayers, with those of the whole Society and the faithful
everywhere, we must urge our petitions before the throne of God’s kindness
and goodness, so that, having compassion on these nations, He will deign
to lead them back to the unity of His holy Church and the true religion and
the way of salvation for their souls, to His honor and glory.

37. This book (entitled Faith of the Fathers), originally written in Arabic and trans-
lated into Ethiopic, was a collection of quotations from theologians running from
the second century to the 11th century. Though it enjoyed great prestige among the
Ethiopians, some of its contents opposed Catholic teaching and practice.
 CHAPTER 2

JESUIT EDUCATION

Introduction

Loyola and his companions did not originally plan to become involved in
education or teaching. After their efforts to go to Jerusalem collapsed, they
assumed that they would primarily be preaching, administering the sacra-
ments of confession and Communion, and directing people who were
making the Spiritual Exercises. But new members of the Order often re-
quired long spiritual and intellectual training. Initially these new members,
primarily young men, attended classes at such well-established universities
as those in Paris and Padua while living in Jesuit residence halls (which were
called “colleges”). These Jesuit residences offered only a few supplementary
courses in philosophy and in the classical languages and literature. Duke
Francis Borgia (1510–72), who greatly admired the Jesuits, established a
seminary for young members of the Order on his estates at Gandia in
Spain. Jesuits taught lay students for the first time in Europe at Gandia,
where the sons of the local farmers were allowed to attend some classes.
The first real Jesuit college for lay students opened in 1548 at Messina
in Sicily, thanks in large part to the support of the Spanish viceroy, Juan de
Vega. Seizing the opportunity, Loyola sent a crack team of Jesuits to get
the school off to a strong start. After seeing the Jesuits’ success at Messina,
other Sicilian towns asked for Jesuit colleges of their own. Then many Ital-
ian cities requested such schools. By 1615 there were 372 Jesuit colleges
worldwide, and the number kept growing. The new schools emphasized a
curriculum patterned partly on that of the University of Paris and partly
on that pioneered by Renaissance humanists—though with more empha-
sis on religious content and practice than was found in either of these
sources.
The first document in this chapter is a letter composed in 1551 by Juan
Polanco under Loyola’s direction. The letter was sent to Father Antonio
Araoz (1516–73), who was canvassing possible locations for colleges in
Spain; in the letter, Loyola reflects on the benefits that Jesuit colleges could
bring to the Jesuits themselves, their students, and the local communities.
He also suggests guidelines for student behavior.

32
Letter from Juan Polanco to Antonio Araoz 33

In the next document in this chapter, a selection from the Jesuit Constitu-
tions, Loyola lays out his regulations for colleges. In composing these regula-
tions, Loyola drew on several years of actual experience in administering to,
and teaching at, Jesuit colleges. He insisted that the early Jesuit schools should
not charge tuition. Sometimes wealthy benefactors, such as Francis Borgia,
funded the schools; sometimes town governments covered the school’s ex-
penses, as they did in Messina. The main benefactor of Jesuit schools in Portu-
gal was King John III (1521–57). Then as now, the colleges had to carefully
cultivate their benefactors, a point touched on by the letters printed here.
The new Jesuit schools faced considerable opposition. Much secondary
education in Renaissance Europe was offered in small schools with only one
schoolmaster. Such schools could hardly compete with the Jesuit institu-
tions, which were bigger, better organized, and tuition free. When Jesuit
schools began to lure students away from these smaller schools many school-
masters were forced to leave the cities and set up shop in small towns where
there were no Jesuit colleges. Major universities also resented the competi-
tion they faced from the Jesuit colleges, which were soon offering advanced
courses in areas where the universities felt they had a legal monopoly. Some-
times professors encouraged their students to disrupt the Jesuit schools. In
January 1591 university students at Padua invaded the city’s Jesuit class-
rooms, shouted down the teachers, stripped, and marched naked back to the
university. Sometimes the universities appealed to government officials to
step in and reduce the number of courses offered by the Jesuits. Between
1591 and 1596, the three most prestigious universities in Catholic Eu-
rope—those in Padua, Louvain, and Paris—forced the Jesuit colleges in
their cities either to close completely or to cancel their advanced courses.
The third document in this chapter traces the first eight years of the pio-
neer Jesuit college at Messina. One of the most popular of the student ac-
tivities at Jesuit schools was the enactment of plays written by the Jesuit
teachers. The last document in this chapter contains several scenes from
one of the thousands of such plays that have survived.

Letter from Juan Polanco to Antonio Araoz

on Jesuit Schools1
[Loyola commissioned his secretary Juan Polanco to write the following letter to
Father Antonio Araoz, the Jesuit superior in Spain, to encourage Araoz’s efforts

1. This letter of Polanco to Araoz is reprinted with the permission of the publisher
from Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, edited by George
Ganss, S.J., et al. (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1991), pp. 361–65.
34 Jesuit Education

to set up Jesuit colleges there. In this letter, Polanco explains in detail how the
schools could be financed and the advantages the Jesuits, their students, and the
towns might gain from the new schools.]

Rome, December 1, 1551

The Peace of Christ. Seeing that God our Lord is moving his servants in
your region as well as here to start a number of colleges of this Society, our
Father [Ignatius] has thought it good to provide counsel about the proce-
dure and advantages which have been learned through experience regarding
the colleges here (for those of the colleges there are already well known). He
wants this to be fully studied, so that, as far as the matter is in our hand,
nothing may be left undone for God’s greater service and the aid of our
neighbors.
[1. The Procedure for Founding and Endowing a College]
The manner or method employed in founding a college is this. A city
(like Messina and Palermo in Sicily), or a ruler (like the King of the Ro-
mans2 and the dukes of Ferrara and Florence), a private individual (like the
prior of the Trinità in Venice and Padua3), or a group of persons (as in
Naples, Bologna, and elsewhere) provide an annual sum of money—some
of them in perpetuity from the beginning, others not until they can test and
verify the value of this work.
A suitable building is procured, two or three priests of very solid doctrine
are sent, along with some of our own [Jesuit] students, who, in addition to
pursuing their own education, can aid that of other students and, through
their good example, personal contact, and learning, help them in virtue and
spiritual progress.
[2. The Steps in Opening a College]
The procedure in such places is this. At the beginning three or four
teachers in humane letters are appointed. One of the teachers starts off with
elementary grammar, accommodating himself to beginners; another is as-
signed to those on an intermediate level, another for those more advanced
in grammar. A different teacher is assigned to the students of the humani-
ties who are further along in the Latin, Greek, and—if there is an inclina-
tion for it—Hebrew languages.

2. Ferdinand I, who ruled Austria in the name of Charles V, was given the title King
of the Romans; this title indicated that he was to become Holy Roman Emperor on
the death or abdication of Charles V.
3. Andrea Lippomano was prior of the Trinità monastery from which he drew
funds to support the Jesuits in Venetian territory.
Letter from Juan Polanco to Antonio Araoz 35

When the school has been advertised, all who wish are admitted free and
without receipt of any money or gratuity—that is, all who know how to
read and write and are beginners in [Latin] grammar. However, being
young boys, they must have the approval of their parents or guardians and
observe certain conditions, as follows. They must be under obedience to
their teachers regarding which subjects they study and for how long. They
must go to confession at least once a month. Every Sunday they must at-
tend the class on Christian doctrine [i.e., catechism] given in the college, as
well as the sermon when one is delivered in the church. They must be well
behaved in their speech and in all other matters and be orderly. Where they
fail in this or in their duties, in the case of young boys for whom words do
not suffice, a layman should be a hired as corrector to punish them and
keep them in awe; none of our men is to lay his hand on anyone.
The names of all these pupils are registered. Care is taken not only to
provide class instruction but also to have them do exercises in debating, in
written composition, and in speaking Latin all the time, in such a way that
they will make great progress in letters and virtues alike.
When there is a fair number of students who have acquired a grounding
in humane letters, a person is appointed to inaugurate the course in the arts
[i.e., philosophy]; and when there are a number of students well grounded
in arts, a lecturer is appointed to teach theology—following the method of
Paris,4 with frequent exercises. From that point on, this whole arrangement
is continued. For experience shows that it is inadvisable to begin by teach-
ing arts or theology: lacking a foundation, the students make no progress.
(This plan applies to places where there is a readiness for something more
than humane letters—a readiness that does not always exist. In other places
it is sufficient to teach languages and humane letters.)
Beyond this, the priests in the colleges will aid in hearing confessions,
preaching, and all other spiritual ministrations. In this work the young men
sometimes have grace that equals or exceeds that of the priests, God our
Lord being greatly served thereby.
[3. The Accruing Benefits of Christian Education]
So much for the method. Now I shall mention the advantages which ex-
perience has shown to accrue from colleges of this type for the Society itself,
for the extern [i.e., non-Jesuit] students, and for the people or region where
the college is situated (although this can in part be gathered from what has
already been said).

4. Ignatius of Loyola found that the haphazard courses he took at Spanish universi-
ties were far less effective than the organized sequence of courses he took at the Uni-
versity of Paris. He insisted that students at Jesuit schools follow the Paris model in
which students progressed, step by step, from elementary courses to advanced ones.
36 Jesuit Education

[a. For the Jesuits Who Study or Teach in Such a College]

The advantages for our own men are these.
1. First of all, those who give classes make progress themselves and learn
a great deal by teaching others, acquiring greater confidence and mastery in
their learning.
2. Our own scholastics who attend the lectures will benefit from the
care, persistence, and diligence which the teachers devote to their office.
3. They not only advance in learning but also acquire facility in preach-
ing and teaching catechism, get practice in the other means they will later
use to help their neighbors, and grow in confidence at seeing the spiritual
harvest which God our Lord allows them to see.
4. Although no one may urge the students to enter the Society, particu-
larly when they are young boys, nevertheless through good example and
personal contact, as well as the Latin declamations5 on the virtues held on
Sundays, young men are spontaneously attracted, and many laborers can be
won for the vineyard of Christ our Lord.
So much for the advantages for the Society itself.
[b. For Extern Students]
For extern students who come to take advantage of the classes the bene-
fits are the following.
5. They are given a quite adequate education. Care is taken to ensure
that everyone learns, by means of classes, debates, and compositions, so
that they make great progress in learning.
6. The poor who lack the means to pay the ordinary teachers or private
tutors at home here obtain gratis an education which they could hardly
procure at great expense.
7. They profit in spiritual matters through learning Christian doctrine
and grasping from the sermons and regular exhortations what they need for
their eternal salvation.
8. They make progress in purity of conscience—and consequently in all
virtue—through the monthly confessions and the care taken to see that
they are decent in their speech and virtuous in their entire lives.
9. They draw much greater merit and profit from their studies, since
they learn from the very beginning to make a practice of directing all their
studies to the service of God, as they are taught to do.

5. A declamation was a public oration or address, usually made by students but

sometimes by teachers. Declamations were most often delivered in Latin; some-
times they were delivered in vernacular languages. The audiences for these events
were mainly fellow students and parents; the local elite would attend on more
solemn occasions. Students making declamations would first rehearse with teachers.
Successful performances would bring students as much local prestige as a star ath-
letic performance would today; they also enhanced the school’s reputation.
The Jesuit Constitutions 37

[c. For the Country or Region]

For the inhabitants of the country or region where these colleges are es-
tablished there are in addition the following benefits.
10. Financially, parents are relieved of the expense of having teachers to
instruct their children in letters and virtue.
11. Parents fulfill their duty in conscience regarding their children’s for-
mation. Persons who would have difficulty finding how to pay the teachers
to whom they could entrust their children will find them in these colleges
with complete security.
12. Apart from the schooling, they also have in the colleges persons who
can give sermons to the people and in monasteries and help people through
administration of the sacraments, to quite visible good effect.
13. The inhabitants themselves and the members of their households
will be drawn to spiritual concerns by the good example of their children
and will be attracted to going more often to confession and living Christian
lives.
14. The inhabitants of the region will have in our men persons to in-
spire and aid them in undertaking good works such as hospitals, houses for
reformed women, and the like, for which charity also impels our men to
have a concern.
15. From among those who are at present merely students, in time some
will emerge to play diverse roles—some to preach and carry on the care of
souls, others to the government of the land and the administration of Jus-
tice, and others to other responsible occupations. In short since the chil-
dren of today become the adults of tomorrow, their good formation in life
and learning will benefit many others, with the spiritual profit expanding
more widely every day.
I could elaborate this further. But this will suffice to explain our thinking
here about colleges of this kind.
May Christ, our eternal salvation, guide us all to serve him better. Amen

The Jesuit Constitutions

[Loyola was commissioned by his first companions to write constitutions for

the new Jesuit Order. Partly because he was occupied with his other responsi-
bilities, and partly because he wanted to see how the Jesuit “way of proceed-
ing” worked out in practice before establishing rules that would be hard to
change, Loyola postponed work on the constitutions until 1547. The sections
on education included here illustrate the need to learn by experience. The
early Jesuit colleges mainly enrolled boys from ages ten to twenty and were
roughly parallel, in terms of curriculum, to modern American high schools
and junior colleges.
38 Jesuit Education

Roman college as rebuilt under Gregory XIII (1572–85).

In drafting his rules for Jesuit education, Loyola was strongly influenced by the
scholastic tradition he experienced during his studies at the University of Paris.
But he also borrowed from the humanist scholars of his day, as is evidenced by the
stress Jesuit schools placed on eloquence in writing and speaking Latin, on the
study of Latin and Greek literature, and on the acquisition of some skill in Greek
and Hebrew among advanced students, especially those preparing for the priest-
hood. The scholastic tradition influenced Loyola’s decision to make Aristotle’s
writings central to philosophical studies at Jesuit schools and to make St. Thomas
Aquinas the official Jesuit theologian. But the humanist tradition clearly influ-
enced the role Loyola assigned to classical languages, biblical studies, and the
works of the early Church Fathers, whose writings were more oriented toward
pastoral application than were the treatises of the medieval scholastics.
The Jesuit schools enrolled more students and teachers than most contempo-
rary schools; thus three Jesuits were usually teaching three different levels of
Latin grammar, the most elementary subject at any given school. When a
bright student mastered the material of the first level, he could immediately
move up to the second level; slower students could proceed at their own pace.
The Jesuit Constitutions required that their schools charge no tuition; costs
would be covered by benefactors or city governments.
Loyola insisted that Jesuit schools adhere to strict morality and Catholic or-
thodoxy in the textbooks they used. Thus they avoided the writings of such
Roman poets as Terence and Ovid, due to sexual content. Sometimes risqué
passages were simply expurgated from books assigned in Jesuit classrooms.
The Jesuit Constitutions 39

Though Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), the great Lutheran theologian,

wrote many fine textbooks on grammar and rhetoric that did not contain
Lutheran theology, Loyola still forbade their use lest students acquire a liking
for Melanchthon. The same rule applied to the works of other prominent
Protestant writers, including the writings of the great humanist Desiderius
Erasmus (1466?–1536). The Jesuits wrote their own textbooks instead.
In Part IV, Chapter 16 of the Jesuit Constitutions—the last part of The
Constitutions to address the issue of education—Loyola discusses how Jesuit
schools should inculcate good morals. Students were to attend daily Mass and a
weekly catechism class. Once a week all students were required to listen to a
gifted student from the upper classes give an exhortation on upright living.
Classes began with a prayer. Students who scandalized other students were
warned; they were dismissed from the school if they ignored the warning.]

Part IV: Chapter 13. The method and order

of treating the aforementioned branches.6
[453]. To give such treatment of both the lower branches and also of the-
ology, there should be a suitable arrangement and order both for the morn-
ing and the afternoon.
[454]. And although the order and hours which are spent in these stud-
ies may vary according to the regions and seasons, there should be such
conformity that in every region that is done which is there judged to be
most conducive to greater progress in learning.
[455]. Concerning the hours of the lectures, their order, and their
method, and concerning the exercises both in compositions, which ought
to be corrected by the teachers, and in disputations within all the faculties,
and in delivering orations and reading verses in public—all this will be
treated in detail in a separate treatise, [approved by the general]. This pres-
ent constitution refers the reader to it, with the remark that it ought to be
adapted to places, times, and persons, even though it would be desirable to
reach that order as far as this is possible.
[456]. Furthermore, there should be not only lectures which are deliv-
ered in public but also different masters according to the capacity and num-
ber of the students. These masters should take an interest in the progress of

6. The translation used here is from The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, edited
by George Ganss, S.J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), pp. 215–25,
used with the permission of the Institute of Jesuit Sources. The paragraph numbers,
for example [453], are standard in modern editions of The Constitutions. Here
branches refers to the level of a class, such as our freshmen, sophomores, etc.
40 Jesuit Education

each one of their students, require them to give an account of their lessons,
and make them hold repetitions. They should also make those who are
studying humane letters gain practice by ordinarily speaking Latin, and by
composing in a good style and delivering well what they have composed.
They, and much more those studying the higher branches, should engage
in disputations often. Days and hours should be designated for this; and in
these disputations the students should debate not only with the members of
their own class, but those who are somewhat lower down should dispute
about matters they understand with students who are more advanced, and
conversely those who are more advanced should debate with those lower
down by coming down to subjects which these latter are studying. The pro-
fessors too ought to hold disputations with one another, always preserving
the proper modesty and having someone preside to stop the debate and give
the doctrinal solution.
[457]. Ordinarily, there will be three teachers in three different classes of
grammar, another who is to lecture on humanities, and another on rheto-
ric. In the class of these last two groups there will be lectures on the Greek
and Hebrew languages, and on any other [language] if it is to be learned. In
consequence of this arrangement there will always be five classes. If there
should be so much to do in some of them that one teacher alone does not
suffice, a helper should be given to him. If the number of students makes it
impossible for one teacher to attend to them even though he has helpers,
the class can be divided into two sections so that there are two fifth classes
or two fourth classes; and all the teachers, if possible, should be members of
the Society, although there may be others according to necessity. If the
small number or the arrangement of the students is such that so many
classes or teachers are not required, discretion will be used in everything to
adjust the number by assigning those who suffice and no more.
[458]. Whether in addition to the ordinary masters who have special care
of the students there ought to be one or more teachers who in the capacity
of public lecturers give lectures on philosophy or mathematics or some
other branch with greater solemnity than the ordinary lecturers, prudence
will decide, in accordance with the places and persons involved. But the
greater edification and service of God our Lord will always be kept in view.
[459]. There will be repetitions not merely of the last lesson, but also of
those of the week and of a longer time when it is judged that this ought to
be the case.
[460]. Likewise, it will always be the function of the rector to see to it
himself or through the chancellor that the newcomers are examined and
placed in those classes and with those teachers that are suitable for them.
The Jesuit Constitutions 41

Furthermore, it is left to his discretion (after he has heard the counsel of

those deputed for this purpose) to decide whether they ought to be retained
longer in the same class or to advance into another. So too in regard to the
study of the languages other than Latin, he is to determine whether it
should precede the arts and theology or follow them, and how long each
should study these languages. The same holds true for the other higher
branches. According to the difference of abilities, ages, and other circum-
stances that must be considered, it will be the rector’s function to investi-
gate how far each student should progress into these branches and how long
he should apply himself to them, although it is better for those who have
the age and ability to advance and distinguish themselves in all these areas
for the glory of God our Lord. . . .
[462]. Just as steady application is necessary in the work of studying, so
also is some relaxation. The proper amount and the times of this relaxation
will be left to the prudent consideration of the rector to determine, accord-
ing to the circumstances of persons and places.
[463]. At least one day during the week should be given to rest from din-
ner on. On other points the rector should consult with the provincial7
about the order to be observed in regard to the vacations or ordinary inter-
ruptions of the studies.

Chapter 14. The books which should be expounded.

[464]. In general, as was stated in the treatise on the colleges, in each fac-
ulty those books will be lectured on which are found to contain more solid
and safe doctrine; and those which are suspect, or whose authors are sus-
pect, will not be taken up. But in each university these should be individu-
ally designated.
In theology there should be lectures on the Old and New Testaments and
on the scholastic doctrine of St. Thomas [Aquinas]; and in positive theol-
ogy those authors should be selected who are more suitable for our end.
[465]. Even though the book is without suspicion of bad doctrine, when
its author is suspect it is not expedient that it be lectured on. For through
the book, affection is acquired for the author; and some part of the cre-
dence given to him in what he says well could be given to him later in what

7. Within the Jesuit Order there were usually three levels of superiors: the general,
who had charge of the whole Society and resided in Rome; the provincial, who had
charge of a whole country (e.g., Portugal) or a large region of a country with many
Jesuits (e.g., Spain); and the rector, who had charge of a local community.
42 Jesuit Education

he says un-soundly. Furthermore, it rarely occurs that some poison is not

mixed into what comes forth from a heart full of it.
[466]. The Master of the Sentences8 will also be lectured on. But if in
time it seems that the students will draw more help from another author, as
would be the case through the writing of some compendium or book of
scholastic theology that seems better adapted to these times of ours, it will
be permitted to make this book the subject of the lectures, after much
weighing of counsel and examination of the matter by the persons deemed
fit in the whole Society and with the superior general’s approval. In regard
to the other branches and humane letters too, if some books written in the
Society are adopted as being more useful than those commonly used, this
adoption will be made after much consideration, with our objective of
greater universal good always kept in view.
[467]. For example, in connection with some section of canon law, the
councils, and so on.
[468]. In regard to the books of humane letters in Latin or Greek, in the
universities as well as in the colleges, lecturing to the adolescents on any
book which contains matters harmful to good habits of conduct should be
avoided, as far as possible, unless the books are previously expurgated of the
objectionable matters and words.
[469]. If some books, such as Terence,9 cannot be expurgated at all, it is
better that they should not be lectured on, in order that the nature of the
contents may not injure the purity of the minds.
[470]. In logic, natural and moral philosophy, and metaphysics, the doc-
trine of Aristotle should be followed, as also in the other liberal arts. In re-
gard to the commentaries, both on these authors and on those treating
humanities, a selection should be made. Those which the students ought to
see should be designated, and also those which the masters ought to follow
by preference in the doctrine they teach. In everything which the rector or-
dains, he should proceed in conformity with what is judged throughout the
whole Society to be more suitable to the glory of God our Lord.

8. Peter Lombard’s (1100?–64?) Sentences was the standard medieval textbook in

theology. It was mainly a compilation of short passages (or “sentences”) from the
early Church Fathers on theological issues. During the 16th century the Summa
Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas gradually replaced Sentences as the standard text-
book.
9. Terence (Publius Terentius, c. 185–c. 159 B.C.) was a Greek-born Roman slave
who became one of the best-known Roman comedic playwrights. Loyola and the
Jesuits considered his plays too risqué for classroom use.
The Jesuit Constitutions 43

Chapter 15. The terms and degrees.

[471]. In the study of humane letters and the languages a definite period
of time for their completion cannot be established, because of the differ-
ence in abilities and knowledge of those who attend the lectures, and be-
cause of many other reasons which permit no other prescription of time
save that which the prudent consideration of the rector or chancellor will
dictate for each student.
[472]. In the case of beginners of good ability, an effort should be made
to discern whether a semester in each of the four lower classes would be
enough, and two semesters in the highest class spent in studying rhetoric
and the languages. But a definite rule cannot be given.
[473]. In the arts, it will be necessary to arrange the terms in which the
natural sciences are to be lectured upon. It seems that less than three years
would be insufficient for them. Another half year will remain for the stu-
dent to review, perform his academic acts, and take the degree of master in
the case of those who are to receive degrees. In this way the whole curricu-
lum enabling a student to become a master of arts will last three years and a
half. Each year with the help of God one such cycle of treatises will begin
and another will come to its end.
[474]. If someone has attended the lectures on some part of the arts else-
where, this can be taken into account. But ordinarily, in order to be gradu-
ated one must have studied for the three years mentioned. This holds true
also for the four years of theology, in regard to being admitted to the acts10
and receiving a degree in it.
[475]. If because of insufficient personnel or for other reasons facilities
for that arrangement are lacking, the best that will be possible should be
done, with the approval of the general or at least of the provincial.
[476]. The curriculum in theology will be one of six years. In the first
four years all the matter which must be lectured on will be expounded. In
the remaining two, in addition to the reviewing, the acts customary for a
doctorate will be performed by those who are to receive it.
Ordinarily, the cycle of the curriculum will be begun every fourth year
and the books which are to be lectured on will be arranged in such a se-
quence that a student can enter the curriculum at the beginning of any one
of the four years. By hearing the lectures on what remains of the four-year
curriculum, and then on the matter immediately following until he reaches

10. Acts here refers to the disputations and public examinations required for the de-
gree.
44 Jesuit Education

the point where he began, he will hear the lectures of the entire curriculum
within four years.
[477]. If in some college or university of the Society the situation is such
that it appears better to begin the cycle of subjects every two years, or some-
what later than every four, with the consent of the general or of the provin-
cial that which is found to be more suitable may be done.
[478]. In the matter of the degrees, both of master of arts and of doctor
of theology, three things should be observed. First, no one, whether a mem-
ber of the Society or an extern, should be promoted to a degree unless he
has been carefully and publicly examined by persons deputed for this office,
which they should perform well, and unless he has been found fit to lecture
in that faculty. Second, the door to ambition should be closed by giving no
fixed places to those who receive degrees; rather, they should “anticipate
one another with honor” [Rom. 12:10], without observing any distinction
which arises from places. Third, just as the Society teaches altogether gratis,
so should it confer the degrees completely free, and only a very small ex-
penditure, even though it is voluntary, should be allowed to the extern stu-
dents, that the custom may not come to have the force of law and that
excess in this matter may not creep in with time.11 The rector should also
take care not to permit any of the teachers or other members of the Society
to accept money or gifts, either for themselves or for the college, from any
person for anything he has done to help him. For according to our Insti-
tute, our reward should be only Christ our Lord, who is “our reward ex-
ceedingly great” [Gen. 15:1].
[479]. If it appears, for sufficiently weighty reasons, that someone ought
not to be examined publicly, with the permission of the general or provin-
cial that may be done which the rector judges will be for the greater glory of
God our Lord.
[480]. Thus, banquets should not be permitted, nor other celebrations
which are costly and not useful for our end. Neither should there be any
conferring of college caps or gloves or any other object.

Chapter 16. What pertains to good moral habits.

[481]. Very special care should be taken that those who come to the uni-
versities of the Society to obtain knowledge should acquire along with it
good and Christian moral habits. It will help much toward this if all go to
confession at least once every month, hear Mass every day and a sermon

11. Many universities of Loyola’s time charged a high fee for the actual conferral of
a degree even if a candidate had already completed all academic requirements.
The Jesuit Constitutions 45

every feast day when one is given. The teachers will take care of this, each
one with his own students.
[482]. Those who can be easily constrained should be obliged to what
has been said about confession, Mass, the sermon, Christian doctrine,12 and
declamation. The others should be persuaded gently and not be forced to it
nor expelled from the schools for not complying, provided that dissolute-
ness or scandal to others is not observed in them.
[483]. Furthermore, on some day of the week Christian doctrine should
be taught in the college. Care should be taken to make the young boys learn
and recite it; also, that all, even the older ones, should know it, if possible.
[484]. Likewise each week, as was said about the colleges, one of the stu-
dents will deliver a declamation about matters which edify the hearers and
lead them to desire to grow in all purity and virtue. The purpose is not only
practice in literary style but also the encouraging of moral habits. All those
who understand Latin ought to be present.
[485]. Ordinarily the one who must deliver this declamation should be a
member of the highest class, whether he is one of the scholastics of the Society
or one of the non-Jesuits. However, at times someone else could give it or de-
liver what another has composed, according to the rector’s judgment. But no
matter who makes the presentation, since the performance is public, it ought
to be such that it will not be judged unworthy of being given in that place.
[486]. In the schools no curses, nor injurious words or deeds, nor any-
thing immoral, nor dissoluteness on the part of the students who come to
the school from without should be allowed. The masters should make it
their special aim, both in their lectures when occasion is offered and outside
of them too, to inspire the students to the love and service of God our Lord,
and to a love of the virtues by which they will please Him. They should
urge the students to direct all their studies to this end. To recall this to their
minds, before the lesson begins, someone should recite some short prayer
which is ordered for this purpose, while the master and students are atten-
tive and have their heads uncovered.
[487]. The prayer should be recited in a manner which furthers edifica-
tion and devotion, or else it should not be said, but the teacher should un-
cover his head, make the sign of the cross, and begin.
[488]. For those who in some regard fail to attain to the proper diligence
either in their studies or in what pertains to good moral habits, and for
whom kind words and admonitions alone are not sufficient, there should

12. Christian doctrine was the usual term for catechism classes.
46 Jesuit Education

A Jesuit college during a recreation period. Note the two Jesuits in the foreground.

be a corrector13 from outside the Society. He should keep in fear and should
punish those who need chastisement and are fit for it. When neither words
nor the corrector avail and some student is seen to be incorrigible and a
scandal to others, it is better to dismiss him from the schools, rather than to
keep him where he himself is not progressing and others are receiving harm.
This decision will be left to the rector of the university, that everything may
proceed in a manner conducive to glory and service to God our Lord.
[489]. If a case should arise in which dismissal from the schools is not
enough to remedy the scandal, the rector will take care to provide what is
more suitable. However, as far as possible he ought to proceed in a spirit of
leniency and to maintain peace and charity with all.

Juan Polanco

Selections from Chronicon, on the Jesuit college at Messina

[Juan Polanco (1517–76) was the son of a wealthy merchant in Burgos,
Spain; after earning a master’s degree at the University of Paris in 1538 he
worked in the papal curia for three years before entering the Jesuits in 1541.
In 1547 Loyola appointed Polanco Secretary of the Society of Jesus; Polanco

13. The corrector was a layman who administered physical punishment to way-
ward students. Loyola forbade Jesuits from ever laying a hand on a student.
Juan Polanco 47

worked as Loyola’s right-hand man until Loyola’s death in 1556. Polanco con-
tinued to serve as secretary under the next two generals, Diego Laínez
(1512–65) and St. Francis Borgia (1510–72), finally relinquishing the posi-
tion in 1572. From 1573 to 1575 he prepared his Chronicon, a year-by-year
history of the Jesuits from 1539 to 1556. The Chronicon related Jesuit history
chronologically, country by country, town by town, in some forty-five hundred
pages of Latin text. Polanco was a gifted writer with a superb memory, and his
book is an unsurpassed goldmine for scholars tracing the history of the Jesuits
during Loyola’s lifetime. Nobody knew the details of early Jesuit history as well
as Polanco did. Though he planned to carry his chronicle down to 1573, an
assignment to Sicily, and his subsequent death, cut short his work.
This section gathers Polanco’s account of the Jesuit college at Messina in
Sicily, which became the model for the hundreds of Jesuit colleges founded
throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Students who wanted more advanced
education after finishing their work at the local Jesuit college went on to uni-
versities. Some Jesuit colleges did include more advanced courses, including
professional training in theology and law.]

The Year 1547: 201. Preparations at Messina for the first Jesuit college for
lay students.14
At the suggestion of Ignatius Lopez, a medical doctor, and with the ad-
vocacy of Lord Didaco de Cardona, a leading magistrate of the Kingdom,
serious negotiations about setting up a college at Messina began. The
viceroy [Juan de Vega] and his wife were strongly supportive of this project.
The viceroy judged that colleges could be set up not just at Messina but also
at Palermo, Catania, and Calatafimi, but he wanted the city of Messina it-
self to make a request before he himself wrote to Father Ignatius. The pro-
posal gained favorable and very easy approval when Lord Didaco brought it
before the city council. . . . What was quickly obtained when the request
was made to the city was that [the city] would give an appropriate residence
and church and a solid and secure annual income of five hundred gold
pieces for establishing the college. The city considered setting up a Studium
Generale or university at Messina but asked for only four teachers from the

14. Polanco’s chronicle is arranged year by year; each passage in the original Latin
edition is listed by year and is numbered. These designations allow readers to check
the original Latin text. The passages printed here are taken from Year by Year with
the Early Jesuits, 1537–1556: Selections from the Chronicon of Juan de Polanco, S.J.,
edited and translated by John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit
Sources, 2004), pp. 64–5, 72, 75–6, 91–2, 122–3, 221–2, 280–2, 330–1, 427–8.
They are used with the permission of the Institute of Jesuit Sources.
48 Jesuit Education

Society. Of them, one would lecture on grammar, the second on philoso-

phy, the third on scholastic theology and the fourth on cases of conscience
[i.e., moral problems]. A certain confraternity of noblemen, which had a
chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas with a house attached, gladly offered
their church, which was quite beautiful and large, for the good of the city
and of such a pious work. It was on one of the city’s main streets and in a
healthy location, with a garden and a residence adapted for studies and
rather quiet. At length the city magistrates came to the viceroy, Juan de
Vega, and easily obtained his consent (which was necessary) and letters re-
questing both Father Ignatius and the ambassador of Emperor Charles V at
Rome to obtain from the Supreme Pontiff the approvals necessary for a uni-
versity. At this time they were already thinking about expanding the col-
lege, and they decided to ask for an abbey from the rather large number of
them in Sicily [whose income] was sometimes applied to hospitals and
pious works. Therefore the city and Lord Juan de Vega wrote to Father Ig-
natius and requested that a college be set up at Messina for its great benefit.
This was gladly granted them at the start of the next year. Their request was
made toward the end of 1547.
The Year 1548: 231. Origins of the college at Messina.
Toward the start of this year the viceroy of Sicily and the city of Messina
acted diligently by sending letters to the Supreme Pontiff and to Father Ig-
natius about a college at Messina. It was brought to pass. Colleges of this
sort began to be established in these regions at the time when Ours15 un-
dertook the profession of teaching. For Ours had already begun to teach at
Goa in India and Gandia in Spain. Before those destined to begin this col-
lege had left Rome, Father Ignatius asked everybody in the community to
respond on four points and required an answer from each person. First,
were individuals prepared and ready to go to Sicily or not, and would they
embrace that role as the more dear which would be assigned to them by the
superior, who held the place of Christ? Second, would the person who
should be sent there be prepared for any external ministry (if he were uned-
ucated); and if he was educated, would he be prepared to interpret texts in
any discipline as he was commanded under obedience, whether it be in
scholastic theology or sacred scripture or philosophy or the humanities (for
these were the four lectures that were to be presented)? Third, would a per-
son sent as a student devote himself to whichever discipline [Ignatius]
wanted, according to the command of obedience? Fourth, besides obedi-
ence in carrying out what had been said, would they regard what the supe-
rior would show them as the better course by submitting their own

15. Polanco and many other Jesuits used the term Ours to refer to their fellow Je-
suits.
Juan Polanco 49

judgment and will to holy obedience? When all gave the right answers, he
assigned those who were to be sent. Among them were Father André des
Freux, a Frenchman; Father Peter Canisius, a German; Father Benedetto
Palmio, an Italian; Father Jerome Nadal, a Spaniard; and Annibal de
Coudret, a Savoyard.16 Thus did charity and obedience join together very
diverse nations. There was a problem about the teaching methods of some
or those being sent. [Ignatius] wanted this handled in his presence. Finally
he wanted to bring the college [faculty] before Pope Paul III, who received
them kindly and sent them off with an apostolic blessing and fatherly ex-
hortation in which he responded to a very devout address of Peter Canisius.
243. Starting the college at Messina.
Father Jerome Nadal with the others mentioned earlier left Rome for
Sicily as spring drew near. On their journey they moved many souls to de-
votion, sometimes by preaching, sometimes by hearing many Confessions.
They also tried successfully by disputations or private conversation to bring
to a more sound mind some people who did not think rightly about the
faith. They finally arrived safely at Messina right on the octave of Easter of
this year 1548. They were welcomed with great evidence of humanity and
charity not only by the viceroy and Lady Eleonora, his wife, a woman of
supreme virtue, but also by the city itself which manifested the strong sup-
port in their hearts for the foundation of this college. Although the church
of Saint Nicholas and a house were set aside for Ours, still Ours lived in a
rented house for some months because much rebuilding was required on
the decorum of the church and for outfitting our dwelling and the school-
rooms. While [Ours] opened the school and began zealously to benefit
their neighbors, a neighboring house was purchased and a garden acquired
and the surroundings of Saint Nicholas were nicely arranged at consid-
erable expense to the city. It spent this year almost 2,500 gold pieces over
and above the 500 annual income for supporting Ours which had been as-
signed by the unanimous consent of the city council and ratified by the
viceroy. A public ceremony was also held before the viceroy himself in
which the land of Saint Nicholas was turned over to the Society.
The city entrusted a certain nobleman with the care of the building who
employed an outstanding architect and built six interconnected classrooms
outside the dwelling place of the college. Although the citizens of their own
accord favored this project, the authority and support of Didaco de Cor-
doba, a major magistrate of the Kingdom of Sicily, and of the viceroy him-
self, encouraged them not a little. Almost beyond belief was the constant
warmth with which the viceroy embraced our Society. The number of [stu-
dents] who attended the classes for beginners was large enough right from

16. All five of these became prominent Jesuits. Their roles at Messina are discussed
later.
50 Jesuit Education

the start; fewer were those who came to the upper classes, as is usual. The
college offered not just the lessons [in those subjects] which the city had re-
quested in its letters but many others out of charity or to help young men.
The teaching method of the University of Paris was gradually introduced
there. Father Nadal assigned three teachers for grammar: Father Benedetto
Palmio was in charge of the first class, Annibal de Coudret of the second,
and Giovanni Battista [Passeri] of the third. Father Canisius taught the art
of oratory. Master Isidore [Bellini] taught dialectic. Father André des Freux
taught Greek literature, and Father Nadal [taught] Hebrew but left the lec-
tures to Father André, for although he divided his time with administering
the college, he taught scholastic theology in the morning and gave lessons
on cases of conscience in the afternoon.
Year 1549: 350. The college at Messina goes forward.
Since the lowest class had a high enrollment Father Nadal judged that it
should be divided and for the greater progress of the students a new class
should be added which would be between the lowest and the second lowest.
Thus grammar began to be taught in five classes. At that time Father
[Benedetto] Palmio taught rhetoric in the top class. This took place at the
renewal of studies in Fall. At this time Father André des Freux undertook
teaching logic with good results (it seemed good to start a class of philoso-
phy each year); he continued this till he had a successor. For during this sec-
ond year Master Isidore [Bellini] continued with natural philosophy [i.e.,
physics]. Father Antoine Vinck Durandi took over scholastic theology.
Nadal himself taught three different subjects, namely Euclid17 in mathe-
matics and various authors in Greek and Hebrew literature. In accord with
a regulation of Father Ignatius, they had to write every week in detail and
inform him even about the number of students in every class. Thus during
November Father Nadal writes that there were seventy-eight students in the
lowest class, fifty-six in the second lowest, forty-two in the third class, four-
teen in the fourth class which is called humanities (over which Father An-
nibal [Coudret] had charge), and fifteen or sixteen in the fifth class, that is,
rhetoric. Father André [des Freux] had sixteen in logic, Isidore [Bellini] had
thirteen in philosophy, and Father Antoine had only three in scholastic the-
ology (since there was almost no mature student among the lay students,
and the religious18 were not as yet coming to our schools). Father Nadal had
ten for his Greek course and three or four for Hebrew and ten or twelve for
mathematics. Presentations were added to the individual lectures, following
the Paris method, so that the college seemed to have some appearance of a

17. Euclid was a Greek mathematician who taught in Alexandria around 300 B.C.
His geometry book remained in use for more than two thousand years.
18. Members of religious orders.
Juan Polanco 51

university. God preserved the health of the teachers despite these consid-
erable labors undertaken from dawn to dusk.
351. Public presentations to start the school year.
This reopening of classes, which was done in October, was proceeded by
three days of public disputations involving all the disciplines they were
going to teach. This was carried through to the great edification of the spec-
tators and added to the great enthusiasm and ardor of the young men to
take up their studies. The more advanced courses were delayed somewhat
until negotiations about university [status], which at that time had not yet
been finished, were completed in the viceroy’s presence, as happened
shortly thereafter (he was in attendance at the disputations along with the
judges and all the leading men of the city, and he heard the orations and
poems related to the reopening of studies).

The Year 1550: 57. Problems in setting up a university at Messina.

This year negotiations about a university were long and hard, and in the
larger council of Messina citizens it was finally decided that revenues of
5,500 gold pieces be applied to setting up the aforesaid university. Apos-
tolic letters obtained at Rome made the whole university subject to the Rec-
tor of the college of the university, and thus the Society took over
possession of it since the viceroy had also added letters for carrying this out.
The university was magnificently proclaimed throughout the city with the
sound and mighty display by the fleet and the cannons. The next day lec-
tures in law and medicine began. But since the people of Messina were ill
disposed to having the professors of law and medicine subject to Ours, Fa-
ther Nadal with the assent and approval of Father Ignatius arranged for sep-
arate faculties so that one body, which contained courses in theology,
philosophy and humanities, was left to the Society; another body was es-
tablished from the faculty of canon and civil law and medicine with its own
Rector. This the people of Messina welcomed so gratefully that it hardly
seemed possible to them to commend highly enough this solution of the
aforesaid Father Nadal, and they kept calling him a friend and father of the
city. But when it came to dividing the revenues actions spoke louder than
words: 4,000 scudi were assigned to the other faculties; they applied only
1,500 scudi of the annual revenue to our college, while they imposed the
burden of having fifteen teachers. Indeed, this money was to be paid by the
officials of the city itself, and they wished this whole donation to depend on
the discretion of the same city. Since the minimal income and the condi-
tions seemed intolerable, it was easy to see that the hearts of the citizens
were angry with the viceroy whom they thought responsible for this work.
When the affair was brought to Father Ignatius, it seemed to him that these
conditions were completely unacceptable. A reasonable solution seemed
that the revenues be divided evenly between those two bodies. If a larger
52 Jesuit Education

contribution could not be obtained, the Society should be obliged to fewer

teachers. And if what was hoped for could not be obtained, it was prefer-
able for the college to be as it was with the donation remaining at only 500
scudi rather than its taking on such heavy burdens with increased revenues.
Because the viceroy was already preparing himself for the expedition to
Africa,19 the question of the revenues was postponed until his return, and so
the time for this year gradually ran out. Dealing with this business was
made very difficult because of some of the magistrates, whom they call the
sworn ones [jurati], had been thrown into prison, aside from the previous
sworn ones whom [the viceroy] had sent into exile. Ours never gave their
assent, but in accord with the mind of Father Ignatius they reserved the
whole business to the viceroy. After he had set out for Africa he wrote from
a certain island that Ours should obtain from the city what they could, but
[the city officials] would not contribute anything.
The Year 1552: 311. Developments at the college of Messina.
I will also add this about the studies of Ours: since the professor of philos-
ophy had no students the course in philosophy was wholly discontinued.
Only men in our house attended the course in Hebrew. The course in rheto-
ric had only four extern students besides Ours. Still there were about 270 stu-
dents in the lower classes. But Ours who lived in the college and the house of
probation provided Father Annibal [Coudret] with a good harvest. This year
eleven of the novices, as is the custom in the Society, began wearing ankle-
length cassocks, to the great satisfaction of the whole city and especially of
their parents and even of the viceroy. His heart took great comfort in seeing
those new saplings taking on the Society’s ways. Among the novices Don Fer-
nando de Vega, the viceroy’s nephew, had already left. Earlier he had indi-
cated that he aspired to the Society and obtained his enrollment among the
novices, but it is thought that this inclination of his heart was not real or at
least that Fernando backed away from it easily and returned to the court. The
viceroy’s daughter, Isabel de Vega, took this very hard.
The Year 1553: 407. The reassignment of Ours at Messina stirs resentment.
As regards sermons: Father Benedetto Palmio, who was greatly beloved in
that city, went to Palermo on February 11 so that he along with others could
go from there to Rome. Initially this brought considerable anguish to our
spiritual friends. They complained that, after financing had been taken care
of, gradually all our best men left there, and they tearfully begged Father An-
toine [Vinck, the new Rector] to lecture them on something profitable until
the promised arrival of Father Girolamo Otello. He began to do this with
the approval of the consultors, and every day of Lent he began to explain the

19. The “expedition” was an attack on Turkish bases in Tunisia.

Juan Polanco 53

penitential psalms in addition to the day’s gospel. They listened beyond our
expectations since it turned out that both he in his lectures and Father Gio-
vanni Filippo [Casini] in his sermons on feast days and Sundays were satis-
factory.
409. The fears die down that funding for the college would be cut off.
That rumor which had arisen over the departure of Father Benedetto
therefore died down. It had gotten to the point that the city councilmen
were discussing forbidding the treasurer to pay funding credited to the col-
lege on the grounds that the Society in the college in Messina did not have
the workers which the amount of funding required. But they did nothing,
perhaps fearing to anger the viceroy. But if he left office, some action was to
be feared. Finally when Father Otello got to be known the cause of the
problem disappeared.
426. Candidates leave Messina for Rome.
On September 18, eleven of Ours set out from Messina for Rome.
Among them were five young men of Messina, almost all of whom were no-
bles and trained in Latin and Greek literature, students of Father Annibal
[Coudret]. They all went as a group to the viceroy, Juan de Vega, to greet
him at their departure. Seeing them brought him great consolation; he em-
braced each one of them with tears of joy and said, “These are the plants
which carried to another place will bear rich fruit.” The previous day the
same viceroy attended some Latin orations which the Messina students de-
livered in our church. Some other orations were given in Greek and He-
brew. The viceroy, who was eager to keep the college going, listened to
them all with great pleasure and approval.
The Year 1554: 451. Ignatius decides about censorship and corporal punish-
ment at Messina.
Among other things, Father Annibal [Coudret] asked the advice of Fa-
ther Ignatius about whether [the writings of Juan] Luis Vives and Terence20
should be excluded in our classes since it was difficult to find [alternative]
readings for teaching the Latin language suitable in the lower classes. He
also asked whether it was permitted at least to strike students on the palm
of the hand without using a whip, for it seemed this would be useful for the
students and approved by their parents. But the response from Rome was
that Father Ignatius did not want the aforesaid authors to be read and that
in the future the same readings were going to be prohibited in the other col-
leges. Still, they were not prohibited. But until other useful books could be

20. Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) was the most prominent Spanish humanist. Ter-
ence (c. 185–c. 159 B.C.) was a Roman playwright whose comedies were popular in
the Renaissance for their racy dialogue. Six of his plays survive.
54 Jesuit Education

found that were not written by suspect authors Ours in Sicily could use the
usual books. Father Ignatius would not permit [Ours to administer] any
sort of physical punishment in the colleges of Italy, not even on the palm of
the hand. Henceforward they should punish boys through a lay corrector.

The Year 1556: 1032. The progress of the college in Messina.

The number and progress of the students in the college kept growing
daily, and the reputation and respect for its classes even increased to the
point that some of the elite were moved to switch their sons from the edu-
cation given by others and turn them over to Ours. Among others this was
the case of a judge of the highest royal court who entrusted to Ours the
training of his three sons in letters and morals. So did another nobleman
with his five young sons. This showed that outstanding talents were going
to come from those classes to the great benefit of the state. These talents,
developed by piety and good training, were recognized as very suited for
public employment. The diligence of the professors and their skillful work
brought it about that those who wanted bright prospects for their sons en-
trusted them to Ours for their training.
1036. Teaching catechism at Messina.
Ten of our [Jesuit] collegians kept on teaching catechism in ten
parishes of this city, something they had started doing the previous year.
But when the Cardinal of Messina [Giovanni Andrea de Mercurio], who
stayed at Messina this Summer, transferred this way of instructing chil-
dren to his pastors to experiment
(as he put it) on whether they
could carry on this task without
so much labor by Ours, for a time
[Ours] ceased going to the afore-
said parishes for the aforesaid
task. But when the same Cardinal
found out that in almost all the
parishes the spiritual edifice,
which our labor built up very
happily, was collapsing, he or-
dered Father Provincial to visit
him and asked that once again he
direct the work of the Society to
this task. So in the month of Au-
gust Ours began to instruct
youths with no meager profit for College of Louis-le-Grand, Paris. Its stu-
them in the aforesaid parishes in dents included the French authors Molière
the same way and order as before. and Voltaire.
Joseph Simons 55

Joseph Simons

Selections from Vitus, a drama

[In addition to regular class work, the new Jesuit colleges of the Renaissance of-
fered students a range of extracurricular activities. Athletics were unimportant
in the Jesuit schools; instead most of the extracurricular activities were tied to
the religious and academic goals of Jesuit education. Thus Catholic students,
who made up the vast majority in Jesuit schools, were expected to attend Mass
regularly, often every school day. Students were encouraged to make frequent
use of confession and Communion and to join sodalities (youth confraternities
directed by the Jesuits) to encourage devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Stu-
dent volunteers often helped the Jesuits teach catechism in rural areas.21
Public disputations and orations were often used to begin the school year;
see, for instance, those at Messina in 1549 described in the introduction to the
preceding selection. Many of the city’s elite and the parents of the students at-
tended these performances. Such public events were designed to raise support
for the schools by displaying both the skill of the teachers and the academic
progress of the students. Parents usually returned home proud of their sons,
even if they understood little of the Greek and Latin orations and disputations.
Following the staging of the first play at Messina in 1551, the Jesuits in-
creasingly made drama the main extracurricular activity in their colleges. Per-
formances attracted an upper-class audience and encouraged public support for
the colleges, much as sports do today. The dramas also served to inculcate reli-
gious orthodoxy and sound morality. Hundreds of these plays were later pub-
lished; the texts of thousands more are extant in manuscript form. Although
the plays were originally designed to improve the skill of students in speaking
Latin, vernacular languages were gradually incorporated into the plays—first
in Spain, then across the rest of Catholic Europe. Many plays mixed Latin and
vernacular; some scenes were in poetry but others in prose, just as in Shake-
speare’s plays. Tragedies were far more common than comedies. Biblical stories
and the lives of the saints often furnished the plots—thus in 1580 students at
Pont-à-Mousson staged a play about Joan of Arc in French. All the students
were young men, and male actors played female parts—as was common prac-
tice among professional theater groups. Eventually music and dancing were in-
troduced into the plays, and sheer spectacle often overshadowed the religious

21. For a fine study of the Jesuit sodalities, see Louis Châtellier, The Europe of the
Devout: The Catholic Reformation and the Formation of a New Society, translated by
Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). By the mid-18th cen-
tury there were some twenty-five hundred sodalities, largely made up of students
and former students of the Jesuit colleges.
56 Jesuit Education

message. The dramas sometimes included elements that seemed to presage the
development of classical ballet and opera. In small cities the school dramas
were often the most important entertainment events of the year. But Jesuit
drama also could draw huge crowds in large cities. Louis XIV and the royal
family often attended presentations at Paris where “for summer ballets and
tragedy [the] audience generally range between thirty-five hundred and seven
thousand.” 22 Ballet rarely commands such crowds today.
Two scenes from Vitus by Father Joseph Simons (1594–1671) are printed
here as examples of Jesuit drama. Simons, originally named Emmanuel Lobb,
was born and raised in Portsmouth, England. When he turned eleven, his
mother sent him to Portugal to learn Portuguese as a step toward a business ca-
reer; while there he converted to Catholicism. He first attended the Jesuit college
for Englishmen at St. Omers, Belgium, then the English College in Rome where
he studied for the priesthood. In 1619 he entered the Jesuit Order in Belgium.
He enjoyed a career of some distinction as a teacher and administrator at the Je-
suit colleges in St. Omers, Rome, Liège, and Ghent before returning to England,
where he served as provincial superior from 1667 until his death in 1671.
Vitus was written and first performed in 1623 in St. Omers. The text of the
play was published, along with four of Simons’ other plays, in 1656 in Rome;
three later editions were printed in the 17th century. Like Simons’ other
tragedies Vitus was written in Latin verse; the ancient Roman dramatists who
most influenced him were Terence and Seneca.23 Another of Simons’ tragedies,
Zeno, was produced in Rome, Naples, Parma, Seville, and St. Omers.24
The story of Vitus takes place during the reign of the Roman Emperor Dio-
cletian (284–305), who brought law and order back to the Roman Empire
after half a century of chaos. Unfortunately, Diocletian’s reform program in-
cluded a bitter persecution of the Christians; their refusal to worship the tradi-
tional Roman gods was, Diocletian felt, a major cause for Rome’s decline.
When Diocletian’s son Valerius was attacked and tortured by an evil spirit,
Diocletian ordered that Vitus, a fourteen-year-old Christian boy famous for

22. Judith Rock, Terpsicore at Louis-le-Grand: Baroque Dance in the Jesuit Stage in
Paris (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 116.
23. Seneca (c. 4 B.C.–A.D. 65) was a Stoic philosopher who also wrote nine sur-
viving tragedies in a florid Latin style that influenced Simons and many Baroque
tragedians.
24. Jesuit Theater Englished: Five Tragedies of Joseph Simons, edited by Louis Oldani
and Philip Fischer, translated by Richard Arnold et al. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit
Sources, 1989), pp. vii–ix. For an overview of Jesuit drama, see William H. McCabe,
An Introduction to the Jesuit Theater: A Posthumous Work, edited by Louis Oldani (St.
Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1984). The scenes from Vitus, printed here with the
permission of The Institute of Jesuit Sources, are from pp. 311–15, 322.
Joseph Simons 57

performing miracles, be brought to Rome to help Valerius. Though Vitus cured

Valerius (to Diocletian’s delight), the emperor then commanded Vitus to aban-
don his Christian faith, promising him great rewards if he did so and threat-
ening horrible tortures if he refused. When Vitus refused, Diocletian had him
tortured with molten lead—to no avail. When Vitus was placed on the rack
and faced death, an angel carried him off and returned him to his homeland,
where he later died peacefully. Scene 4, printed here, largely deals with Dio-
cletian’s threats to torture Vitus and his father Hylas.25]

SCENE 4

[After vainly trying every device in order to subvert Vitus, the emperor finally
hands him over to be tortured with melted lead.]

THE CAST: DIOCLETIAN, VITUS, HYLAS, LUPUS, PAPINUS,

VALERIUS, OTHO, PULCHERELLUS, URBANUS, MODESTUS,
ANGEL 26

DIOCLETIAN: Tell me, most attractive of lads, in what direction does

your mind now incline?
VITUS: Caesar, misfortunes have restored my mind to better bent.
DIOCLETIAN: A welcome answer. At last you will be playing again
through the palace, a glory dear to the Caesars. But explain the manner of
your conversion.
VITUS: Inaction had depressed my spirit. I was too languid in my love.
The prison gave new life to the fires of love that had lain so long banked
and bound me yet more closely to the Christian God. Love is changed into
flames. Christ, I yearn for you alone. To the whole world I proclaim that
you are God.

25. Simons’ plot largely follows the popular legend of St. Vitus, who was greatly revered
in medieval Germany as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, saints who were to be in-
voked by people with special needs—Vitus was the patron saint of actors and was in-
voked to cure epileptics and those afflicted by St. Vitus dance, a disease named after him.
The names and roles of most of the persons in Simons’ drama are taken from the legend.
26. The roles of Diocletian, Vitus, and Hylas are described in the headnote. Lupus
is a courtier; Papinus is a slave of Hylas; Valerius is Diocletian’s son; Otho and Pul-
cherellus are pages; Urbanus is the chief priest of Jupiter, king of the Roman gods.
58 Jesuit Education

DIOCLETIAN: A figment sprung from a brain!

VITUS: Doubtless you mean Pallas Athena sprung from the pregnant
brain of Jove.27 No, our God is ruler of the universe, the one who sowed the
stars and humankind, the sure salvation of a tottering world. To his divinity
I witness with the blood that I have shed.
DIOCLETIAN: Just live, I beg you, worthy of Jove’s Augustus.28 Enjoy
youth, and as long as the breeze of verdant young manhood favors you,
minister wine cups to me, a lesser Jove, for you are more pleasing to me
than Trojan Ganymede, who was Jove’s young wine steward.29 Put Christ
outside your thoughts, and by the swamp of Styx30 I swear, as the gods
swear oaths, that none will ever rise higher in my love than you and no one
will displace you. Though you ask for a scepter equal to Caesar’s own,31 you
will obtain it. But if you refuse to yield, then every kind of bloody, painful,
savage torture awaits you. And now that you may believe my words, look to
each side of you within those twin shrines to see illustrative examples.
[Here the doors of two shrines on the stages are opened.] Terror dwells in
this home, in that one Honor. Terror lies in wait for Christ’s followers, to-
gether with dread devices to inflict pain, punishment, and long-drawn-out
death. There, fastened to the walls, you see fearful reminders of cruel doom.
But follow Jove and the gods; then Honor will welcome you within its
mansion so rich with gold and gems. Surrounding Honor you see many
glorious things: wealth, scepters, robes of state blazing with scarlet, purple
raiment, amusements, pleasures, and every blessing that exists anywhere.
Now decide which you prefer.
VITUS: The pathway to my choice is easy, I admit. Terror motivates
lowly minds and honor exalted ones.
DIOCLETIAN: Vitus, now at last you show good sense!
VITUS: [Walking toward the shrine of Terror.] But true honor dwells
within this shrine of yours. Here kingship shines with its hallmarks. To me,
the forceps is my scepter, swellings from beatings are my robe of state. The

27. Pallas Athena was the goddess of wisdom; Jove is another name for Jupiter, king
of the gods. Here Simons alludes to the Greek myth that claimed that Athena was
born directly from the head of Jove, without a mother.
28. Augustus was another name for the Roman emperor. Diocletian is claiming
that Jove is the emperor’s special patron.
29. Ganymede was the young cup bearer for the Olympian gods and goddesses.
30. The Styx was the river the dead had to cross to reach the underworld of Greek
mythology.
31. The scepter was a symbol of royal power.
Joseph Simons 59

gridiron is my throne, and deadly wheels my diadems.32 Blood poured from

my veins will supply the purple, and the torturer will be my entourage of
nobles. How dear and welcome to me is this kingship. Thus do I set aside
the examples of your cruelty, bloodstained prince, and turn them into ma-
jestic wealth. Strike me, butcher me, cut me to pieces—I am a Christian.
My only prayer is to suffer, professing Christ.
Augustus, don’t offer me togas drenched with scarlet, for they are red-
dened with the blood of innocent men. God sees that they have been slain
by your hand. God, who alone wields the thunderbolt, sees you and in his
justice is preparing avenging change of fortune. Diocletian, the God who
has brought back booty from vanquished hell and who, when it pleases
him, smashes the royal crowns that are the envy of the common throng,
that God has ordered me to speak these things to you. Haughty man, why
do you exalt yourself and bid that you be worshiped as a god throughout
the world? You cannot halt the rushing chariot of the sun god, can you?33
By your nod you cannot bridle the capricious winds or put reins upon the
fates, can you? But if you cannot do these things, then how can you be a
god? What an empty thing is the human mind’s excessive pride!
DIOCLETIAN: And can your Christ do these things for Caesar? As
messenger, carry this news to Christ in hell: I am a god, although he howl
against me. I am the lightning bolt and terror of the Christian flock, which
one day I shall destroy root and branch. I do not want to be a god if your
Christ is to become a god!
VITUS: Whoever hurls rebellious thunderbolts against heaven should
fear lest they fall upon his own head. Crime turns back upon its author.
Vent your crazed anger in every direction; devise novel ways of savage tor-
ture. Still, you yourself will perish. Christ will rule your empire, and as long
as time shall roll its swift wheels, as victor he will proclaim his ordinances
throughout the willing nations.
DIOCLETIAN: Insolent wretch! Lictor, drag him away to the flames.34

32. Here Vitus is claiming that by dying for his Christian faith, even being roasted
alive on a gridiron, will gain him a heavenly reward greater than a royal throne, a
king’s crown, or an emperor’s purple robes.
33. Vitus here points out the limits to Diocletian’s power: he cannot stop the sun
in its course. In classical Greek mythology Apollo, the sun god, was often depicted
as driving a glowing chariot across the heavens.
34. The highest Roman officials were traditionally accompanied by several lictors,
bodyguards who carried fasces, a bundle of rods and an axe symbolizing the official’s
power to have his subjects beaten with rods or beheaded. The word fascism is de-
rived from this Roman practice.
60 Jesuit Education

HYLAS: [Kneeling.] Caesar, be slow to act! Stay your avenging hand. I am

Hylas, illustrious for my noble descent, a wealthy man from the isle of Sicily. I
implore you suppliantly. I, who have never bowed before the feet of any other
man, lie prostrate at your knees. Have pity upon a father. If you do so, may your
fortunate son surpass all your prayers for him, vigorous in years and domi-
nance. This boy here is the sole consolation of his afflicted father. When I dis-
guised myself in garments not my own in order to give him sound advice, I was
dragged off into a rocky prison. No Christian corruption has infected my heart.
DIOCLETIAN: Architect of deception, craftsman of shameful deeds. Is
this the way you trick the court, you who sham a father’s look but at heart
are a Christian priest? With magic potion and bewitching spell you bound
Vitus and drew him to Christ.
VITUS: On both counts you are mistaken, Caesar. I gladly proclaim
that this man is truly my own father. He opposed me because he could not
tolerate Christ. The poor man worships blocks of wood and stones, follow-
ing the customs of the Trojan people.
LUPUS: Papinus, come here!
PAPINUS: [With extended arms and eyes turned toward the sky.] I swear by
you, torches of the sky and fires of heaven, by you gods in the citadel of the
skies. If I lyingly speak falsehood, may Chaos gape wide with inexorable jaws
and swallow me, the liar. Hylas is pretending to be the boy’s father. While he
openly adores the Roman gods secretly Christ is his delight. As a priest he wor-
ships Christ with Panchaean incense.35 I bear witness that he imbued the boy
with hellish venom. He was the first to teach him Christ and drive out Jove.
HYLAS: Why does the earth still now stand firm and not belch out vin-
dictive flames in anger?
PAPINUS: It proves the truth of what I swore!
DIOCLETIAN: Why waste words upon the winds? Whether Vitus
obeys you as his father or his master in Colchian magic,36 I care not. I swear
by hell’s river Acheron37 that, unless you unweave your magic spell and re-
store the boy you stole away from Jove, you will be burned to ashes as a
practitioner of black magic. This is my firm decision.

35. Panchaia was a mythical island east of Arabia famous for its incense. Virgil
(Georgics, 2:138, 4:378) and other Roman authors refer to its rich incense.
36. Colchis was a province of Asia on the east coast of the Black Sea. It was famous
as the home of the witch Medea and her magical powers.
37. Acheron was a famous mythical river in the underworld often mentioned by
ancient writers (e.g., Virgil, Aeneid, 6:295).
Joseph Simons 61

HYLAS: Where is the fidelity of the gods, the veracity of men? I call to
witness all the justice of the world: you are punishing an innocent man.
DIOCLETIAN: Lictor, quickly reduce Hylas to ashes. Let him go to
the stake.
HYLAS: [Running back to VITUS’ side.] Son, save your father! You are
your parent’s safety. All rests in your hands. You alone can rescue your fa-
ther from a frightful death. If there be any part of me surviving in you, if
any filial affection sways you, have pity on your father, son. But if your
heart is set upon injustice, then turn me over to the flames.
VITUS: May God forbid! I acknowledge I owe my father gratitude. The
principles that your good character impressed upon me long ago, those do
I still bear deep within my heart, never erased. If my blood can ransom my
father’s life, look, I lay bare my heart. Let Caesar turn his anger here.
HYLAS: Reject Christ and honor Jove, then neither of us goes to death.
VITUS: Father, spare me this! My heart is set on Christ forever.
HYLAS: I am the unhappy father of a detestable son!
LUPUS: Do you value your father less than Christ?
VITUS: I value man less than God.
OTHO: Will you allow the one who gave you life to be led to the fire?
VITUS: The crime is his who gives the order. Caesar is burning an in-
nocent man. I shall not avert crime by doing greater crime.
DIOCLETIAN: Let both of them burn. Let flame consume doers of
sacrilege.
HYLAS: [Prostrate before the emperor.] By the sacred glory of your august
person, by the holy scepter of your kingship, by your hand that is kindly
toward the wretched, I beseech you. Pardon this boy. Let the punishment
fall upon me alone.
VITUS: Rather, forbid the slaughter of this innocent man and let a son
save his father from death by becoming a victim for Christ.
DIOCLETIAN: Forswear Christ, offer devout incense to Jove, and I
will preserve your father’s life.
VITUS: What! Should my disloyalty save my innocent father? Far be
that from me, tyrant. My heart is set eternally on Christ.
DIOCLETIAN: Stubborn fool! Chief priest, let fiery liquid consume
him as he lives and watches. Offer up to Jove his scalded body. Let that ob-
stinate scoundrel die. I pardon Hylas. His emotions have betrayed the fact
of his fatherhood.
62 Jesuit Education

HYLAS: Prince, how lenient you are!

VALERIUS: Caesar, this crisis forces me to plead with you. Father, curb
your fatal thunderbolt. Through my entreaty let this boy live, who brought
health to your son when he was dying. Shall one so handsome perish in the
flames? This face that shines with the splendor of the stars? Shall this great
grace of youth be turned into ashes?
VITUS: Do you plead on my behalf, you who have betrayed your faith?
Leave off your efforts. The moment has no need of your entreaties. When
one confesses Christ, his chief prayer is to die. How I long to wear in hap-
piness the laurels that the Christian faith bestows.
DIOCLETIAN: I’ll answer your prayer: Burn!
VALERIUS: Die, obstinate one!
HYLAS: Ingrate, your heart is bound with oak and triple steel. Go, lic-
tor, hand him over to the flames. I shall be present to assist at your execu-
tion and will offer you up to Jove.
LUPUS: Go, parricide, suffer the death that you deserve.
OTHO: Go, unyielding rock, disgrace to the human race.
PULCHERELLUS: Go, filthy monster, who bring ruin on your father.
URBANUS: This is the answer to my prayer. Vitus is condemned to the
flames.

SCENE 8 [FINAL SCENE]

[VITUS and MODESTUS,38 rescued from torture by an angel, are carried to

LUCANIA whence they had come. There they die peacefully. ANGEL, MOD-
ESTUS, VITUS, standing amid clouds.]

ANGEL: Now at last you may gaze down upon the earth below and see
the dwellings of Rome. Those torturers’ hands have been vanquished, their
racks and gallows destroyed. The fury of angry Diocletian has been tamed.
MODESTUS: But the glorious palm of victory has been snatched away
from us!
VITUS: Where do you hurry us along through these spaces of the
sky? Why do you not permit our contest to be closed in violent death?

38. Modestus is Vitus’ companion and tutor.

Joseph Simons 63

Dear guardian, allow us to return to the bloodstained homes of Aeneas’s

race.39
ANGEL: Your contest has ended, Modestus. You have borne witness to
the holy faith with your devoted blood. Victorious, now you will direct
your steps toward the eternal citadel. Vitus, do not think that your efforts
to win a martyr’s red robe have been in vain if death by utmost suffering be
denied you, eager though you be. The laurel wreath awaits those who have
borne their grievous pain bravely. It was the will of God that you both be
rescued from the tyrant’s hands and end your lives in peaceful death. Now
that we are carried in a cloud across the radiant sky, we shall be wafted to
the spot from which you came to the city seated upon her seven hills. There
it is destined for you to complete your last day of life and be conveyed in
triumphal chariot to the stars. One who defends his faith by suffering has
not suffered in vain. The palm of victory awaits those who struggle in the
fight.

THE END

39. Modestus and Vitus want the angel to return them to martyrdom at Rome. An-
cient Romans believed that Aeneas’ descendants founded that city.
 CHAPTER 3

JESUIT MISSIONS IN ASIA

AND THE AMERICAS

Introduction

Though Ignatius of Loyola and his companions in Paris vowed in 1534 to

go to Palestine and work for souls, war between the Venetian republic and
the Ottoman Turkish Empire made the trip impossible. Instead, the young
men put themselves at the disposal of the pope who sent several of them to
work as missionaries. Paragraph 92 of the later Jesuit Constitutions states,
“Further still, in conformity with our profession and manner of proceed-
ing, we should always be ready to travel about in the various regions of the
world, on all occasions when the supreme pontiff or our immediate supe-
rior orders us.”1 Though the Jesuit superior general had the power to assign
any Jesuit to foreign missions in any land, the vast majority of those who set
out as missionaries were volunteers.
St. Francis Xavier (1506–52) was the first Jesuit missionary. He worked
in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan. This chapter contains four of
Xavier’s letters in which he describes his work and formulates guidelines for
other Jesuit missionaries in Asia. The second great pioneer of mission work
was Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), whose knowledge of Western science and
ability to translate Western writings into Chinese won him the esteem of
Chinese intellectuals and gained him access to the imperial court in Beijing.
Two documents printed here illustrate Ricci’s work: the first is a summary
of his writings; the second is a dialogue between Ricci and a Buddhist
scholar on the topic of life after death. The next document is by Roberto de
Nobili (1577–1656), who adopted the dress and habits of a Brahmin
scholar while serving in India; his contribution here discusses the delicate
topic of which Hindu practices Indian converts to Christianity could retain.
The final two documents address the Jesuits’ interaction with the native
people of South and North America. In the Americas the Jesuits faced chal-

1. The Constitution of The Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources,
1970) p. 104.

64
Francis Xavier’s Letters 65

lenges very different from those presented by Chinese mandarins and Indian
scholars. When compared to the cultures of Asian civilizations, life among
the native peoples of the Americas seemed less sophisticated but more de-
manding and dangerous. To protect Native Americans in Paraguay, the Je-
suits gathered them into communities called “reductions,” taught them
catechism, and baptized them. But Brazilian slave traders destroyed the re-
ductions and enslaved tens of thousands of Christian Indians. Here we will
read Antonio Ruiz de Montoya’s account of life in the reductions and their
destruction by the merciless slave traders. Jean de Brébeuf describes the
hardships and joys Jesuits experienced in ministering to the Hurons of Can-
ada. He and many of his converts were later killed by raiding Iroquois.

Francis Xavier’s Letters2

[Many Catholics regard St. Francis Xavier (1506–52) as the greatest Chris-
tian missionary since St. Paul. A Spanish nobleman, Xavier was Loyola’s
roommate at the University of Paris. It is said that Loyola directed Xavier
away from worldly values and toward a higher calling by repeatedly asking
Xavier a question first posed by Jesus in Mark 8:36: “What does it profit a
man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” Xavier was one of
Loyola’s six companions in Paris who vowed to go to and work in Palestine. To
prepare himself for this calling, Xavier began studying theology in 1534. After
the first Jesuits started working in Italy, King John III of Portugal asked Pope
Paul III for two Jesuits to serve as missionaries in the Portuguese colonies of
India. Xavier volunteered, and together with the Portuguese Jesuit Simão
(Simon) Rodrigues (1510–79), he headed for Lisbon, where John III wel-
comed them. Rodrigues soon became a favorite of the king and a tutor to the
crown prince, and Xavier had to go on to India without him.
Xavier sailed from Lisbon in 1541. As he boarded the ship he was handed a
letter from Paul III appointing him a papal nuncio with authority over Cath-
olic clergy in India. The trip to India was long and arduous and lasted more
than a year, including six months spent in Mozambique. Xavier’s missionary
career began in earnest when he disembarked at Goa, the Portuguese head-
quarters in India. First he preached to the Portuguese colonists; then he jour-
neyed down India’s west coast and worked, through interpreters, among the
pearl fishermen. Xavier considered himself a pioneer in spreading Christianity
to new lands, not only in India but also in East Asia. He sailed around India

2. The four letters of Francis Xavier printed here are taken from The Letters and In-
structions of Francis Xavier, edited and translated by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J. (St.
Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), pp. 63–74, 195–9, 344–8, 383–7. The let-
ters are printed with the permission of the Institute of Jesuit Sources.
66 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

to Madras on the east coast. In 1546 he pushed on to Malacca, the main Por-
tuguese base in Malaysia that guarded the passage from the Bay of Bengal into
the Pacific Ocean. His next stop was the Moluccas, the fabled Indonesian Spice
Islands. Other Jesuits followed in his wake. Xavier returned to Goa to organize
the Jesuits there. Then, with a few other Jesuits, he decided to visit Japan, a
land almost completely unknown to Europeans.
When no Portuguese captain dared to take him to Japan, Xavier hired a
Japanese pirate and eventually landed at Kagoshima in August 1549. Accom-
panying him was Anjiro, a Japanese nobleman and Christian convert, whom
Xavier had befriended in Malacca. Anjiro, a native of Kagoshima, arranged a
meeting with the local ruler, who granted Xavier permission to preach in his
territory. But the harvest of converts there was meager. Xavier, who always
reached for the more, sought to achieve the Jesuit goal of “God’s greater glory.”
Xavier hoped to meet the Japanese emperor and convert him. Though Xavier
and a Jesuit companion reached the imperial capital (today’s Kyoto) in 1551,
they could not obtain an audience with the emperor. Gradually Xavier learned
that the emperor was largely a revered figurehead; in feudal Japan real power
lay with the local lords, the daimyos. Xavier put aside his badly worn cassock,
donned bright silk robes, and sailed to Yamaguchi, the headquarters of the
strongest daimyo. Xavier offered the daimyo music boxes, a clock, and other
wonders from Europe. The daimyo granted Xavier’s request to preach the
Gospel and allowed his subjects to become Christians. Xavier’s new strategy
was successful, and he soon baptized five hundred Japanese Christians. Xavier
was deeply impressed by the Japanese, especially by their sense of honor and
their high rate of literacy.
Eventually, Xavier felt he must return to India to reorganize the work of his
fellow Jesuits in mainland Asia. He barely survived a typhoon on the trip. He
reached Goa in 1552 but was determined to open a mission in China, the
largest, most populous, and most cultured land in Asia. Because Japan had re-
ceived much of its culture from China, Xavier felt that Japanese prejudices
against Christianity would melt away if Christianity could gain a foothold in
China. Europeans, however, were forbidden to enter China. Xavier settled on
an island off the Chinese coast and tried, in vain, to persuade smugglers to
land him on the mainland. He contracted a fever, lapsed into a coma, and
died on December 1, 1552.3 The publication of his letters in Europe created a
sensation, inspiring many young men to follow in his footsteps.]

3. For a popular biography of Xavier, see James Brodrick, Saint Francis Xavier (New
York: Wicklow, 1952). The most detailed biography is that of Georg Schurhammer,
Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times, translated by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J. (Rome:
Jesuit Historical Institute, 1973–82), 4 vols.
Francis Xavier’s Letters 67

Letter 20. To Xavier’s companions living in Rome, from Cochin,4 India,

January 15, 1544
May the grace and love of Christ our Lord ever assist and favor us. Amen.
1. Two years and nine months ago I sailed from Portugal, and, including
this letter, I have written to you three times since then. During the time
that I have been in India, I have received only one letter from you, written
on January 13, 1542; and God our Lord knows how much consolation I re-
ceived from it. The letter was given to me around two months ago. It was so
late in arriving in India because the ship which brought it wintered in
Mozambique.
2. Micer Paulo, Francisco de Mansilhas, and I are in good health. Micer
Paulo is at the College of the Holy Faith in Goa and has charge of the stu-
dents there. Francisco de Mansilhas and I are with the Christians of Cape
Comorin. I have been with these Christians for more than a year and can
tell you that there are many of them, and that many more are being con-
verted each day. As soon as I arrived here on this coast, I sought to learn
from them what they knew about Christ our Lord. When I asked them
what they believed about the articles of the faith or maintained more firmly
now that they were Christians than when they were pagans, the only answer
that I could get from them was that they were Christians and that, since
they did not understand our language, they did not know our law or what
they should believe. Since they did not understand me nor I them, their na-
tive language being Malabar and mine Basque, I assembled those who were
more knowledgeable and sought out individuals who understood both our
language and theirs. After they had helped me with great toil for many
days, we translated the prayers from Latin into Malabar, beginning with the
Sign of the Cross, confessing that there are three persons in one sole God,
then the Creed, the Commandments, the Our Father, Hail Mary, Salve
Regina, and the Confiteor.5 After I had translated these into their language

4. Cochin is a leading city of Kerala in southwest India; Vasco da Gama started a

Portuguese settlement there in 1502. Many inhabitants of the region were Christians
who claimed they could trace their Christian roots back to the apostle St. Thomas.
5. These, the most common Catholic prayers, were also said by European Catholics
in Xavier’s day. The “Creed” is the Apostles’ Creed; the “Commandments” are the
Ten Commandments given to Moses in the biblical books of Exodus and Deuteron-
omy; the “Our Father” is the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew’s Gospel; the “Hail
Mary” weaves together statements about Mary from Luke’s Gospel; and the “Salve
Regina” (Hail, Queen) was another popular prayer to Mary. The “Confiteor” was a
confession of one’s sinfulness recited by the congregation at the start of Mass.
68 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

and had learned them by heart, I went through the entire village with a bell
in my hand in order to assemble all the boys and men that I could. After
they had been brought together, I taught them twice a day. Within the
space of a month, I taught them the prayers and ordered the boys to teach
their fathers and mothers and all those of their house and their neighbors
what they had learned at school.
3. On Sundays I brought all the villagers together, both men and
women, young and old, to recite the prayers in their own language. They
were obviously pleased and very happy to come. Beginning with the con-
fession of one sole God, three and one, they recited the Creed in a loud
voice in their own language, and continued to repeat after me what I said.
When we had finished the Creed, I repeated it by myself. Reciting each ar-
ticle by itself, I paused at each of the twelve [articles] and advised them that
being a Christian means nothing more than to firmly believe without
doubting any of the twelve articles. After they had professed that they were
Christians, I asked them if they firmly believed in each of the twelve ar-
ticles. They then all together, both men and women, young and old, would,
at each one of the twelve articles, answer me that they did in a loud voice
with their arms folded over each other upon their breasts in the form of a
cross; and I had them recite the Creed in this way more frequently than any
other prayer, since only by believing in the twelve articles is a man called a
Christian. The first thing that I taught them after the Creed was the Com-
mandments, telling them that the law of the Christians has only ten Com-
mandments, and that one is called a good Christian if he keeps them as
God commands, and that, on the contrary, one who does not observe them
is a bad Christian. Both Christians and pagans are astonished to see how
holy is the law of Jesus Christ and its complete conformity with natural rea-
son. After the Creed and the Commandments, I recite the Our Father and
Hail Mary, and they repeat them just as I have said them. We recite twelve
Our Fathers and twelve Hail Marys in honor of the twelve articles of the
faith,6 and after these we recite ten more Our Fathers and ten more Hail
Marys in honor of the Ten Commandments, observing the following order:
We begin by reciting the first article of the faith; and after we have recited
it, I say in their language, and they with me: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, give
us the grace to firmly believe without any doubt the first article of the
faith”; and so that he may grant us this grace, we say an Our Father. After
finishing the Our Father, we all say together: “Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus
Christ, obtain for us from your son Jesus Christ the grace to firmly believe,

6. The Apostles’ Creed has twelve short statements of faith; these were traditionally
attributed to the twelve Apostles of Jesus. The same creed is used in Roman Catho-
lic, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestant churches today.
Francis Xavier’s Letters 69

and without any doubt, the first article of the faith”; and so that she may
obtain for us this grace, we recite the Hail Mary. We keep this same order
for all the other articles.
4. After we have finished the Creed and the twelve Our Fathers and Hail
Marys as I have said, we recite the Commandments in the following way:
I begin by reciting the First Commandment, and all recite it after me.
After it has been recited, we all say together: “Jesus Christ, Son of God,
grant us the grace to love you above all things.” After we have asked for
this grace, we all recite the Our Father. After we have finished this, we say:
“Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, obtain for us the grace from your Son
so that we can keep the First Commandment.” After we have asked this
grace from Our Lady, we all recite the Hail Mary; and we keep this same
order for all the other nine Commandments. In this way we recite twelve
Our Fathers and twelve Hail Marys in honor of the twelve articles of the
faith, asking God our Lord for the grace to firmly believe them without
any doubt, and ten Our Fathers with ten Hail Marys in honor of the Ten
Commandments, asking God our Lord that he may grant us the grace to
observe them. These are the petitions which I teach them to make in our
prayers, telling them that if they ask these graces from God our Lord, he
will grant them, all the rest more fully than they could ask for them by
themselves. I have them all recite the Confiteor, especially those who are to
be baptized, and afterwards the Creed; and at every article I ask them if
they firmly believe. After they have answered me that they do and I have I
spoken to them about the law of Jesus Christ which they must keep in
order to be saved, I baptize them. We recite the Salve Regina when we wish
to end our prayers.
5. I hope in God our Lord that the boys will be better men than their fa-
thers, since they manifest much love and affection for our law and for learn-
ing and teaching the prayers. They have such a great abhorrence for the
idolatries of the pagans that they frequently quarrel with them; they re-
proach their fathers and mothers when they see them worshiping idols, and
they denounce them by coming to tell me about it. When they tell me
about idolatries that are being practiced outside the villages, I collect all the
boys of the village and go with them to the place where the idols have been
erected; and the devil is more dishonored by the boys whom I take there
than he was honored by their fathers and relatives when they made and
worshiped them, for the boys take the idols and smash them to bits. They
then spit upon them and trample them under their feet; and after this they
do other things which, though it is better not to mention them by name,
are a credit to the boys who do them against one who is so impudent as to
have himself worshiped by their fathers. For four months I remained in a
70 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

large Christian village translating the prayers of our language into theirs
and teaching them.
6. During this time there were so many who came and asked me to come
to their homes to recite some prayers over their sick, and others who came
in search of me because of their infirmities, that the mere reading of the
Gospels, the teaching of the boys, baptizing, translating the prayers, an-
swering their questions, which were never failing, and then the burial of the
dead left me no time for other occupations. I was thus extremely busy in
complying with the devotion of those who summoned me or came to visit
me, and I could not deny their holy requests lest they lose their faith in our
religion and Christian law. Since matters had come to such a state that I
could not satisfy them all, nor avoid hurting their feelings over whose
house I should visit first, seeing the devotion of the people, I found a way to
satisfy them all. I ordered the boys who knew the prayers to go to the
homes of the sick, and all those of the house and of the neighborhood to as-
semble there, and all to recite the Creed many times, and to tell the sick
person that he should believe and that he would recover; and after this to
say the other prayers. In this way I satisfied them all and had the Creed, the
Commandments, and the other prayers taught in the houses and squares.
God our Lord thus granted many favors to the sick, giving them health in
soul and in body through the faith of those of the house, of their neighbors,
and their own. God showed them great mercy in their sufferings, since he
called them through their infirmities and brought them by force as it were
to the faith.
7. Leaving one in this village who could continue with what had been
begun, I went to visit the other village and proceeded in the same way, for
there are never lacking holy and pious occupations in these regions. I could
never come to an end in describing to you the harvest that is being gained
by baptizing newborn children and teaching those who are old enough to
learn. I leave a copy of the prayers in the villages which I visit, and I order
those who know how to write to copy them, to learn them by heart, and to
recite them every day. And I give them orders on how all should be assem-
bled on Sundays to recite them. I therefore leave someone in the villages to
see that this is done.
8. Many fail to become Christians in these regions because they have no
[missionary] who is concerned with such pious and holy matters. Many
times I am seized with the thought of going to the schools in your lands and
of crying out there, like a man who has lost his mind, and especially at the
University of Paris, telling those in the Sorbonne7 who have a greater regard

7. The Sorbonne is the college of theology at the University of Paris.

Francis Xavier’s Letters 71

for learning than a desire to prepare themselves to use it in helping others:

“How many souls fail to go to glory and go instead to hell through their
neglect!” And thus, as they make progress in their studies, if they would
study the accounting which God our Lord will demand of them and of the
talent which has been given to them, many of them would be greatly
moved and, taking means and making spiritual exercises to know the will of
God within their soul, they would say, conforming themselves to it rather
than to their own inclinations, “Lord, here I am! What would you have me
do? Send me wherever you will, and if need be, even to the Indies!” With
how much greater consolation would they then live! And they would have
great hope in the divine mercy at the hour of their death, when they will
encounter that particular judgment which no man can escape and will say
on their own behalf: “Lord, you gave me five talents. Behold, here are an-
other five that I have gained with them!”
I fear that many who study in the universities study more to obtain hon-
ors, benefices, or bishoprics with their learning than with the desire of
adapting themselves to the demands of these honors and ecclesiastical
states. Those who study are accustomed to say: “I wish to become learned
so that I can thus obtain a benefice or ecclesiastical honor and then serve
God with such an honor.” They therefore make their decision according to
their own inordinate affections, fearing that God might not desire what
they desire; for their inordinate affections do not let them leave this choice
to the will of God our Lord. I was almost moved to write to the University
of Paris, or at least to our Master de Cornibus and to Doctor Picard,8 how
many millions of pagans would become Christians if there were laborers, so
that they may take pains to find persons who seek not what is their own but
what is of Jesus Christ. There is such a great multitude of those who are
being converted to the faith of Christ in this land where I am that it fre-
quently happens that my arms become exhausted from baptizing, and I can
no longer speak from having recited so often the Creed and the Command-
ments in their language, and the other prayers, along with an exhortation
which I know in their language, in which I explain to them what it is to be
a Christian, what paradise is, and what hell is, telling them what kind of
people they are who go to the former and what kind to the latter. I recite
the Creed and the Commandments more frequently than the other prayers.
There are days when I baptize an entire village, and on the coast where I
now am there are thirty Christian villages.
The [Portuguese] governor here in India is a great friend of those who
become Christians. He makes a donation of four thousand pieces of gold
each year, and these are only to be used for, and paid to, those persons who

8. These two were eminent professors of theology at the University of Paris.

72 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

are very diligent in teaching Christian doctrine in the villages which have
been recently converted to the faith. He is a great friend of all those of our
Society; he has a great desire that some of our Company come to these re-
gions, and I believe that he is writing to the king in this regard.
9. Last year I wrote to you about a college that is being built in the city
of Goa. There are already many students in it, who speak different lan-
guages and were all born of pagan parents. Among those in the college, for
which many buildings have already been erected, there are many who are
learning Latin, and others who are learning how to read and write. Micer
Paulo is with the students of this college. He says Mass for them every day
and hears their confessions, and he never ceases to give them spiritual in-
structions. He has care of the physical needs of the students. This college is
very large: more than five hundred students could be housed in it, and it
has the revenues to support them. The college receives many alms, and the
governor is very generous in its regard. All Christians have reason for giving
thanks to God our Lord for the holy founding of this house, which is called
the College of the Holy Faith. Through the mercy of God our Lord, I hope
that before many years have passed the number of Christians will have been
greatly increased, and that the boundaries of the Church will be extended
by those who are studying in this holy college. . . .
13. I can tell you nothing more about these regions than that the conso-
lations which God our Lord gives to those who go among these pagans and
convert them to the faith of Christ are so great that, if there is ever any joy
in this life, this can be said to be it. Many times it happens that I hear a per-
son who goes among these Christians exclaim: “O Lord, do not give me
many consolations in this life! Or, now that you in your infinite goodness
and mercy give them, take me into your holy glory, for it is most painful to
live without seeing you after you have communicated yourself so intimately
to your creatures!” Oh, if those who pursue knowledge employed the same
great efforts in helping themselves to relish these consolations, how many
toils would they endure by day and night in order that they might know
them! Oh, if those joys which a student seeks in understanding what he is
studying, he should seek to find in assisting his neighbors to appreciate
what is necessary for them so that they may know and serve God, with how
much greater consolation and readiness would they prepare themselves for
the accounting which they must give when Christ bids them: “Give an ac-
count of your stewardship!”
14. In these regions, my dearest brothers, my recreations consist in fre-
quently calling you to mind and the time when, through the great mercy of
God our Lord, I knew you and conversed with you. I know interiorly and
feel within my soul how much through my own fault I lost of the time that
Francis Xavier’s Letters 73

I conversed with you, since I did not appreciate the many insights which
God had given you about himself. God has granted me a great grace
through your prayers and the constant remembrance which you have of me
when you commend me to him. I know that God our Lord, despite your
physical absence, lets me perceive through your help and assistance my in-
finite multitude of sins and gives me the strength to go among the infidels,
for which I give great thanks to God our Lord and to you my dearest broth-
ers. Among the many graces which God our Lord has granted me in this
life, and continues to grant me every day, is one which I greatly desired to
see fulfilled during my lifetime, that is, the confirmation of our rule and
way of life. Thanks be to God our Lord for all eternity that he deemed it
well to manifest in public what he gave to his servant Ignatius, our Father,
to experience in secret. . . . I bring this to a close asking God our Lord that,
since he in his mercy brought us together, and for his service has again sep-
arated us so far from each other, he may also unite us again in his holy
glory. . . .
[Your dearest brother in Christ, Francisco.]

Letter 63. To Father Simão Rodrigues in Portugal from Cochin, India,

January 20, 15489
May the grace and love of Christ our Lord ever help and assist us. Amen.
Dearest brother in Christ:
1. For the love and service of God our Lord, brother Master Simão,10 I
urge you to be busy about sending some preachers of our Society, since
there is a great need of them in India. Of all those whom you have sent, I
have only seen Juan de Beira, Father Ribeiro, and Nicolau, a layman, who
are in Maluco, and Adam Francisco, who is in Cochin. I asked about the
others; they told me that there is not a preacher among them.
I also earnestly beseech you for the love and service of God our Lord that
when you arrange for the sending of some of the Society who are not
preachers to these regions of India to convert the infidels, they be persons
who have been well tried in the Society and have had much experience in
gaining victories over themselves during the course of some years, and that

9. Rodrigues was the superior of the Portuguese Jesuit province, by far the largest
province at that time. He enjoyed considerable influence with the Portuguese king.
All Jesuits sent to Asia had to pass through Lisbon and could depart only with the
king’s approval.
10. Xavier addresses Rodrigues as “Master” since Rodrigues had a master’s degree
from the University of Paris. Men of the 16th century were very careful about the
use of such titles.
74 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

they not be of poor health, since the labors in India require physical
strength, even though spiritual strength is more important. The king11
would do a very great service to God our Lord if he sent many preachers of
our Society to India, since the people of India, as you should know, are very
poorly instructed. I am telling you this from my own experience.
2. If the increase of our holy faith among the infidels in these regions en-
counters many difficulties, do not be surprised, since the chief and
strongest opposition to it is to be found within ourselves. I am conse-
quently of the opinion that we must first take care of ourselves and then of
the pagans. For the service of God our Lord, you should do all that you can
this coming year to send preachers. I am not writing to you about affairs in
India, since I arrived here from Malacca only eight days ago and know
nothing about them; and I am distressed by some things that I have come
to know. I believe that our companions are writing at length to you about
all that is happening here.
Those of our Society whom you send here for the conversion of infidels
should be so reliable that any one of them could be sent either alone or with
a companion to any region where there is hope of the greater service of God
our Lord, for example, to Maluco, China, Japan, or Pegu,12 and so forth.
Even if they did not have much learning, if they had much virtue as their
companion, they could go to any of these regions and do much for the ser-
vice of God our Lord.
3. To relieve the conscience of the king, to whom the whole Society is
greatly indebted because of his great friendship for it, he is first seriously
obliged to assist his subjects in spiritual things and then the infidels. I
earnestly desire, for the honor and service of God our Lord and the relief of
the king’s conscience, that he provide all the fortresses of India with preach-
ers of our Society or of the order of St. Francis,13 and that these preachers
should have no other occupation more serious or significant than that of
preaching on Sundays and feast days to the Portuguese and, after dinner, to
the male and female slaves and the free Christians of the land on the articles
of the faith; and on one day a week they should also preach to the wives and
daughters of the Portuguese about these same articles of the faith and the
sacraments of confession and Communion, since I know from experience
the great need that they have of this.

11. King John III of Portugal was a strong supporter of the Jesuits. At the time
Xavier was writing Portugal was the only European nation with bases in East Asia.
12. Pegu is a district of south central Burma.
13. Friars of the order of St. Francis are also known as Franciscans.
Francis Xavier’s Letters 75

For the relief of the king’s conscience, strive to influence him in this re-
gard; for it seems to me, and I pray to God that I may be mistaken, that this
good man will at the hour of his death find himself greatly indebted with
respect to India; for I fear that in heaven God our Lord and all his saints are
saying of him: “Through his letters the king shows his good desires for the
increase of my honor in India, since it is only on this title that he holds it in
my name; but he never punishes those who fail to execute his letters and
commands, though he arrests and punishes those to whom he has commit-
ted his temporal interests if they fail in any way to increase his estates and
revenues.”
4. If I were convinced that the king knew the sincere love which I have
for him, I would ask him for a favor through which I might render a service
to him, namely, that every day he should spend a quarter of an hour in ask-
ing God our Lord to grant him to comprehend and to feel more keenly
within his soul the saying of Christ: “What does it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?” [Mk. 8:36]. He should
also adopt the pious practice of adding at the end of all his prayers: “What
does it profit?” etc. It is time, dearest brother Master Simão, to disillusion
the king, for the hour is nearer than he thinks when God our Lord will call
him to give a reckoning with the words: “Give an account of your steward-
ship” [Lk.: 16:2]. He should therefore take care to provide India with spir-
itual foundations.
5. My dearest brother Master Simão: From the experience which I have
had, I know of only one way and route for the great increase of the service
of God our Lord in these regions of India. I know of no other, and this is it:
that the king send an instruction to the governor of India, whoever he may
be, in which he tells his governor that he does not rely so much upon any
Religious Order in India (naming in the first place our Society) as he does
upon him for the increase of the faith of Jesus Christ in these regions of
India. He therefore orders him to make the island of Ceylon [modern Sri
Lanka] Christian and to increase the number of Christians on Cape Co-
morin. In order to do this, the governor should look for members of Reli-
gious Orders in these regions, and he should be given all power over our
Society so that he might dispose of it and give orders to it and do with our
men and with all the others whatever he desires and deems to be good for
the increase of our holy faith. If he does not undertake to make the whole
of the island of Ceylon Christian and greatly increase our faith, he, the
king, promises—and in order to intimidate governors and to convince
them that he is speaking the truth, he should take an oath and keep it (since
he will obtain great merit by doing so, and more by fulfilling it)—that if
76 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

they do not relieve his conscience by making many Christians in these re-
gions, he will, when they return to Lisbon, put them in irons and keep
them in prison for many years and confiscate all their possessions. If the
king gives such an order and the governors do not comply with it and are
severely punished for their failure to do so, these regions will in this way be-
come Christian, but in no other way.
6. This is the truth, brother Master Simão. I say no more. In this way the
thefts and injuries to which these poor Christians are subject will come to
an end; and those who are in a position to bring this about will be greatly
encouraged to do so; for, if the king entrusts this matter of making Chris-
tian converts to any other person than the governor, he should have no
hopes of producing any harvest. Believe me that I am speaking the truth
from what I have experienced here; and there is no need for me to tell you
how I know it. I am anxious to see two things in India: the first, that gover-
nors be subject to this law; the second, that there be preachers of our Soci-
ety in all the fortresses of India; for this would, believe me, contribute
much to the service of God, both in Goa and in all the other regions of
India. May God our Lord watch ever over us. Amen.
From Cochin, January 20, 1548. Your dearest
brother in Christ, Francisco.

Letter 64. Instruction for those of the Society who are on the Fishery
Coast and in Travancore.14
From Manapar, India, February, 1548
The following is the order which you should observe in the service of God,
and you must be most diligent in keeping it.
1. First of all, in the villages which you visit or which are under your care,
you must be very diligent in baptizing the newborn infants, since this is the
most important thing that can be done in these regions at the present time.
You should therefore go from house to house in the villages which you are
visiting and ask if there are any children to be baptized, and you should
take with you some boys of the village to help you with your questions.
2. Do not trust that the local police or others will come to tell you that a
child has been born, since they are careless and the infants run the risk of
dying without baptism.
3. In the villages in which you are staying, or which you visit, or for
which you are responsible, take great care that the children are taught
Christian doctrine, and that they are brought together with great diligence.

14. Travancore is on the east coast of India south of Madras.

Francis Xavier’s Letters 77

Order the villagers to be very diligent in teaching them and in doing their
duty. Take account of how many know the prayers so that you may gain a
richer harvest at your next visit, since they will know the accounting that
you will exact from them; and the main harvest is that which is being pro-
duced among the children.
4. On Sundays, in the village or villages which you have to visit, take care
that the men come to the church to recite the prayers; and in the villages
which you do not visit on Sundays, you should ask the local policeman if
the chiefs and the others of the village are going to church.
In the village where you happen to be, you should give an explanation of
the prayers after they have been recited; and you should condemn the vices
that are found among the people with clear examples and comparisons, al-
ways speaking so clearly that they understand you, telling them that if they
do not amend their ways, God will punish them in this life with sicknesses,
and shorten their days through the tyrannies of the king’s village chiefs; and
that after their death they will go to hell.
5. You should also inquire about those in the village who are quarreling
with each other; on Sundays you should strive to make them friends when
they come together in the church, and you should do the same on Satur-
days with women who are quarreling with each other.
6. The alms which you receive from men and women on Sundays and
Saturdays, and the alms which are offered in the church or were promised
by the sick, should all be distributed among the poor, so that we do not take
anything for ourselves.
7. You should visit those who are sick and order the villagers to come and
tell you when someone is ill. When you visit them, have them recite the
Confiteor and the Creed; and ask them if they truly believe in each article;
and take with you a boy who knows the prayers for this so that he may re-
cite them; and read a Gospel over them. On Sundays and Saturdays advise
the men and the women that they should inform you when a person is ill,
warning them that if they do not do so, you must not bury them in the
church nor where the Christians are buried.
8. On Saturdays and Sundays, when the men and women come together
in the church, explain to them the articles of the faith, following the norm
which I left in writing with Father Francisco Coelho, so that he might
translate it from Portuguese into Malabar. When the translation of these ar-
ticles has been made, do what I have written about them, so that you have
them read every Saturday and Sunday in the church where you are and in
those which you are obliged to visit.
9. When anyone dies, you must bury him, going to his house with a
cross, the boys reciting the prayers along the way; when you have reached
78 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

the house, you should recite a responsory. After removing the body, you
should bring it to the place of burial; and all the boys should recite the
prayers. At the place of burial, recite another responsory. And, after you
have buried the body, give a brief exhortation to those who are present, re-
minding them that they must die and that, if they wish to go to paradise,
they must prepare themselves for doing so by living well.
10. On Saturdays and Sundays urge the men and women to bring any
child that has fallen ill to the church so that you may read a Gospel over it.
You should do this so that the adults may be strengthened in their faith and
in their love for the church, and so that their infants get better.
11. When there are quarrels and disputes among the people, you should
strive to settle them, but entrust those that are serious to the captain or to
Father Antonio,15 so that you can be engaged as little as possible in examin-
ing their disputes. Do not neglect spiritual works of mercy in order to busy
yourself with hearing complaints. If the complaints which you receive from
the people are of little importance, order them to be settled by the chiefs of
the village after the prayers have been said on Sunday.
12. Be very kind in your dealings with the captain, and do not quarrel
with him on any account. Strive to live in peace and love with all the Por-
tuguese on this coast; and do not be at odds with anyone, even though they
may wish to be so. Reproach them with love for the wrongs which they do
to the Christians. If they fail to amend their ways, tell the captain about it.
To repeat, I again advise you not to be at odds with the captain on any ac-
count.
13. Your conversations with the Portuguese should be about the things of
God. Speak to them about death, the day of judgment, and the pains of hell
and of purgatory; and you should therefore advise them to confess their
sins, to receive Communion, and to keep the Ten Commandments of God.
If you speak to them of these things, they will not hinder you in what per-
tains to your office; and those who speak with you will do so of spiritual
things, or they will leave you alone.
14. You should assist the native priests in spiritual matters, telling them
to confess their sins, to say Mass, and to give a good example by their way
of life. You should not write anything bad about them to anyone. All you
can do is to give an account of it to Father Antonio, who is the superior of
this coast.

15. Antonio Criminali (1520–49) was an Italian missionary and superior of the Je-
suits on the Fishery Coast. He became the first Jesuit martyr when he was clubbed
to death by Hindus angered by the tollgate erected by Portuguese officials on the
road to the Hindu temple.
Francis Xavier’s Letters 79

When you baptize infants, first read a Gospel of St. Mark or the Creed,
and then baptize them with the intention of making them Christians, say-
ing the words that are essential for baptism: “I baptize you in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” [Mt. 28:19] pouring the
water as you say the words. When you have baptized them, read a Gospel or
recite a prayer according to your own devotion. When you baptize adults,
have them first recite the Confiteor and the Creed; at each article ask them
if they believe in it; and after they have said that they do, baptize them.
15. Be careful not to say anything bad about the Christians in the pres-
ence of Portuguese, but always support and defend them when speaking
about them; for if the Portuguese would take into account the little learn-
ing of these people and the short time that they have been Christians, they
would be surprised that they were not worse than they are.
16. Strive with all your might to make yourself loved by the people, for if
you are loved by them, you will gain far richer harvest than if you are de-
spised by them.
17. Do not punish any of them without first consulting Father Antonio;
and if you are in a place where the captain is, do not punish or arrest any-
one without his approval.
18. When anyone makes a pagoda,16 whether it be a man or a woman,
you should, as a punishment, banish him, with the approval of Father An-
tonio, from the village in which he is living to another.
19. Show much love for the children who come to the prayers, and avoid
offending them, overlooking the punishments which they deserve.
20. When you write to the priests and brothers in India, you should give
a detailed account of the harvest you have gathered. You should also write
to the lord bishop with great respect and reverence, as to our superior, so
that he recognizes our obedience to him.
21. You should not go to any land at the request of any king or lord with-
out the approval of Father Antonio, giving the excuse that we are not al-
lowed to go there.
22. I again earnestly recommend that you strive to become loved in the
villages which you will visit and in those where you will live so that, because
of your good works and kind words, we may be loved by all rather than be
despised, for in this way you will do much good, as I have already said. May
the Lord grant this to us and be with us all. Amen.
February 1548. Entirely yours, Master Francisco.

16. A pagoda is an East Asian temple or shrine.

80 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

Letter 97. To Father Ignatius of Loyola, in Rome from Cochin, India. Jan-
uary 29, 1552
May the grace and love of Christ our Lord ever help and assist us. Amen.
1. My true Father: I recently received a letter from your Holy Charity17
in Malacca when I was returning from Japan; and God our Lord knows
how much my soul was consoled on receiving news of your life and health,
which I cherish so highly. And among the many other very saintly words
and consolations which I read in your letter were these last, which said “En-
tirely yours, without my being able to forget you at any time, Ignatius;”
and, just as I then read them with tears, so I am now writing these with
tears, as I recall times past and the great love which you ever had, and still
have, for me; and as I also reflect upon the many toils and dangers of Japan
from which God our Lord freed me through the intercession of your Char-
ity’s holy prayers.
2. I would never be able to describe the great debt that I owe to the
people of Japan, since God our Lord, through respect for them, gave me a
great knowledge of my infinite iniquities; for, being apart from myself, I did
not recognize the many evils that were within me until I saw myself amidst
the toils and dangers of Japan. God our Lord made me clearly feel the great
need which I had of one who would take great care of me. Your Holy Char-
ity may now see the burden that you are giving me in the care of so many
holy souls of the Society who are here, since I clearly know, apart from the
mercy of God, my great inadequacy in this regard. I was hoping that you
would commend me to those of the Society and not them to me.
3. Your Holy Charity has written to me that you have a great desire to see
me before you leave this life. God our Lord knows what an impression
these words of great love made upon my soul, and how many tears they
have cost me whenever I recall them; and it seems to me that I shall have
this consolation, since nothing is impossible to holy obedience.
4. For the love and service of God our Lord, I am asking a kindness from
you; and, if I were in your presence, I would kneel down before your holy
feet [and ask you to send a Jesuit] . . . to be the rector of the college of Goa,
for the college of Goa has the greatest need of something from your hand.
5. The reason why priests of the Society must be sent to the universities
of Japan is the fact that the laity defend their errors by saying that they are
also held by their schools and scholars.

17. Xavier usually addresses Ignatius of Loyola as “Your Holy Charity.” Such hon-
orific titles were very common in the 16th century. A few still survive: kings are
called Your Majesty; popes are called Your Holiness; judges are called Your Honor.
Francis Xavier’s Letters 81

6. And those who go there will suffer great persecutions, for they will
have to oppose all their sects, and also to manifest and explain to the world
the wily ways and means employed by the bonzes18 to relieve the laity of
their money.
7. But the bonzes will not tolerate this, especially when the priests say
that the bonzes cannot rescue souls from hell, for this is how they gain their
livelihood; moreover, when they condemn the sin against nature,19 which is
so common among them, they will have to endure tribulations on this ac-
count and for many other reasons; and they will suffer great persecutions. I
am writing to Father Master Simão [Rodrigues] and, in his absence, to the
rector of the college of Coimbra,20 that they should not send persons from
there to these universities unless they have been seen and approved by your
Holy Charity.
8. They will suffer greater persecutions than many think; they will be
pestered by visits and questions at all hours of the day and during part of
the night; and they will be called to the homes of important people who
cannot be refused. They will have no time for prayer, meditation, and con-
templation, or for any spiritual recollection; they will not be able to say
Mass, at least in the beginning; they will be continuously occupied with an-
swering questions; they will lack the time to recite the office, and even to
eat and sleep. These people are very demanding, especially with strangers,
whom they hold of little account and are always ridiculing.
9. What, then, will happen when they speak ill of all their sects and their
open vices, and especially when they say that those who go to hell cannot
be helped? Many will become furious when they hear this about hell, that
there is no remedy for it. Others will say that we know nothing, since we
cannot rescue souls from hell. They have no knowledge of purgatory.
10. There is a need for trained scholars, especially for good artystas, to
answer their questions, and for those who are sophystas21 to catch them up as
soon as they contradict themselves. These bonzes are deeply ashamed when
they are caught in contradictions, or when they are unable to reply.
11. They will have to endure great colds, since Bandu, which is the most
important university of Japan, is far to the north, as are also the other uni-
versities; and those who live in cold lands are more acute and intelligent.

18. Bonzes were Buddhist monks.

19. “Sin against nature” refers to same-sex activity.
20. Coimbra was the site of a Portuguese university and the largest Jesuit commu-
nity outside Rome.
21. Xavier is asking Loyola to send good philosophers and logicians, respectively, to
India.
82 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

There is, moreover, nothing but

rice to eat. There are also wheat
and other kinds of plants, and
other things of little sustenance.
They make wine from rice but
have nothing else, and this is rare
and costly. But the greatest trial of
all are the constant and obvious
dangers of death.
12. It is not a land for the eld-
erly because of its many hardships,
nor for those who are very young,
if they have not had much experi-
ence; for they will otherwise ruin
themselves instead of helping oth-
ers. It is a land that is open to all Loyola sends St. Francis Xavier to India.
kinds of sins, though the people
are themselves scandalized by every little thing they see in those who re-
proach them. I am writing this detailed report to Master Simão, or, in his
absence, to the rector of Coimbra.
13. I would be greatly consoled if your Holy Charity would send an
order to Coimbra that those whom they intend to send to Japan should
first go to Rome. I am of the opinion that Flemings or Germans who know
Spanish or Portuguese would be good for Japan, since they could endure
the many physical labors and also the great colds of Bandu; and I believe
that there are many of these persons in the colleges of Spain and Italy.
Moreover, though they lack a facility in the languages for preaching in
Spain or Italy, they would be able to reap a rich harvest in Japan.
14. also believe that I should tell your Holy Charity that those of the So-
ciety who are to come to live in India should be individuals who have been
chosen for the colleges of Spain and Coimbra, even though no more than
two came each year; and they should be such as are required in India, men
of sufficient perfection, who can later preach and hear confessions; and, if it
should seem good to you, they should first make a pilgrimage to Rome and
discover by themselves, through their travels, how much they are, so that
they do not find themselves like novices in these regions, where there are
very great dangers of falling for lack of strength.
15. This is why they must be well tried; and also, so that we who are
here, instead of being consoled by them, are not saddened by their dis-
missal. Your Holy Charity should see if it would be good to advise Master
Simão in this regard.
Francis Xavier’s Letters 83

16. It does not seem to me that those of the Society who are in Yam-
aguchi, and those here who are to go there either this year and in the fol-
lowing years, if God so wills, have the qualifications for being sent to the
universities, but rather those for learning the language and the teachings of
the sects, so that they may serve as interpreters for the priests coming from
Europe and faithfully translate everything that is told them.
17. It seems to me that there will be a great increase in what is being
done in Yamaguchi, since there are many Christians in that city, and among
them there are many fine persons; and others are being converted every day.
I live with great hopes that God our Lord will preserve Father Cosme de
Torres and Juan Fernández from being slain, since the greatest dangers are
now past, and also because there are many Christians, including persons of
high rank, who are taking great care to protect them by day and night. Juan
Fernández is a lay brother and can already speak Japanese very well. He
translates everything that Father Cosme de Torres tells him. With their con-
stant preaching, they are now engaged in explaining all the mysteries of the
life of Christ.
18. Since the land of Japan is well disposed for Christianity to be perpet-
uated by itself among the people there, all the efforts that are being made
are well employed. I am consequently living with great hopes that your
Holy Charity will send holy persons from there to Japan, since of all the
lands that have been discovered in these regions, the people of Japan are the
only ones who could by themselves perpetuate Christianity, even though
this will require very great labors.22
19. China is an extremely large land, peaceful, and ruled by grand laws. It has
only one king, and he is readily obeyed. It is a very rich kingdom and has a great
abundance of all kinds of provisions. From China to Japan it is only a short
crossing. These Chinese are very talented and dedicated to studies, especially
with respect to the human laws pertaining to the governing of a state. They
have a great desire for knowledge. They are a white race, without beards and
with very small eyes. They are a generous people and, above all, very peaceful.
There are no wars among them. If there should be no obstacles here in India to
prevent me from leaving this year, 1552, I hope to go to China for the great ser-
vice of our God which can be rendered both in China and Japan; for, if the Jap-
anese learn that the Chinese have accepted the law of God, they will more

22. Xavier was far more impressed by the intellectual ability of the Japanese com-
pared to that of the other nations he visited. He felt that the Japanese would make
better priests and Jesuits than men from the other nations in which he worked. But
he overestimated the Order’s ability to gain a significant foothold in that country.
Today more Jesuits come from India than from any other nation.
84 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

quickly lose their faith in their sects. I have great hopes that both the Chinese
and the Japanese, through the Society of the name of Jesus, will abandon their
idolatries and worship God and Jesus Christ, the Savior of all nations.
20. It is a remarkable fact that, though the Chinese and Japanese do not
understand each other when they speak, since their languages are very differ-
ent from each other, Japanese who know the Chinese characters can make
themselves understood in writing, though not by speaking. These Chinese
characters are taught in the universities of Japan, and the bonzes who know
them are regarded by others as learned men; and the Chinese manner of writ-
ing is such that each character indicates one thing. Consequently, when the
Japanese are learning it, when they write a Chinese letter, they paint over it
what it means. If the character means “man,” they paint over it the figure of
man; and they do the same with all the other characters. The characters thus
correspond to words; and when a Japanese reads these letters, he reads them
in Japanese, and when a Chinese reads them, he reads them in Chinese. Thus,
when they speak, they do not understand each other; but, when they write,
they understand each other only through the letters, since they know their
meaning, even though the languages themselves always remain different.
21. We composed a book in Japanese which dealt with the creation of
the world and with all the mysteries of the life of Christ; and we then wrote
this same book in Chinese letters, so that when I go to China I can make
myself understood until I am able to speak Chinese.
22. For the love and service of God our Lord, may your Holy Charity,
with all of the Society, continuously commend me to God. . . .
From Cochin, January 29, 1552. Least son and farthest exile,
Francisco

Letter 110. To Father Ignatius of Loyola in Rome, from Goa, April 9, 1552
May the grace and love of Christ our Lord always help and assist us. Amen.
1. In the year 1552, in the month of February, I wrote to your Holy
Charity on how I came to India from Japan, and about the harvest which
was gained there through the conversion of pagans to our holy faith, and on
how Father Cosme de Torres and Juan Fernandez remained in Yamaguchi,
a leading city of Japan, with the Christians who had already been converted
and the many who were being converted every day. This present year two of
the Society are going to Yamaguchi to assist Father Cosme de Torres and to
learn the language, so that when priests of great trust come from there to go
to the universities of Japan, they will find there members of the Society who
can accurately translate what the priests will tell them. Through the mercy
of God there is already in Yamaguchi a house of the Society; this is so far
Francis Xavier’s Letters 85

from Rome that from Goa to Yamaguchi it is more than fourteen hundred
leagues, and from Rome more than six thousand.
2. Six days from now, with the help and favor of God our Lord, three of
us of the Society, two priests and one lay brother, are going to the court of
the king of China, which is near Japan, a land that is extremely large and
inhabited by a very gifted race and by many scholars. From information
which I have received, they are greatly devoted to learning; and the more
learned one is, the more noble and esteemed he is. All the paganism of the
sects in Japan has come from China. We are going with great confidence in
God our Lord that his name will be manifested in China. May your Holy
Charity take special care to recommend us to God, both those who are in
Japan and those of us who are going to China. God willing, we shall write
to you in great detail about what we shall have experienced in China—
about how we were received, and also about how disposed it is for the in-
crease of our faith.
3. After I returned to the college of Goa, I had to dismiss some persons
from the Society.23 I was greatly distressed to discover ample reasons for
doing so; but, on the other hand, I was much relieved to dismiss them. I ap-
pointed Father Master Gaspar [Berze] the rector of the college, a Fleming
by birth, a very reliable person, who has received many virtues from God.
He is a very great preacher, very well received by the people, and greatly
loved by those of the Society. He moves the people so much to tears when
he preaches that it is something for which many thanks can be given to our
Lord. I am leaving all in these regions, both priests and brothers, under his
obedience. Those who could be a source of disedification during my ab-
sence I have dismissed for things in the past. All those who now remain are
such that I am well content to go to China. But if God our Lord should
take Master Gaspar from this life, I have left a document written and signed
by my own hand in which I state who will succeed him as rector of this col-
lege, in order to avoid any trouble that might arise in the election of a rec-
tor before your Holy Charity provided a rector for these regions. Because of
the great distance from here to Rome, I did this to avoid difficulties which
might occur, both in the election of a rector and in the long time that it
would take for a letter to go from here to Rome and for a reply to return.
4. It seemed to me that God our Lord would be greatly served if, before I
departed for China, I left an order that a brother of the Society should go
next year to Portugal, and from there to Rome, with letters for your Holy
Charity to let you know the need that these regions have for priests who
have been well tried and proven in the world, for men of this kind reap a

23. Xavier does not give the precise reasons for their dismissal.
86 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

rich harvest in these regions; whereas those who are learned but have had no
experience and have not been tried by persecutions from the world produce
a meager harvest in these regions; and those whom I dismissed were such.
5. From what I have experienced in Japan, the priests who are to go there
to profit souls spiritually, especially those who are to go to the universities,
have need of two things: the first is that they have been much tried and per-
secuted in the world and that they have had much experience and have ac-
quired a great interior knowledge of themselves, since they will be more
persecuted in Japan than they ever were perhaps in Europe. The land is cold
and has few resources. The people do not sleep in beds, since there are
none. There is a shortage of food. They have a contempt for strangers, es-
pecially for those who come to preach the law of God; and they retain this
until they have acquired a taste for God. Those who go there will always be
persecuted by the priests of Japan; and I do not think that those who are to
go to the universities will be able to take with them what they would need
for saying Mass, since there are many thieves in the lands through which
they must pass. Since in the midst of such great difficulties and persecu-
tions, they will be deprived of the consolation of the Mass and of the spiri-
tual nourishment which persons obtain from receiving their Lord, your
Holy Charity may see the virtue that will be required in the priests who are
to go to the universities of Japan.
6. They must also be learned in order to be able to answer the many
questions that are posed by the Japanese. It would be well if they were good
Masters of Arts, and it would certainly be no loss if they were dialecticians,
so that they could catch the Japanese in contradictions when they dispute
with them. It would also be good if they knew something about the celes-
tial sphere, since the Japanese are delighted with learning about the move-
ments of the heavens, the eclipses of the sun, the waxing and waning of the
moon, and how rain, snow and hail, thunder, lightning, comets, and other
natural phenomena are produced. The explanation of such matters is a
great help in gaining the good will of the people. I thought it well to give
your Holy Charity this account of the people of Japan, so that you might
appreciate the virtues that must be possessed by the priests who are to go
there.24
7. I have frequently thought that a number of Flemish and German
priests of the Society would be good for those regions, since they can en-
dure great labors and put up with the cold; and there, both in Italy and in

24. Fifty years later Matteo Ricci used his knowledge of Western science and geog-
raphy to win favor with Chinese intellectuals and the imperial court in Beijing. See
the selection later in this chapter.
Francis Xavier’s Letters 87

Spain, they would be less missed, since they do not have a command of the
language that is needed for preaching. But, if the brothers in Japan are to
understand them, they must be able to speak Spanish or Portuguese; but
even if they do not know much, they can learn it on the way, since it will
take them at least two years to reach Yamaguchi from there.
8. I believe that I should inform your Holy Charity about the need that
these regions have for one who is conversant with the things of the Soci-
ety, a person who has had experience in them and has been associated for
some time with your Holy Charity. This college [in Goa] and all the mem-
bers of the Society who are here in India have a great need for such a per-
son, so that they may be well instructed according to the holy Rules and
Constitutions of the Society. Even if this person should have no talent for
preaching, he will not on this account fail to be useful and needed in these
regions. For the service of God our Lord, send someone from your hand
to be rector of this college; for whoever he may be, even if he is not very
learned, if you send him from your hand, he will be such a one as is
needed in this house, since the priests and brothers in these regions wish
to see someone from Rome who has conversed much with your Holy
Charity. . . .
11. A great service will be rendered to God our Lord if the priests who
are to come to these regions are thoroughly tried, since this land has need
of them. I am also writing to Father Master Simão [Rodrigues], or to the
rector of the college of Coimbra in his absence, that he should not send
priests here who would not be missed there, since such are not needed
here, and it will be a great boon if
your Holy Charity would issue an
order that no priest of the Society
is to come to these regions who
has not first made a pilgrimage to
Rome and comes to India with the
permission of the superior general.
Most of all, it seems to me to be
very important that no person
from Portugal, or from any other
country, should come as rector to
these regions of India who has not
first gone to Rome and been suffi-
ciently examined by our superior
general, and that he comes here
with his permission and decree,
Xavier writes to Loyola from India. but in no other way. I say this
88 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

from the experience which I have had of those who came from Portugal to
be rectors of this college. And since I fear that one may come next year as
in the past, I am leaving an order that none of those who come from there
to be the rector of this house are to be accepted as such if they have not
been so ordered by our superior general and do not have a document from
him to this effect. I have done this to avoid some things which I forebear
to put in writing.
12. I would be greatly consoled if your Holy Charity would ask a person
in the house to write to me at great length news about the priests who came
with us from Paris, and about all the others, and about how the things of
the Society are prospering, both about the colleges and houses, and also
about the number of professed priests, and about some very distinguished
persons who had excellent qualities before they entered into the Society,
and about some great scholars who are in it, since such a letter will refresh
me in the midst of numerous trials on both sea and land, in China and
Japan.
May our Lord join us together in the glory of paradise, and also, if it will
be to his service, in this present life. This could be easily accomplished if I
were so ordered by obedience. All tell me that one can go from China to
Jerusalem. If this should be so, as I am told, I shall write it to your Holy
Charity, and how many leagues it is, and how long it would take to go.
From Goa, April 9, 1552. Your least son and farthest exiled,
Francisco.

Writings of Matteo Ricci

[Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) entered the Jesuits in 1571. He received the

usual Jesuit training at the Roman College and also studied mathematics
under a leading scholar, Christopher Clavius, S.J. (1537–1612). Ricci then
volunteered to work as a missionary in Asia. He studied theology for three
years after reaching India in 1578. Because of his excellent language skills he
was sent to Macao, the Portuguese colony near Hong Kong where he studied
Chinese with Michele Ruggieri, the pioneer of Jesuit efforts to penetrate
China. In 1583 Ricci and Ruggieri settled in Chaoking and dressed like Bud-
dhist monks. They wanted to use their skills in Western science to ingratiate
themselves with Chinese scholars. Ricci produced a world map that won the
admiration of Chinese intellectuals. Later he translated into Chinese treatises
on Western mathematics, philosophy, and theology and a catechism. Ruggieri
returned to Italy in 1588 to try to persuade the pope to send an ambassador
to Beijing. Ricci moved northward to Guangdong in 1589 where he ex-
changed the clothing of a Buddhist monk for that of a Confucian scholar. In
Writings of Matteo Ricci 89

1597 Ricci became superior of all Jesuits in China. Though his first efforts to
set up a Jesuit house in Beijing, the capital, ran afoul of hostile officials, the
emperor summoned him to the capital in 1601. In Beijing Ricci and his Je-
suit assistant presented the emperor with Western scientific gifts; in return they
were granted the right to reside in the capital, where the emperor subsidized
their work in mathematics and astronomy. The Mandarin scholars who con-
trolled much of the government held Ricci’s work—and that of later Jesuits
who continued his scholarly work in Beijing for the next 150 years—in high
esteem. The Jesuits hoped to convert an emperor so that a Chinese Constan-
tine would lead the world’s most populous nation to Christianity. Though this
never happened, the imperial favor enjoyed by the Beijing Jesuits provided a
shield for Catholic missionaries working elsewhere in China. Ricci and his Je-
suit successors at Beijing also served as the main intellectual link between Eu-
rope and China; this link led to almost two centuries in which knowledge in
literature, philosophy, mathematics, science, and art was shared between the
two regions.25
The two documents offered below illustrate Ricci’s work. The first selection
is taken from Nicholas Trigault’s De Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas
(The Christian expedition among the Chinese) published in Augsburg in
1615, five years after Ricci’s death. Trigault, a Belgian Jesuit, joined the Jesuit
community in Beijing and had access to Ricci’s diaries and private papers. He
reworked Ricci’s writings slightly to make them more accessible and attractive
to European readers in the hope that they would be moved to offer support and
financial help for Jesuits working in China. Prior to the publication of Tri-
gault’s book, Europeans were largely dependent upon Marco Polo’s writings,
composed three centuries earlier, for their understanding of China. Public in-
terest in the current state of Chinese affairs turned Trigault’s book into an im-
mediate success. Not the least of Ricci’s accomplishments was convincing
Europeans that the “Cathay” described by Marco Polo was in fact China. Be-
tween 1615 and 1623 Trigault’s book went through four editions in Latin,
three in French, and one each in German, Spanish, and Italian.]

25. See Donald Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1965–), 3 vols. The discoveries beginning in the 1490s opened Asia, Africa,
and the Americas to Europe and issued in the development of world civilization.
The European impact on the rest of the world was enormous, but these discoveries
opened a two-way street. Asian contributions to the development of Europe are
traced in detail by Lach’s monumental study. In the 16th and 17th centuries no
group played a larger role here than the Jesuits. The best recent study of Ricci is
Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New York: Viking Press,
1984). A more popular biography is Vincent Cronin’s The Wise Man from the West
(New York: Dutton, 1955).
90 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

Nicholas Trigault, The Christian Expedition Undertaken

among the Chinese by the Society of Jesus, from the Commentaries
of Father Matteo Ricci of the Same Society
Book 5, Chapter 2: Father Ricci’s Chinese writings26
How much esteem for the Christian faith was won at this time by the printing
of the books of Father Matteo Ricci.
As our first book recounted, literary works flourished in this kingdom.
Very few people are found here who do not have some interest in such works.
Indeed, this kingdom is unusual in that the religious sects spread their mes-
sages not through sermons preached to the people but rather through books;
this is a fairly well established fact. Since these people do not like to gather in
crowds of people together, they often spread the word of something new in
this way. This did not deter our Fathers. I doubt that these people, who are
addicted to reading books, would have been persuaded in this matter by the
preaching of our men—who are not always eloquent in a foreign language—
as they have been by what they read in their leisure time. Still, I would not
want you to think that sermons to the converts were omitted on feast days; I
am talking, instead, about the local people who are attracted by books and
tend to debate questions in private conversations. It is not uncommon for
these eager readers to commit to memory the major Christian teachings they
encounter while reading spiritual books at home. They then share these
teachings with their close friends. When they noticed this, our Fathers were
inspired to study [Chinese] writings. Though this was a long and demanding
task, they recognized that with perseverance and talent all that hard work and
trouble was—thanks to the help of God’s kindness—worthwhile.
Perhaps most important—and surprising and completely unheard of in
all the rest of the world—is the fact that any book published [in Chinese] is
read and understood in Japan and Korea and even Vietnam, the Leucmans
and other kingdoms just as it is in the fifteen vast provinces of Chinese
kingdom even though their speech is totally different. The reason for this is
that the individual characters in their picture writing signify the same indi-
vidual thing. If the whole earth agreed upon this way of writing, we could
use these written characters to share our inmost thoughts with those people
from whom we are currently prevented from speaking as a result of the
differences in our spoken language.

26. John Patrick Donnelly has translated this selection from Nicholas Trigault’s De
Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societatis Iesu, ex P. Matthaei Ricii eius-
dem Societatis Commentariis (Augustae Vind.: Apud Christoph. Mangium, 1615),
pp. 486–91. For a full translation of Trigault’s work, see China in the Sixteenth Cen-
tury: The Journals of Matteo Ricci, 1583–1610, translated by Louis J. Gallagher
(New York: Random House, 1953).
Writings of Matteo Ricci 91

Father Matteo was the first [Westerner] to begin studying Chinese char-
acters at that time. The teachings he spread abroad eventually earned him
the admiration of those [Chinese] scholars who had previously failed to
learn anything by reading a foreigner’s writings. . . . As was said earlier, Fa-
ther Matteo began with the basics of cosmology and astronomy. Though he
did not teach anything unusual, or anything that was not already common
knowledge to a European undergraduate student, his teaching seemed
wonderful beyond belief to the Chinese, who continued to hold erroneous
beliefs handed down to them by their ancestors. Thus many of the Chinese,
who had previously been stubborn and haughty in defense of their igno-
rance, sincerely admitted that their eyes had been opened to important
matters; up until that day they had not realized how isolated they were in
their intolerable blindness. Aside from his short commentaries on the four
elements, on friendship, and on moderating the evil inclinations of the
heart (these were treated earlier), [Ricci] wrote more than twenty-five short
treatises on moderating the evil inclinations of the mind. The Chinese
called these treatises The Sentences. Ricci thought he ought to have these
short treatises read by some of his [Chinese] friends prior to publication.
They were met with great approval; indeed, it seemed unbelievable to his
friends that somebody from one of the foreign nations—which up to that
day they regarded as barbarous—could have discovered things so erudite
and fitting. All of Ricci’s friends eagerly made copies of treatises. Indeed,
when Fumo Can27 (who was often mentioned above) received his single
copy, he had it printed along with an elegant preface in which he praised
the book and compared it to another, similar, treatise entitled The Forty-two
Paragraphs once published by a sect of idol worshipers. Fumo Can did not
just compare the two books; his preference for Ricci’s book was such that
he encouraged all scholars to read it so that they might compare for them-
selves the vanity of shadowy virtue colored by superstitions with [Ricci’s]
truth drawn from Christian fountains. Let the scholars make their own
comparison and confirm it by calculation—they will see which of the two
small books is better suited for the good of individuals and for the universal
good of the nation. Our friend Paul added a second preface to Fumo Can’s
and ended the little book with an epilogue.28 Both of these [scholars] added
to the great prestige of Ricci’s work. These great men added as much

27. Fumo Can (1555–1606) was a friend of Ricci and a Chinese scholar and mag-
istrate who converted to Christianity.
28. Paul is the baptismal name taken by the Chinese convert and scholar Xu
Guanqi (1562–1633), who helped Ricci translate the first six books of Euclid into
Chinese from the Euclidis elementorum Libri XV, published by the great Jesuit math-
ematician Christopher Clavius (1537–1612) under whom Ricci had studied in
Rome. See the cover of this book for a portrait of Clavius.
92 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

authority to the faith of Christians as could rightfully be hoped for. Pri-

vately, our friend Paul believed that the practices of the Christian faith de-
served to be widely praised; he professed that not only did he approve of
these practices but had also embraced them.
At this time a certain considerable trouble arose. The first catechism of
Christian doctrine was written while our men were still unskilled [in the
Chinese language]; they put too much trust in the interpreters translating
it. When the Fathers got better trained, this catechism seemed rather too
short. Therefore Father Matteo revised the little book carefully, added to it
and after recalling the other catechisms circulated this new edition alone. A
more detailed tract on Christian doctrine was written. But before this cate-
chism was printed Father Matteo rearranged and revised it especially for
non-Christian readers. It seemed to him that neophytes could receive suffi-
cient instruction in sacred matters from classes on the catechism while they
were catechumens29 and by attending sermons after they had already been
gathered to Christ. Thus he based the whole book on arguments drawn
from the light of reason rather than on the authority of Holy Scripture.
With these arguments he paved the road to those mysteries dependant on
faith and the knowledge revealed by God. Moreover the ancient books of
the Chinese were full of teachings that supported our case. These testi-
monies were not merely decorative; they also confirmed the [Christian]
faith among those believers who were reading literature on their own. In
this book Ricci refuted the teachings of all the Chinese sects save for those
teachings that had arisen from the law of nature and were largely pro-
claimed by Prince Confucius30 and the sect of scholars. There was little to
object to in the teaching of this sect, which was rooted in the ancients.
Thus a man who has little to say about things he thinks he does not know
well is unlikely to fall into error. Our Fathers therefore tried to win this sect
over and talked to them only about those things that occurred after Confu-
cius himself (he had preceded the coming of Christ the Savior to earth by
more than five hundred years). It seems to me that Doctor Paul was right in
his reply to those audiences that repeatedly asked him about the essence of
the Christian faith: he neatly reduced the whole matter to four syllables or
sayings—Cive Fo Pu Giu. That is, “It gets rid of idols and fills out the faith
of scholars.”
In Ricci’s treatise the following things are nicely explained: First, it is

29. Catechumens were persons studying Christian teachings in preparation for

baptism.
30. Confucius (c. 551–479 B.C.) is still considered the greatest Chinese philoso-
pher; the Chinese have used his maxims as a moral guide for daily life for the past
twenty-five centuries.
Writings of Matteo Ricci 93

proven that there is one beginning or divinity from whom all things arise
and are governed; the human soul is immortal; a punishment is prepared
for evil actions, a reward for good ones, and that these are meted out mainly
in another life. The Pythagorean transmigration of souls, which was famil-
iar to the Chinese, is refuted [in Ricci’s treatise].31 A very useful treatise on
God and on man was added to the end of the book. Finally Ricci invites all
the Chinese to this faith. (This subject is touched upon rather than ex-
plained—with the expectation that a fuller explanation would be sought
from the Jesuits.)
Because we needed this book to spread our message in a short time
through that whole kingdom, and because it also touched only in passing
many subjects about which people tended to ask our Fathers, several curi-
ous things were tossed in, like spices to entice the reader. The book was
generally read with pleasure. For this reason too it satisfied the constant re-
quests of people who were hearing something or other about our faith; they
usually asked for some book in which these same matters could be read
about in a more leisurely way. This little book also compensated for [our
Fathers’] short conversations with busy magistrates. Given their deep-
seated propensity for reading, such magistrates always made more time for
reading than for conversation.
This affair seriously wounded the idol worshipers who lacked weapons
to defend their worthless cause. We also saw that we faced no danger from
the scholars, since it was shameful for them to refute their own profes-
sion. Thus, by divine intervention, our faith had its own defenders
among the Chinese. Our Fathers noted from the beginning that the views
pleasing to the scholars did not on any point oppose the Christian faith.
Had we been forced to refute each of the sects individually, we would
have been overwhelmed and condemned to everlasting silence by their
prestige and numbers. Ricci’s tract was printed four times in different
provinces by the pagans themselves. A literary scholar, Fumo Can,
wanted to print many copies at his own expense. He then gave these
copies to our Jesuits so they might give them to whomever they most
wanted. He wrote to our Fathers that he considered the sum of money he
devoted to the project to be restitution for the time (I know not when) he

31. The next document printed here is Ricci’s refutation of the transmigration of
souls, which was taught in China by Buddhists but not by Confucians. Trigault calls
the doctrine Pythagorean because one of the first Greeks to teach the transmigration
of souls was Pythagoras, who flourished around 530 B.C. Pythagoras left no writ-
ings; his disciples popularized his teachings. The Chinese would not have known of
Pythagoras; the doctrine of transmigration was spread in China by Buddhist monks
from India.
94 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

had accepted something from somebody on the basis of his doing a favor
for him. It seemed to [Fumo Can] that he could do no other work more
useful than making available to as many people as possible this tract
about the most holy faith. He did this even when he was still a pagan.
One can only guess what he might have done had his life granted him
some more years in the Christian religion.
Father Matteo wrote another book he called The Paradoxes.32 This book
attracted just as many critics as his earlier work since it contained a great
deal of material about moral commandments that was new and previously
unknown to the Chinese. Here are some concise summaries of the running
commentary this book offered on how to organize a good moral life so as to
help as many other people as possible: “This life is a march toward death, in
which the reward for our works and the punishment owed to us are not
completely carried out but are saved up for another life. Although difficult,
silence is useful and so is concise speaking. Individuals need to organize
their actions and do penance for their evil deeds.” These and similar pre-
cepts are commented on at great length and are confirmed by appropriate
aphorisms and examples. Direct quotes from the philosophers, and the holy
Church Fathers, and the books of the Sacred Scriptures themselves were
very popular with readers. [Ricci] enhanced the authority of this book with
individual paradoxes. These individual paradoxes were inserted into the dis-
cussions involving the leading magistrates—men with whom Father Mat-
teo had held long discussions about these matters.
If all famous men who praised Ricci’s book collected their assessments
into one volume, it would take longer to read that volume than Ricci’s
book itself. Not only was the value of reading Ricci’s book praised in these
assessments, but Europe’s genius, its multitude of books, and its Christian
faith were also extolled with the highest praise.
So they might make [Ricci’s book] widely available, our Fathers distrib-
uted as many copies as possible. We fulfilled our customary duty of giving
presents at the usual times by distributing this book. Our friends also sent
to our house typesetters to print copies for them so they too could spread
copies among their acquaintances. Thus was the first printing of this book
used up in its first year; in the next year there were two new printings. One
of these printings was completed at the royal city of Nanjing, the other at
Nanchang, the main city of Kiangsi Province.

32. The book was published by Ricci in 1608; its Chinese title, Jiren shipian, trans-
lates as “Ten Chapters of an Extraordinary Man.” It has ten short dialogues between
Ricci and Chinese scholars who were his friends. It has many quotations from
Greek philosophers, especially the Stoic philosopher Epictetus.
Writings of Matteo Ricci 95

Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning

of the Lord of Heaven
[The second Ricci selection is taken
from his T’ien-chu Shih-i (The
True Meaning of the Lord of
Heaven), originally written in Chi-
nese to refute Buddhist ideas about
reincarnation. The edition from
which this selection is taken featured
Ricci’s Chinese text and the English
translation on facing pages. (The
Chinese text has been omitted
here.33) This section of the text is a
dialogue between a Western scholar
and a Chinese scholar. The Western
scholar is, of course, Ricci himself,
who is defending the Christian be-
lief (shared by Jews and Muslims) in
the immortality of the soul and the
resurrection of the body, against the
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610). Buddhist teaching on reincarnation.
Most Buddhists taught that humans
are reincarnated after death in one of six ways or directions, depending on
their moral behavior in their previous life. The six possible reincarnated forms
are: a human person, a hungry ghost, an animal, a malevolent nature spirit, a
god, or a person sent to hell. The Chinese scholar makes the case for Buddhist
and Taoist beliefs in reincarnation. The Christian position would have been
new to the Chinese scholars to whom Ricci addressed his arguments.]

Chapter 5: Refutation of false teachings concerning reincarnation in the

six directions and the taking of life, and an explanation of the true meaning
of fasting.
258. The Chinese scholar says: There are three views concerning man. The
first asserts that prior to a man’s being born on earth he does not exist, and

33. Matteo Ricci, S.J., T’ien-chu Shih-i (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), ed-
ited by Edward Malatesta, S.J., translated with introduction and notes by Douglas
Lancashire and Peter Hu Kuo-chen, S.J., (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1985),
bilingual ed., pp. 239–51. Used with the permission of the Institute of Jesuit Sources.
96 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

that therefore he is unable to leave anything of himself behind after he dies.

The second view is that man has three existences: one prior to his birth, one
following his death, and his present existence. Thus, the happiness or mis-
fortune experienced by me in this life both stem from the good or evil deeds
performed in my previous existence; and the fortune or misfortune I shall
experience in the next life will be determined by the correctness or deprav-
ity of my actions in this life.
259. Now your revered religion teaches that a man has only a temporary ex-
istence in this life, and that this life determines his final dwelling place in the life
to come. It therefore goes on to teach that while we are temporarily resident in
this world, we ought to make a special point of cultivating our virtue and doing
good so that we may enjoy happiness in the life to come. Man is born into this
world to be a pilgrim, and his next life is a return to his native land. This pres-
ent world is the place in which he establishes his merit, and the next world is the
place in which he is rewarded. You are certainly right about the life to come, but
what is the source of the theory that there is a former existence?
260. The Western scholar says: In ancient times, in our Western region,
there was a scholar called Pythagoras34 who was a man of uncommon,
heroic abilities, but who was not always as artless as he might have been. He
loathed the unrestrained evil-doings of the inferior men of his own day, and
taking advantage, therefore, of his personal fame, he created a strange argu-
ment to restrain them, insisting that those who did evil were bound to ex-
perience retribution when reborn in a subsequent existence: they might be
born into a family engulfed in hardship and poverty or be transformed into
an animal; tyrannical men would be changed into tigers and leopards; arro-
gant men into lions; the licentious into pigs and dogs; the avaricious into
oxen and mules; and thieves and robbers into foxes, wolves, eagles, and
other birds and beasts. The transformation was bound to correspond to the
evil done. Other superior men criticized this teaching saying that, although
the intention behind it was excellent, there were faults in the teaching itself.
There was a true way which could curb evil, so what purpose was served by
abandoning the true and following the distorted?
261. After the death of Pythagoras few of his disciples continued to hold
his teaching. But just then the teaching suddenly leaked out and found its
way to other countries. This was at the time when Sakyamuni35 happened

34. Pythagoras was a fifth-century B.C. Greek scientist and philosopher who ar-
gued for reincarnation, a view that remained fairly popular in the ancient world.
The notion of reincarnation can be found in Plato’s Republic and Virgil’s Aeneid.
35. This is another name for Gautama Buddha (563?–483? B.C.), the founder of
Buddhism. Sakyamuni means “The Sage of the Sakka Republic.”
Writings of Matteo Ricci 97

to be planning to establish a new religion in India. He accepted this theory

of reincarnation and added to it the teaching concerning the Six Direc-
tions,36 together with a hundred other lies, editing it all to form books
which he called canonical writings. Many years later some Chinese went to
India and transmitted the Buddhist religion to China. There is no genuine
record of the history of this religion in which one can put one’s faith, or any
real principle upon which one can rely. India is a small place, and is not
considered to be a nation of the highest standing. It lacks the arts of civi-
lization and has no standards of moral conduct to bequeath to posterity.37
The histories of many countries are totally ignorant of its existence. Could
such a country adequately serve as a model for the whole world?
262. The Chinese scholar says: I have seen your “Map of the World and
All Nations”38 and its contents accord precisely with the celestial degrees;
there is not the slightest error in it. Moreover, you have personally come a
great distance, from Europe to China, so that what you say about what you
have seen and heard of the Buddha’s country must certainly be reliable.
Since India is such a mean and lowly nation, it really is laughable that
people should mistakenly study Buddhist books, believe in Buddhism’s
Pure Land, and even wish to enjoy an early death in order that they might
be born again in that Land.39 We Chinese are not in the habit of traveling
great distances to foreign lands, so that we are usually rather ignorant of
events outside our nation. Nevertheless, although a place may be small and
its people mean and lowly, there is no reason why one should not believe
what they say, provided it is reasonable.
263. The Western scholar says: There is so much that is unreasonable in
the theory of reincarnation that I would not be able to give you an exhaus-
tive account of it. I shall simply refer to four or five major points, and you
will see what I mean.
264. First, if a person dies and his soul is transferred to another body, be-
coming another person, a bird, or an animal when he is reborn into the

36. The Six Directions are the six ways a person could be reincarnated, as was
noted in the introduction to this selection.
37. Many of the early Jesuits, including Xavier and Ricci, were more impressed by
the Japanese and Chinese and their cultures than by what they saw in India.
38. Perhaps the most valuable piece of Western knowledge that Ricci passed on to
the Chinese was the world map he drew that included the then recent discoveries by
Western explorers. Much of this information was new to the Chinese. Ricci adapted
his map for his audience by putting China at the center of it.
39. Here the Chinese Confucian scholar pours contempt on the hope of Indian
Buddhists to achieve life after death in the Pure Land.
98 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

world, he is bound to retain his original intelligence and ought to be able to

remember his activities from his previous existence. But we absolutely can-
not remember these things, and I have never heard of anyone who was able
to remember them. It cannot be more obvious, then, that there is no so-
called “former existence” prior to a man being born.
265. The Chinese scholar says: In the writings of Buddhism and Taoism40
there are many records of people who were able to remember events from
their former existence, so there must be people who are able to remember
such things.
266. The Western scholar says: The Devil wishes to deceive people so that
they will follow him. He therefore attaches himself to the bodies of humans
and animals, causing them to say that they are the sons of certain families
and to give accounts of events in those families in order to prove his lies.
Those mentioned in the records you refer to are bound to be disciples of
the Buddha and Lao-Tzu,41 or the records are bound to be of events subse-
quent to the transmission of Buddhism to China. In all places hosts of liv-
ing creatures of every kind have come into existence and then die; why is it,
then, that from ancient times until the present, although there have been
numerous sages in countries with religions other than the Buddhist whose
learning has been both broad and deep and who have been able to commit
thousands of books and tens of thousands of words to memory, they have
not been able to remember a single event from a former existence? Al-
though people easily forget things, how could they forget their parents and
their own names? Is it only the adherents of Buddhism and Taoism, and the
animals, who are capable of remembering such things and of telling others
about them? Perhaps there are some who will accept unfounded statements
made to deceive the ignorant, but among the learned, and in the academies
and schools where the existence or not of all principles is debated, very few
will find it possible not to ridicule such claims.
267. The Chinese scholar says: The Buddhists say that the human soul
which attaches itself to an animal’s body is, in fact, dependent on its former
intelligence, but that because an animal’s body does not exactly fit a human
soul, the soul is circumscribed and therefore unable to express itself.
268. The Western scholar says: But when it was attached to the previous
person’s body it was in perfect harmony with it; why, then, was it still un-
able to remember events of a former existence? I have already explained that

40. Taoism is a mystical Chinese philosophy going back to the sixth century B.C.
It later borrowed elements of Buddhism and became more religious in content.
41. Lao-Tzu (c. 604–531 B.C.), the founder of Taoism and author of the Tao Te
Ching, stressed good moral behavior over religious rituals.
Writings of Matteo Ricci 99

a man’s soul is spirit, and a spirit, by its very nature, is not dependent on a
body. This being the case, it should be able to use its natural intelligence
even though it may be resident in a bird or an animal. How could it possi-
bly be incapable of expressing itself? If the Lord of Heaven really did devise
the transformations of reincarnation it must have been for the purpose of
persuading people to do good, or to serve as a warning to evil-doers. If I do
not clearly remember the good and evil I did in a former existence, how can
I determine whether the good or evil fortune met with in this life really
does stem from a former existence? Can this be called persuading people to
do good or warning them against evil? What benefit, then, accrues from
reincarnation?
269. Secondly, when the Sovereign on High first produced men and
beasts, there was no need for men to be changed into animals because of
sinning, and he therefore gave to each creature a soul which would accord
with its own category. If there are now a number of animals to which
human souls have become attached, then the souls of animals today are no
longer the same as the souls of animals in ancient times, and animals today
ought to be intelligent, whereas those of ancient times would be doltish.
Yet, I have never heard that there is any difference; therefore, the souls of
animals have remained the same from ancient times until the present.
270. Thirdly, all men of learning assert that there are three classes of
souls: the lowest class is called the vegetative soul, and this kind of soul can
only support the life and growth of that to which it has been given. This is
the soul of grain and trees. The second class of soul is called the sentient
soul. This kind of soul can support the life and growth of that to which it is
given, but can also enable creatures to hear with their ears, to see with their
eyes, to taste with their mouths, to smell with their noses, and to be aware
of things with their limbs [through the sense of touch]. This is the soul of
birds and animals. The highest soul is called the intelligence-soul. This soul,
together with the vegetative soul and sentient soul, can aid the body in its
growth, cause it to be aware of things, and enable men to reason things out
and to clarify the truth. This is man’s soul.
271. If you now cause the animal and human souls to be the same, then
there will only be two kinds of soul, and will this not introduce confusion
into a universally accepted theory? The natures of most things are not only
determined by their appearances, but by their souls. Only when it has its es-
sential soul does a thing have its essential nature, and only when it has its
essential nature can its category be determined. Only when the category of
a thing has been determined does it develop its appearance and physical
form. Therefore, differences or similarities in natures rest on differences or
similarities of soul; differences or similarities of category rest on differences
100 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

or similarities of nature, and differences or similarities of appearance de-

pend on differences or similarities of category.
272. Since the appearances of birds and beasts are different from those of
men, it follows that their categories, natures and souls are also different.
There is no other way in which man can investigate things and probe ex-
haustively into their principles except to employ the external appearances of
things as proof of their inner nature, to observe what is evident in things in
order to understand their innermost secrets.
273. Thus, if we wish to know what kinds of souls are possessed by grass
and trees, we observe the fact that grass and trees are only capable of growth
and are devoid of consciousness, and this provides proof that all they have
within them is the vegetative soul. If we wish to know the nature of the
souls of birds and beasts we observe the fact that they are only possessed of
consciousness and are incapable of rational thought, and from this we
know that they only possess the sentient soul. If we wish to know the nature
of man’s soul we notice the fact that man alone is able to understand the
principles of all things, and from this we know that only he possesses an in-
telligence-soul.
274. These truths are so obvious, yet Buddhists perversely assert that the
souls of birds and beasts are intelligent just as men’s are—an assertion
which is too irrational for words. I often hear it said that it is a mistake to
follow the Buddha; I have never heard it said that it is a mistake to follow
after truth.
275. Fourthly, man’s bodily form is particularly handsome and different
from those of birds and beasts; it follows, then, that his soul is also differ-
ent. It is like the artisan who must use wood to manufacture a chair, and
iron to manufacture a sharp implement. The objects are different, and con-
sequently the material he uses is also different. Since we know that man’s
bodily form is different from those of the birds and beasts, how can man’s
soul be the same as the souls of birds and beasts?
276. From all this we know that the Buddhist teaching that men’s souls
are entrusted to the care of other persons’ bodies, or that they are attached
to the bodies of birds and beasts to be born again into the world, is a totally
erroneous doctrine. Since a man’s soul only harmonizes with his own body
how can it be made to harmonize with someone else’s body, or, even more,
with the body of something in a different category? The sheath of a knife is
only suitable for holding knives and a scabbard is only suitable for holding
swords. How can one relate a knife to a scabbard?
277. Fifthly, there is, in fact, no evidence for the assertion that human
souls are transformed into animals. The belief is simply due to perplexity
as to whether a person in a former existence lived the wanton life of some
Roberto de Nobili 101

animal or other and whether, in consequence, the Lord of Heaven is pun-

ishing him by causing him to be transformed into a certain kind of beast in
his later existence. But this can hardly be termed punishment. Who would
say that to be able to satisfy one’s desires is punishment?

Roberto de Nobili

The Report on the Customs of the Indian Nation42

[Roberto de Nobili, S.J., (1577–1656) was born in Rome of noble parents
and attended the Roman College, the premier Jesuit school. He entered the Je-
suit Order in Naples in 1596. In 1604, a year after his ordination, he trav-
eled to Lisbon and from there to India where he spent the rest of his life. After
learning Tamil, the language of southern India, de Nobili worked among the
fishermen along the coast. Earlier missionaries had encouraged converts to dress
and behave like the Portuguese, often taking Portuguese names. Conversion to
Christianity, then, was not just a change of religion but also of lifestyle. These
cultural changes made it far more difficult to persuade Hindus to convert to
Christianity. Following the example of Matteo Ricci in China, de Nobili de-
cided that he would be a more effective missionary if he adapted native cus-
toms and clothing as long as they were compatible with the Christian faith. He
began wearing the saffron robes and eating the vegetarian diet of a Hindu holy
man or sannyasi. He also deepened his understanding of the Hindus’ mental-
ity by reading their sacred literature in Sanskrit. He was the first European to
study those venerable classics. Gradually he began to make converts among the
elite.
Jesuit missionaries in India had to confront many questions. Should these
converts be forced to abandon traditional garb, which often had some religious
symbolism? Should converts abandon distinctive Brahmin hairstyles or colored
marks on their foreheads? Through his research de Nobili thought he could dis-
tinguish what was social custom—and therefore compatible with the Christian

42. Preaching Wisdom to the Wise: Three Treatises by Roberto de Nobili, S.J., Mission-
ary and Scholar in the 17th Century, translated by Anand Amaldass, S.J., and Francis
X. Clooney, S.J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2000), pp. 195–9, 217–24.
The whole treatise, The Report on Customs of the Indian Nation, runs from page 53
to page 229 in this translation, which is used with the permission of the Institute of
Jesuit Sources. This treatise was written in Latin; the other two treatises in this vol-
ume were written in Tamil. The first treatise contained many quotations in Sanskrit,
the ancient sacred language of India. Since these Sanskrit quotations are immedi-
ately followed by an English translation in quotation marks, the Sanskrit has been
deleted here.
102 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

faith—and what was an expression of Hindu faith. In 1613 de Nobili wrote

the treatise on Indian customs, part of which is printed here. In 1623 Gregory
XV issued a papal document that largely approved of de Nobili’s approach.43
Unfortunately, several of de Nobili’s Portuguese Jesuit superiors disagreed, and
the Jesuits and other Catholic missionaries abandoned his approach after his
death.]

Chapter 10: What rule should guide us in admitting and judiciously

deciding about India’s social customs?
1. Careful adaptation in missionary method is necessary
In furthering the conversion of souls and in the matter of adopting or al-
lowing the customs of the unbelievers, the preacher of Christ should always
comport himself in such a manner as to preclude anything that is in the
least sinful, even were he thereby to secure the conversion of the whole
world. He should weigh with all care and discernment which of these cus-
toms are purely social, and which are tainted by superstition. Otherwise, it
may well happen that in eagerly pursuing the good of creatures, he may be-
tray both the grace of the Creator and the salvation of his own soul, and (as
happens not infrequently) ultimately render unstable and altogether un-
profitable the very spiritual growth he expected for the neighbor. But as
perfectly true as this principle is, we should beware of that other rule which
some people seem to prescribe in deciding matters of custom prevalent
among the people here. That rule goes to the other extreme and sins by ex-
cessive scrupulosity; it is so radical that, to judge by the common talk, its
imposition would entail for these people not only the denial of the very ne-
cessities of life, but also the forfeiture of everything. Such an extreme policy
(I should think) would find little favor with [St. Paul] who made himself all
things to all men that he might win them all to Christ [1 Cor. 9:22], and
who, far from condemning offhand the various customs of the peoples he
evangelized, made himself, as it were, a man outside the law for the sake of
those who were outside the law.
2. Three reasons are alleged for condemning certain customs
Now then, I understand that there are three headings under which not a
few take exception, on the plea that there is superstition in the matter of the
customs and civil manners of ornamentation in vogue among these na-
tions. Their misgivings, in the first place, bear upon certain insignia, on the
ground that these people use those same decorations in their idol-worship.
Second, others object to other practices because they are told that these

43. A popular biography of de Nobili is Vincent Cronin, A Pearl to India: The Life
of Roberto de Nobili (New York: Dutton, 1959).
Roberto de Nobili 103

heathen men, when observing them, have recourse to some special ritual
and recitation. Finally, some other opponents look upon certain objects
with suspicion, on the ground that these people regard them as dedicated to
various idols and use them as insignia sacred to the gods.
3. Life would be impossible if we condemn those three categories
Well now, if this three-pronged contention were to be taken just as it
stands and without any qualification, it would be absolutely impossible, as
I have pointed out, to live in India. Not only Indians, but all of us who live
in their midst, would have no chance for salvation. For let it be known that
the very attitudes which St. Paul so ardently wished to find among his
Christian communities in their relations towards the true God, i.e., that in
all they do they should always act in the name of Christ—we find that very
attitude practiced to a remarkable degree and with great earnestness and ex-
actness in honor of their idols by the heathens who belong to the idolater
sect. Indeed, among them there is no action, be it eating, or drinking, or
even inhaling air, in fact anything, even of the most ordinary kind and ab-
solutely necessary for life, that is not in some way tainted by superstition.
First I shall proceed to show, one by one, what great inconveniences would
arise under those three heads I have indicated above. Then, at the end, I
shall propose a line of conduct such as will (unless I be greatly mistaken)
easily guide anyone in passing judgment on these matters, without danger
of loss to these people and without harm to our souls.
4. First group: things used for the idols44
So then, as for the first contention, which intends to forbid the use of
anything connected with the sacrifices offered up by the heathen of the
idolaters’ sect: the answer to this is that if the argument were valid, it would
follow that to wash one’s feet, to wash one’s mouth, to gargle, as well as to
wash one’s hands before sitting down to table, to move a chair to sit on—all
these would be unlawful because all these things are done, or are rather
imagined to be done, by the idol during the sacrifices offered to Rudra. For
the priests present the water successively for each ceremonial act in con-
formity with the law of the Shaivas [the Agama45], which describes this type

44. De Nobili argues here that to forbid Christians from using everything con-
nected with the Hindu worship of idols would almost bring life to a stop: one could
not wash one’s feet, hands, or mouth; wear sandals, shirts, or many other garments;
use horses and carriages; dance; or play musical instruments.
45. The Agamas are three Hindu documents, roughly similar to the Jewish and
Christian Bible. The Shiva-Agama referred to here teaches that Lord Shiva is the Ul-
timate Reality. Like the other Agamas, it has four parts. The first part deals with
philosophical knowledge, the second with mental discipline, the third with building
temples and sculpting figures of the gods, the fourth with religious rites and rituals.
104 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

of sacrifice: “Remember to present water for cleaning his feet (of Rudra), for
gargling, for washing the hands, and also to move the chair he sits on.” . . .
Again, playing with musical instruments and dancing as relaxation for
the mind would be subject to the same condemnation, since these too are
prescribed during the sacrifice in order to entertain the spirit of the idol
while it eats and is being provided with everything: “Provide (the idol) with
amusement, by means of choice vocal melodies and by playing the musical
instruments, and particularly by choral dances.”
Similarly banned, too, would be the use of sandals, upper garments, and
other items of clothing, the use of carriages, horses, and other vehicles, be-
cause these too are gotten ready and provided for the idol. Nay more, these
very things must be venerated by the priests at the time when they are pre-
sented to the idol, in accordance with the same ordinances: “See to it that
various articles of clothing, a carriage and horse or some other conveyance,
a pair of sandals, and every other implement is supplied, after duly venerat-
ing the same.” . . .
From all this, one can see what great hardships would befall human life if
all the things which these heathens use for their sacrifices were to be ex-
cluded from their social and civil mode of living. There is hardly anything
normally used in their civil mode of living which is not requisitioned for the
sacrifices of those idolaters. Nay more, the whole ritual procedure adopted at
sacrificial functions has been taken from the court ceremonial of the kings
and princes, as we read in the same Agama a little after the beginning. . . .

Chapter 11: The necessity of sanctioning the ancestral customs

prevalent in India insofar as they are purely social.
1. Violations of social customs are severely punished
Great is the urgency of allowing the people of India to live according to
the social traditions of their forefathers, particularly regarding the ancestral
customs of those Indians who live inland, insofar as these are truly compat-
ible with the Christian religion. Far greater indeed is the urgency here than
in other parts of the terrestrial globe.
That bad habit common to all nations, to hold fast to their ancestral tra-
dition, is a habit far more deeply rooted in the Indian nation because, con-
fined as they have always been within their own boundaries without ever
going abroad and getting to know the splendid civilizations of other na-
tions, they thoughtlessly hold the view that they far surpass other mortal
men by the refinement and excellence of their cultural habits. In addition,
there is also this singular trait or characteristic, I might say, of this nation
among all the other nations, i.e., that they inflict the severest penalties on
those who reject the ancestral customs or mere social conventions, as I have
indicated at the end of Chapter One of this report.
Roberto de Nobili 105

In India, apart from the distinct

profession its members exercise,
each social class boasts its own dis-
tinct insignia, its own manner of
dress, its own distinct usages and
society manners, which they are
bound to observe on pain of losing
their social grade.46 This is well
known from common practice,
and is moreover enjoined in the
Laws of Manu,47 in the verse begin-
ning with the words, shilpena viva-
harena, and in many other texts.48
Among Indians the loss of one’s
social grade is considered as the
worst of evils. Many would will-
Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656) in Brah- ingly undergo death to redeem it,
min dress. and not infrequently they do! For
as soon as anyone is degraded from
the order of his clan he becomes an outcast, deprived of all honor and
hereditary dignity, thrown out from any meeting held by members of his
grade, scornfully denied any fellowship with his social equals and kinsfolk,
and separated from intercourse and companionship with his own family
members.
2. The higher the caste, the severer are the sanctions
Although this law is common to all of the grades and social orders listed
in the same Chapter One, yet it is applied with far greater severity with

46. The Indian caste system assigned people to certain social grades, each of which
carried its own distinctive insignia and clothing so that anybody could instantly dis-
tinguish persons belonging to the upper castes (e.g., Brahmins [priest-scholars] and
soldiers) and treat them with a deference not given to those belonging to the lower
castes (e.g., farmers, servants). Only rarely could one climb from one caste to an-
other.
47. The Laws of Manu was a classic of ancient Hindu thought, much of which de
Nobili memorized. See The Laws of Manu, translated by Georg Bühler (New York:
Dover Publications, 1969).
48. De Nobili here refers to The Laws of Manu, which state that a high-caste family
can lose its caste and status “by (practicing) handicrafts, by pecuniary transactions,
by (begetting) children on Sudra females only, by (trading in) cows, horses, and car-
riages, by (the pursuit of ) agriculture and by taking service under a king.” Ibid.,
p. 86.
106 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

respect to the three orders deemed to constitute the aristocracy: the Brah-
mins, the rulers, and the merchants. Hence, with reference to them the
same legislator, Manu, lays down this particular rule: “In regard of the cus-
toms which are transmitted by forefathers, as it were by hand, and which in
every region are wont to be retained by the three noble clans called the
twice-born, let the kings watch with utmost care lest anything repugnant to
them be introduced.” In Chapter Eight, in the paragraph which begins
with the words, “Indeed, it is clearly indicated,” we have seen that under
the denomination “twice-born” are included only Brahmins, rulers, and
merchants, who form the three noble clans.
Moreover, in the case of Brahmins, the law punishes an offender with yet
far greater rigor, and precisely on that account it is impossible in this interior
part of India which is governed by heathen kings, short of an unheard of di-
vine miracle, for a Brahmin to embrace the faith, unless he be allowed the
use of his caste thread and of other cultural and social observances.49 As soon
as a Brahmin rejects the thread, the tuft of hair,50 and similar caste distinc-
tions which, as I have said, are purely social manners, he not only ceases to
be regarded as a Brahmin, but has to face very severe penalties. He will either
have his eyes gouged out, or he will be subjected to some public ignominy
which they generally dread even more than the loss of their eyesight, i.e., the
delinquent, marked with the stigma of lifelong infamy, is banished from all
social intercourse to such a degree of barbarity and cruelty that not even his
parents will be allowed to approach him under pain of incurring the same
penalty. Nor is there any hope of recovering later on either the dignity of
their class or their standing in the community. By the king’s order their
goods and property will be seized and allocated to the public use, to the ex-
tent of not leaving them even so much as a loin cloth to cover themselves.
Hence, even should a pagan Brahmin of inland India summon up forti-
tude enough to bear for Christ’s sake a perpetual exile from his parents and
his fellow citizens and perpetual infamy and destitution, and even should
he not hesitate to betake himself to the towns occupied by the Portuguese
with a view to embrace the faith, even in those towns he would have to be
supplied with the necessities of life, meals, and clothing, seeing that most
Brahmins are incapable of earning a living by manual labor. Such an alter-
native does not appear to be practicable.

49. According to The Laws of Manu members of the upper classes wore a distinc-
tive thread: “A twice-born man is called upavtin when his right arm is raised and
the sacrificial string or the dress passed under it rests on his left shoulder.” Ibid.,
p. 41.
50. Male Brahmins, the highest caste, shaved their heads except for a ritual tuft of
hair, which served to distinguish them as Brahmins.
Roberto de Nobili 107

3. Necessity of converting the Brahmins to evangelize the other castes

However that may be, the necessity of allowing the Brahmins the use of
their caste thread and other merely social practices may be gathered from
yet another consideration. In these interior parts of India, if you exclude
Brahmins, then by doing so all the other classes of citizens are mostly kept
out. Several reasons account for this situation. First, in India the Brahmins,
because of their highest nobility, exercise supreme authority and set the ex-
ample for all others, so that all follow their example without any further in-
quiry. Second, since in India the Brahmins alone represent the intellectuals
and the teaching profession, from the earliest times it became an established
custom for just about everyone from the inferior orders, before attempting
anything, particularly in matters connected with the sciences and the reli-
gious sects, to take counsel on the subject from some learned Brahmin. It is
from this popular attitude that emerges our greatest and most frequently
encountered obstacle in the way of the conversion of these heathen. We feel
this in our religious community. Almost all of those to whom we propound
the catechetical teaching of Christ immediately go to consult the Brahmins
or bring them along to our house, since they themselves are conscious of
their ignorance in such matters. They do this so that they may learn what
their wise men have to say in rebuttal. Thus, well versed in logic and phi-
losophy as these Brahmins are, at once they lead the minds of the inquirers
astray by their complicated and abstruse arguments.

4. All our difficulty comes from want of adaptation

Moreover, regarding our striving to win these people over to Christ, it is
from this source, i.e., from the changeover of these people from their own
distinct usages, that our difficulty, indeed a formidable difficulty, mainly
springs. When these heathen see that our Christian neophytes discard the
caste thread and many other time-honored practices of their own culture,
and adopt the manner of foreigners, they come to think that those who
apply to us for spiritual instruction change not so much their religious be-
liefs and practices as the very tenor of their civil grade. Therefore, they look
upon them as degenerates, in reality cut off from their former grade and
consequently, as I have said, deprived of every civil advantage. This is so
true that many heathen who have noticed our way of acting in other Chris-
tian communities in India have often come to complain at our residence,
loudly declaring that they could not understand why we made it a strict
condition for following the law of Christ that one should lower one’s civil
status and deny oneself all human dignity and every human benefit.
Doubtless, in places subject to Portuguese dominion, the inconven-
iences which this change in cultural manners entails may perhaps not be so
formidable, since neophytes there may be defended and protected by the
108 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

Portuguese governors. But the situation is quite different in these inland

regions of India entirely under the sway of heathen kings. Here no one can
abandon the established social manners of his particular clan unless he is
prepared, as I have said, thereby to forfeit—both for himself and for his
children—not only his former high social standing, but absolutely every
kind of human support towards the preservation of life.

5. Indians expect foreign high castes to behave here as Indian high castes
Before concluding, I make one more remark under this head, a remark
no less indispensable in view of the conversion of these inland Indians. The
herald of the Gospel must himself, as far as possible, conform his way of
acting to the social customs of these people. Otherwise, he will not be re-
garded by these people as either a trueborn gentleman or as one worthy to
move and live among them, much less as one from whom they may learn
the teaching of salvation. Experience goes to prove this sufficiently and
more than sufficiently. Often used and abused among these people is the fa-
miliar saying that the propriety of social behavior varies with the accepted
customs of various regions, and that it is the part of a prudent man to con-
form his way of acting, within the frame of his genetic group and the civil
grade to which he belongs, to the corresponding usages of the region where
he takes up his abode. The same rule is found in the Laws of Manu: “A man
acts prudently and appropriately when, in the region where he lives, he
adapts himself to the ancestral manners retained there by the men of his
own class, whether they represent the highest order, or the middle class of
society.” Of the same import is another proverbial saying: “The established
social custom of each region is equivalent to the corresponding custom of
one’s clan of origin.”
From this the people here naturally conclude that everyone whosoever
should be disposed not only to adopt the manners of the country where he
lives, but also to consider these as his very own and thus, so to speak, as
hereditary and inborn. Hence, regarding that text quoted above, in which
Manu bids the king to beware of permitting anything that goes counter to
the customs of the nobility, the commentator on Manu forthwith observes
that this ruling is to be understood in conformity with the customs of the
region, so that (as he says) immigrants in foreign lands are not to abide by
the usages of their country of origin unless these correspond with those of
the inhabitants of that place.
On the strength of this general opinion and of the Laws of Manu, these
people almost necessarily conclude that a foreigner who does not adopt the
manners observed by the members of the nobility in their own society is not
of noble birth and of high rank, and that, on that score, he is not entitled to
free intercourse with them. They believe that anyone who has held the rank
of professor and learned man in his own home country would certainly and
Roberto de Nobili 109

without hesitation behave in society here like the learned men of this coun-
try, and that anyone who claims descent from a royal family of some other
land would likewise follow the style and manner of acting of kings here, and
similarly regarding persons belonging to other grades of nobility. Were he to
act differently, these people would naturally be inclined to conclude that his
family is one of those plebeian families of the West, which they know to dif-
fer both in social standing and in social customs one from the other.
6. We may be despised for Christ but not for violating rules of caste
Now if this attitude [of disregard] sprang from a dislike for the religion
of Christ, or if it were confined within the limits of an adverse opinion, it
could no doubt be put up with. To be despised and to be looked down
upon as of low birth, for Christ’s sake, is for the preacher of the Gospel the
highest title of nobility. But this is not the case. For one thing, if we are an
object of contempt, it is not by reason of our religion, but solely (as I have
said) by reason of the social conventions (which we reject). For another
thing, this contemptuous attitude is not limited to mere mental disap-
proval, but it reaches so great an extreme that the heathen are scared and
turn away from the Christian teaching, while our recent converts are sub-
jected to cruel persecution and involved in inextricable difficulties. All this
is, as I said, to no purpose nor to any advantage, since it has no relation
whatever to the faith. Nor do these people understand how anyone can take
lessons in right living from a man of low birth, without by that very fact
sinking to the low level of social manners and to the mean social standing
belonging to that same teacher.
Which man, then, will be induced at such a price to put on the livery of
social degradation and contemptible social status? Conversely, who will
deny that it is one’s first duty of charity, in view of the salvation of souls, to
set aside that tenor of life into which one was born, second nature though it
may have become to him, and to assume a different one, if this new way of
acting is purely of a social character and entirely free from any moral blame?
Indeed, who does not know that such a course of action has a sweet force of
attraction and has often been adopted by saintly men in cases of less ur-
gency than ours here? To make oneself all to all [in social matters] has from
earliest times been the policy of the apostles of the Christian faith. Christ
himself, the guide and master of the apostles, did not deem it below his au-
gust dignity to move freely with those he came to save, and even to comport
himself in their company with such familiarity that on this score he was ad-
versely criticized by the Pharisees51 and leaders of the people.

51. The Pharisees were opponents of Jesus who criticized him for consorting with
sinners and not obeying minor Jewish rituals and patterns of behavior: see Mk.
2:16, 2:25, 7:4; Mt. 9:11.
110 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

7. Alexander’s example of adaptation

In this matter that interests us from a religious viewpoint, let me be al-
lowed to draw an analogy from a secular precedent. What Alexander [the
Great] had to say in connection with the subduing of nations conquered by
force of arms is well known. He maintained that what most effectively en-
sured the control of the nations thus conquered was the willing cooperation
of a population won over by means of a mutual interchange of social
habits.52 Indeed, I am convinced that the spiritual conquest which is our
objective must be achieved in much the same way as that political conquest
(which was the objective of that conqueror). Just as the overlord of city-
states must [to ensure his sway] adopt many of the local institutions, so too
must the ecclesiastical leaders set over the Christian communities. Just as
the proper government of nations depends on a policy of give and take, so
too the pastoral care of souls in view of heaven must (to use Alexander’s
words) comprise two things: we must give them certain advantages, and
must also learn certain lessons from them. In other words, we must learn
and tolerate their human ways of acting in society, so that in turn we may
teach and strengthen in them the ways of God.
8. The general approves our method
Therefore our Rev. Father General [Claudio Acquaviva], on being duly
informed of the social structure of this nation, realized clearly the problem
that the state of affairs in India presents, a problem by no means easier, but
rather much more complicated than that which confronts our companions
in the Chinese empire. He has therefore been pleased, both on several occa-
sions in previous years and particularly last year, to praise our way of acting
and to direct that we should conform ourselves to the ancestral usages of
this nation regarding food and clothing and other social practices, insofar as
it is necessary, and insofar as a sincere zeal for religion and Christian perfec-
tion allows. This connection is necessary lest these poor people, who are
withheld from entering upon the way of salvation by ordinary reasons and,
in particular, by reasons based in their own religion which by themselves
constitute a very serious deterrent, should in addition be further frightened
away by this other reason which is of a social character and injurious to
their normal mode of life.
By following this method of adaptation, we certainly seem to bring
about the desired result. People of every class approach us and listen with-
out fear to the teaching of the faith. Members of royal families and men

52. Alexander the Great (356–23 B.C.) was the king of Macedon who conquered the
Persian Empire. He tried to integrate Persians into his army and administration and to
win their favor by following some of their customs. He also took a Persian wife.
Antonio Ruiz de Montoya 111

who hold a high position in the state, and, what is more, Brahmins too,
well versed in Law and philosophy, do not hesitate to pay us that reverence
which befits our calling. Moreover, not a few persons of whatever social
rank they may belong, Brahmins included, come to us not only to discuss
religious matters, but also become convinced of the truth of our religion
and embrace the faith in Christ.
May the infinite goodness and mercy of God vouchsafe for his greater
honor and glory to bless this undertaking with solid and lasting results.
Praise be to God and to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary!
Roberto de Nobili

Antonio Ruiz de Montoya

The Spiritual Conquest Accomplished by the Religious of the Society of

Jesus in the Provinces of Paraguay, Parana, Uruguay, and Tape53
[Montoya, the illegitimate son of a Spanish soldier, was born in Lima,
Peru, in 1585. He attended the Jesuit College of San Martín in Peru.
Though his youth was distinctly dissolute, he later made the Spiritual Exer-
cises, reformed his life, and entered the Jesuits in 1606. Five years later he
was ordained. From 1612 to 1622 he worked as a missionary among the
Native Americans of the Jesuit province of Peru. Over the next fourteen
years he served as the superior at the mission in Guaíra. In 1636 and 1637
he served as superior of all the Jesuit missions among the Guarani Indians.
During these years he acquired an exceptional command of the language of
the Guarani. He later wrote a Guarani grammar book and dictionary,
published in Spain in 1639 and 1640. He also wrote and published a
Guarani catechism (1640).
In 1637 the Jesuit provincial superior of Peru sent Montoya to plead with
the Spanish King Philip IV to protect the Jesuit reductions. The reductions,
large communities for Christian Indians run by Jesuit priests, were being at-
tacked by bandeirantes, slave raiders largely from São Paulo in Brazil. Chap-
ters 76 and 77 of Montoya’s book give a gruesome account of one of these

53. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, S.J., The Spiritual Conquest Accomplished by the Re-
ligious of the Society of Jesus in the Provinces of Paraguay, Paraná, Uruguay and Tape,
translated by C. J. McNaspy, John P. Leonard, and Martin E. Palmer, introduction
by C. J. McNaspy (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2003), pp. 48–9, 52–6,
182–5. The selections are used with the permission of the Institute of Jesuit
Sources. For a popular overview of the Jesuit work among South American Indians,
see Philip Caraman, The Lost Paradise: The Jesuit Republic in South America (New
York: Seabury, 1976).
112 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

chronic raids.54 This book, which was written from memory in 1639 while
Montoya was waiting to make his case before Philip IV, was published that
same year in Madrid. Undoubtedly Montoya hoped it would encourage sup-
port for the missions and opposition to the slave raiders. His petition to the
king stressed, among other points, that governors should enforce previous laws
against enslaving Indians and that Indian captives should be freed and sent to
Buenos Aires, where the Jesuits would arrange their transport back to their
homes and families. Most controversial was Montoya’s argument that Indians
should be allowed to acquire firearms so they could repel the well-armed ban-
deirantes. Neither Portuguese nor Spanish settlers wanted Indians to have
firearms. Montoya returned to Peru in 1640 with royal approval for many of
his petitions. But there was little Philip IV could really do to help the missions,
since he was facing three severe crises of his own in 1640: Spain was at war
with France, the Spanish kingdom of Catalonia was in revolt, and Portugal
and Brazil (ruled by the kings of Spain since 1580) were now fighting success-
fully for independence. Since the bandeirantes were invading the Jesuit mis-
sions in Paraguay from Brazil, there was little the Spanish king could now do
to stop them. Save for a brief period spent with his beloved Indians in
Paraguay, Montoya’s last years (1640–52) were lived out in Lima.]

Chapter 10. Customs of the Guarani Indians.

The pagans lived, and still live today, in quite small villages (as already
mentioned), but not without government. They had their caciques [chiefs],
who were universally recognized as possessing noble status inherited from
their ancestors, based upon their having had vassals and ruled over people.
Many acquire noble status through eloquence of speech, so great is their es-
teem for their language—rightly so, for it is worthy of praise and of being
celebrated among the tongues of renown. By their eloquence they gather
followers and vassals, thus ennobling both themselves and their descen-
dants. The common folk serve them; they clear their ground and sow and
reap their crops; they build their houses and give them their daughters to
the caciques when they crave them. In this matter they behave with pagan
freedom: we met some with fifteen, twenty, or thirty wives. A surviving
brother sometimes takes his dead brother’s wives, but this is not common.
In this regard they show the greatest reserve towards their mothers and sis-
ters, and would not even think of having relations with them, considering
it a crime against nature. Even after becoming Christians, if they are related

54. Similar raids more than a century later are vividly depicted in the 1986 movie
The Mission.
Antonio Ruiz de Montoya 113

to a woman in any degree, even one that is dispensable or licit without dis-
pensation, they will not without dispensation admit her as wife, asserting
that she is their own blood. . . . To this day Christian caciques do not marry
common women, but those from the prominent families; they are very par-
ticular about this, even though common women may be naturally en-
dowed. Many arguments confirm that they never had permanent wives.
Being people without contracts of any sort, they never had any thought of
the burdensome contract of permanent marriage. Moreover, as lovers of
freedom and ease, they considered it disgraceful for a man to be bound to
one wife by a tie he could not dissolve at will. Others have found grounds
for the opposite opinion; my purpose is not to decide debates. They knew
of God’s existence, and even in a certain way of his unity. This is gathered
from the name they give him, Tupá. The first syllable, tu, expresses wonder,
while the second, pá, is an interrogative; thus it corresponds to the Hebrew
word Man-hu, “What is this?” in the singular. They never had idols, though
the devil was already imposing upon them to venerate the bones of certain
Indians who had been famous magicians during their lifetimes, as we shall
see later. . . .

Chapter 11. Our method for ending these abuses and preaching the faith.
At this time a companion joined us. He was Father Martín Urtasun, a
native of Pamplona, where he abandoned his inheritance as eldest son, an
income of three thousand ducats, for the rumor of rich mines of souls in the
poor province of Paraguay. We divided ourselves between two settlements,
Loreto and San Ignacio, a pair of us working in each. We set up a school to
teach the youth reading and writing, and indicated a period of one hour
every morning and evening for the adults to come to catechism classes. Al-
though in these classes and in the sermons we gave each Sunday we treated
the mysteries of our holy faith and the commandments of God with all
clarity, we kept silence in public on the sixth commandment so as not to
wither these tender plants and arouse hatred for the gospel. Those in danger
of death, however, we instructed with all clarity. This silence lasted two
years, and was quite necessary, as the outcome proved, as we shall see. The
devil tried to tempt our purity through the caciques’ offering to us some of
their women on the complaint that they considered it unnatural for men to
engage in domestic work such as cooking, sweeping, and the like.
We gave them a full account of priestly chastity, explaining that this was
why our first concern had been to enclose a small area around our house
with a stake fence to keep women from entering our house. They marveled
at our doing so; however being barbarians, they did not find it admirable
since among them it was a matter of honor and prestige to have numerous
wives and serving women, a widespread failing among pagans. Besides the
114 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

town of San Ignacio, Fathers José and Martín had two others as colonies to
which they went as needed. Father Simón and I had one at Loreto, three
quarters of a league distant. Its cacique was a valiant and respected Indian
named Roque Maracaná, who was venerated by the whole territory. We
took turns every Sunday going there to catechize these people, all recently
settled. As they were very numerous, this gave us a great deal of labor, al-
though it was welcome because of the large numbers being won for bap-
tism. We had adults and sick people with whom we were obliged to handle
the topics of marriage and monogamy, and this demanded much effort.
This was our regular practice; at daybreak we would visit the sick; then we
would celebrate Mass, with a sermon after the gospel, after which the pa-
gans were dismissed, much to their chagrin at seeing themselves ejected
from the church like dogs. They envied the Christians who stayed behind,
and this spurred them to learn the catechism for baptism as soon as possible
and to set aside every obstacle. Taking time out at noon to pray the hours of
the divine office, we would return (still fasting so as not to annoy the Indi-
ans by asking for anything) to the church where we gave instruction, bap-
tizing up to two, three, or four hundred each day. Night had already fallen
when we would return to Loreto exhausted and with our heads bursting,
still fasting and with no desire to eat. Our Father Martín Urtasun soon died
from this toil, as we shall recount.
We Fathers in San Ignacio had a prominent cacique who, after varied
fortunes in different places, where he was baptized and married, finally by
his eloquence became as it were lord of the people there. He was a servant
of the devil. Attracted to a woman, not for her beauty but her noble status,
he repudiated his legitimate wife, banishing her to a farm and putting the
girl in her place with the title of legitimate wife. With shameless effrontery
he asserted that she was his legal wife, and she had herself waited on as mis-
tress of numerous serving women. The poor wretch went even further with
his fraudulence; to gain greater prestige with his followers, he pretended to
be a priest. In his private chamber he would put on an alb; robed in a
mozetta55 of brilliant feathers and other adornments, he pretended to say
Mass. He would spread a table with cloths and place upon them a manioca
cake and a painted cup of maize wine; muttering a number of ritual formu-
las, he would show the cake and wine as priests do, finally eating and drink-
ing everything. His vassals consequently venerated him as a priest. His life
was exceptionally scandalous as he had a large number of concubines, with
the full consent and encouragement of his pretended wife. We baptized
eight of his infant children—the year’s crop—all of them blessed indeed for
they died shortly after being baptized. Our own purity and modesty was an
offense to him; he disliked our obliging the sick and those who wanted to

55. A mozetta is a short cape with a small ornamented hood.

Antonio Ruiz de Montoya 115

be truly cleansed through baptism to give up their concubines. His resent-

ment reached such a pitch that he began to incite his vassals’ minds against
us. In various gatherings he told them: “The devils have brought us these
men, for with new teachings they want to take away from us the good old
way of life of our ancestors, who had many wives and servant women and
were free to choose them at will. Now they want us to tie ourselves to a
single woman. It is not right for this to go any further; we should drive
them out of our lands, or take their lives.”
There were many among them who had love for us and esteemed our
virtue, good example, and teaching. These put him off with the suggestion
that it would not be good to carry out his design without consulting Roque
Maracaná for his opinion, and that, if he agreed, it could be put into effect.
Then this cacique, whose name was Miguel Artiguaye, came to visit the Fa-
thers, seemingly friendly and with smiling countenance. After a few words
of courtesy, he turned into a wild beast and burst out shouting—“You are
no priests sent from God to aid our misery; you are devils from hell, sent by
their ruler for our destruction. What teaching have you brought us? What
peace and happiness? Our ancestors lived in liberty. They enjoyed all the
women they wanted, without hindrance from anyone. Thus they lived and
spent their lives in happiness, and you want to destroy their traditions and
impose on us this heavy burden of being bound to a single wife.” And as he
left the room he said: “This shall not be; I am going to do something about
it.” The Fathers, who had listened like lambs to this wolf’s howlings, tried
detaining him to reason with his irrationality, but without success. On the
contrary, he went on shouting with uncontrollable diabolical fury: “We can
no longer tolerate the freedom of these men who want to compel us in our
own lands to live in their evil fashion.”

Chapter 12. Departure of this cacique from his town to discuss his evil
intention with Roque Maracaná, and what happened to him.
The following night Miguel conferred on this matter with his people, as
did the Fathers with God. The upshot was that at daybreak great racket and
din was heard throughout the settlement—preparations for war, drums,
flutes, and other instruments. Three hundred warriors assembled in the
town square, armed with shields, swords, bows, and great quantities of ar-
rows, all splendid with rich painting and variegated feathering. On their
heads they wore gorgeous feathered crowns. The most elaborately decked
out was the cacique Miguel. He wore a rich robe all of varicolored feathers
very skillfully woven; on his head was a feathered crown. He was armed
with a sword and shield; at his sides walked two burly young fellows each
bearing a bow and a large quiver of arrows for the cacique. At the head of all
these people he set off to embark on the river. They left the landing with a
great show of bravery, to the sound of flute and drum.
116 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

Let us leave them for the moment on their way downstream and return
to Father José and his companions. Apprehensive about this journey, they
could only conclude that it was to consult with Roque Maracaná about
their deaths and then, with his approval, to kill Father Simón and me at
Loreto and then return to kill themselves [spiritually]. This was confirmed
by the opinion of some who remained in the settlement. Further, the
cacique Miguel had been heard to say: “These Fathers will wake up one
morning with their heads gone.” The probability of the cacique Roque’s
going along with him was increased by his own vested interest in the many
young women he possessed and by his being a very unrestrained and im-
petuous young man.
Amid these discussions the Fathers withdrew to hold a spiritual confer-
ence on how they should go about preparing to meet death. They decided
to make a general confession of their entire lives (although in the general
confession of his whole life which Father Martín made a few months later
as he died in my arms, I found nothing that was or that I could conjecture
to be serious). They made their confession for death, placing themselves in
the hands of God, whose protection was their only defense. In this predica-
ment our Lord came to his servants’ rescue in the following manner.
Beyond San Ignacio there was another quite large town made up of
people whom we had settled there. Their cacique was an excellent Indian
named Araraá. Immediately upon hearing of the cacique Miguel’s defiance,
he dispatched a good boat with a message to the Fathers: “I have learned of
that cacique’s shamelessness and of his plan to kill you. I would be greatly
pleased if you would come to this town of yours for protection against your
enemy. You will not lack for anything you need or for people to defend you,
for I have vassals who will be able to do it. So that your coming will not be
delayed for want of a boat, I am sending you this one and look forward to
seeing you here in this town of yours.”
Unwilling to show cowardice and trusting in God, the Fathers preferred
to await whatever happened. So, replying to his offer with gratitude, they
remained in continuous prayer, which is mightier than any weapons, as was
proved that very day.
The cacique Roque—along with Father Simón and myself—was quite
unaware of all this agitation, when he heard a great hubbub and the beating
of drums. He asked his servants what this unexpected occurrence was all
about. Once fully informed, he called for a sword and seized a shield, show-
ing himself valiant (as indeed he was) and very well disposed. The cacique
Miguel leapt ashore. His soldiers lined up in two rows, with himself as
commander in the middle, grasping his shield and girded with his sword.
In the style of the ancient nobles, he began striding and shouting aloud:
“My brothers and sons, the time is over for bearing the evils and disasters
Antonio Ruiz de Montoya 117

these men we call Fathers have brought on us. They shut us up in a house
(he meant church) where they harangue us and tell us the opposite of what
our ancestors did and taught us: our ancestors had many wives, and these
men take them away from us and demand that we be content with one. We
do not agree to this; let us take measures against these evils.”
The cacique Roque advanced a few paces from his house, escorted by
only twelve or fourteen of his vassals armed with bows and arrows. Miguel
paid his compliments. Before letting him go forward, Roque asked: “Are
you bringing letters from the Fathers of your town for the Fathers down
here?” Miguel replied: “This is no time for letters but for honoring our an-
cestors’ way of life and for doing away with these Fathers and enjoying our
women and our freedom.” At this, Roque lunged at him; seizing him by
the front of his clothes and giving him a couple of hard jerks, he flung him
to the ground. Miguel, his shield, and his sword went rolling off in differ-
ent directions. Turning to his men, Roque said; “No one shoot an arrow.
Let them start; I will finish them off if they do, for I am going to punish
this fellow’s impudence.” Poor Miguel, seeing how ill he was received,
shouted to his men: “Let’s retreat, let’s retreat!” They all did so. He had
himself taken across the river, about a musket-shot wide. There he leapt
ashore, stripped off his fancy clothes along with his crown and feathers,
dressed in a shirt or coat he got from an Indian, left behind his sword and
shield, and, with a staff in hand like a penitent, set off for his own town
alone with a servant.
The Fathers there were anxious to learn if they had already killed us, ex-
pecting their own end as well, when they caught sight of Miguel, unrecog-
nized in his garb. He came in the Fathers’ doors, fell to his knees, folded his
hands, and said: “For the love of Jesus Christ and St. Ignatius, I implore
you to forgive my stupid insolence towards you. I was crazy and had lost
my judgment, but now I have got it back, because God has punished my
pride, and so I beg your forgiveness. You have preached to us how readily
God forgives those who offend him; imitate him and forgive me. Further-
more I beg you to shield and defend me, for I have good reason to fear that
these people will kill me. I certainly deserve death for my folly, but as true
Fathers and servants of God you have to pardon and protect me.”
Father Jose took him in his arms. As a father, after all, even to such an
evil son and as true and loving shepherd, he raised him from the ground
and consoled him, warning him to look out in the future and to choose the
true path after experiencing how badly his mad schemes had turned out.
Thus was the tempest calmed. Miguel pretended to give up his concubine,
the cause of all this trouble, and brought his true wife home. Outwardly
pretending to live a good life, he continued to live a bad one, and thus died
an evil death, as we shall recount.
118 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

Chapter 76. Invasion of the reduction of San Cristóbal.

The reduction of San Cristóbal was four leagues from that of Jesús-
María. Father Juan Agustín de Contreras was in charge. He had been in the
devastated province of Guaíra, and when he saw the brutalities they [the
bandeirantes, Spanish slave traders] were already starting to perpetrate, he
moved all his people to the reduction of Santa Ana, only three leagues
away. The Father had hardly left when they invaded, pillaging and laying
waste the food supplies. Sixteen hundred of our warriors assembled to hold
off the enemy until the reinforcements that had been requested from other
towns could arrive. In Jesús-María the Castilians already had a stake fort or
corral for assembling their prey, twice the size of the plaza here in Madrid.
They set up a church there, where the two chaplains said Mass—whether
for rescuing souls from purgatory or for capturing the living I cannot say.
The fugitive secular priest, who had been publicly denounced for leaving
his curacy without permission, was under excommunication by his bishop.
Both said Mass in the wilderness, using the privilege given those who con-
vert Indians and settle them in reductions—deeming there to be no differ-
ence between settling them and subjugating them by violence.
Our sixteen hundred Indians were in San Cristóbal, where they cele-
brated Christmas by hearing Mass with what little joy their deadly enemy
allowed them. Under the assumption that the Spanish would remain inac-
tive that day, at least following the example of the brutes—“the ox knows
its owner”—and refraining from violence on such a blessed day, the people
scattered in search of food. But as St. John rightly said of the Jews, “His
own did not know him” [John 1:11]. The raiders from São Paulo thought
quite differently: the great festival was a perfect opportunity to catch the
people hearing Mass in church, unarmed and intent only on their devo-
tions. They put their plan into effect.
When our men realized this, they mustered and fought defiantly for five
hours; it would have lasted longer if night had not taken away the daylight.
Even with such unequal weapons—the Indians having no covering and
only frail cane arrows while the Spanish [i.e., the bandeirantes] were well
protected and armed with muskets—they twice forced them into a forest
and nearly took their flag. Many died on both sides, until night separated
them. The Spanish had seized the area of the church, which they immedi-
ately sent up in flames—not the sort of action one would have expected on
such a holy day.

Chapter 77. The reduction of Santa Ana retreats to that of Natividad;

cruelties of the enemy.
News of these events reached me at a considerable distance. Traveling as
rapidly as I could, I arrived that same Christmas day at the reduction of
Antonio Ruiz de Montoya 119

Santa Ana. There I found a terrible panic. We spent the whole night in the
consultation that was required to meet these calamities. The conclusion was
to move the people from this town and from San Cristóbal to Natividad; it
was a fairly strong position because of a river that would hold up the enemy,
and lay only four leagues away.
The number of the refugees was huge. The river passage was fortified
with a good rampart which afforded a sufficient defense against the enemy’s
seizing our boats as they ferried across the quantities of people who arrived
daily in flight from the enemy. Our soldiers wanted to attack the enemy’s
fort, but we dissuaded them from this obviously risky project. It would be
better to await the enemy in the open, where they had taken control of the
cultivated land. Here our men were able to operate more effectively: laying
ambushes in the woods at every step, they succeeded in killing many with-
out danger to themselves. Already many of the enemy were afraid to go out
and forage, sure they would be killed. This tactic eventually succeeded in
forcing the enemy to raise camp and leave us.
Our provincial, Father Diego de Boroa, attempted to parley with the
enemy, as though they were capable of reason. Several of us Fathers went
with him. We found twenty corpses in San Cristóbal, cruelly hacked and
bullet-ridden; we stopped to bury them. We found a little pagan girl, about
seven years old, lost in the woods; she had two cruel wounds, a long one on
her face and another on the head, both covered with maggots. She told us
her calamitous story as follows.
“I was with my parents and your children. The men burst upon our
houses and divided us among themselves. My little brother and I were
taken by a different master, and to this day I have heard nothing of my par-
ents. Finding ourselves both orphans and slaves, we ran away hoping to
find you so that you could protect us as our Fathers. They chased us and in
a terrible rage gave these wounds to me and another on the neck to my little
brother that left him unable to move his head. Then they left us for dead. I
came to my senses and realized that my little brother was still alive. I ran in
panic into the woods, carrying my little brother in my arms. I was with him
for three days, without food or drink and sustained by the hope that he
would recover consciousness and we would be able to go on. But, with him
at his end and myself as you found me, I abandoned him still alive, though
I was torn with grief. I tried to carry him on my back, but I could not.” We
treated her body and her soul as well through baptism. At every step we
stumbled across corpses—beheaded, pierced with arrows, or hacked to
death.
We reached the palisade they had put up in Jesús-María, where the first
battle took place. It had been a fragrant flowerbed of pagans who had be-
come Christians, whose promise for the future seemed secure but now that
120 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

they are in captivity is considered doubtful. We were met by a terrible odor

from the dead, the stench so overpowering that we were unable to tally
them. We found only one woman alive, but she was unable to speak and a
swarm of flies were sucking on her. We prized her teeth open with a knife
and gave her a drink of wine; then she could talk and said, “Oh, they have
taken away my mother, my brother, and all I possess!” She made her con-
fession and then gave up her soul. She might well have been burned to
death along with so many others, but it was her good fortune that her hut
lay aside from the rest and was not reached by the fire. No one will ever be
able to form an idea what I myself am incapable of writing down. Here we
did not find, as elsewhere, bodies of people hacked to death or with their
throats cut, women split open by sabers; here we found rational human be-
ings—children, women, men—who had been roasted alive. We saw one
woman roasted to death with her twin children, who had been burned as
they clung to her.
These murderers have the common practice, when departing with their
booty, of burning the sick, the aged, and those unable to travel, for if they
remain alive, those who leave will remember them and try to go back. We
spent many hours carrying the charred bodies to a trench, into which we
threw them one after another. The spectacle was such that four hundred In-
dians who accompanied us, stricken at the sight, turned on their heels and
left us.
We found another woman who had miraculously escaped sword and fire.
They had tried to take her prisoner, but she resisted stoutly, saying that she
wanted to die as a Christian among the Fathers. They dragged her and beat
her, but finding her unyielding they gave her a deadly wound on the head,
smashing her face with a rock. To make sure she was dead, they tried to
burn her; but the fire showed itself merciful, to the shame of their inhuman
fury. We found her nearly gone, but with human support and the divine
support of baptism, she preserved her freedom and her life.
Many who have traversed the forests there have assured us that they were
strewn with the corpses of people who had fled and been hunted down with
sabers, swords, and cutlasses. And if these actions are a disgrace to Chris-
tianity and to the gospel itself, which falls into discredit and repels the pa-
gans, what a disgrace to Christianity will it not be that Christians have
befouled the very altar where the life-giving sacrifice of the Mass had so
long been celebrated! They disfigured the altar and used it for their filthy
purposes. It broke our hearts to see this irreverence.
The number of people they took away is not known, but some indica-
tion may be given by the tithes they paid the church: they gave five hun-
dred persons to the Religious [Order priest] as his share, just as a cattle
herder pays a tithe of his sheep or cows. The secular priest got two hundred.
Jean de Brébeuf 121

These events, in sum, constituted my motive for coming to the font of

justice and to His Majesty’s feet. I consider this a blessed task, confident as
I am that the necessary measures will be taken so that those sheep, enjoying
the meadows allotted them by nature (that is, their own lands) may exercise
that freedom which is common to all, and, expressing their gratitude
through whatever tribute their poverty permits, may live protected by the
powerful arm with which His Majesty (may God grant him increase) de-
fends his own vassals.56

Jean de Brébeuf

“Important Advice to Those Whom It Shall Please God to

Call to New France, Especially the Country of the Hurons”
[The French were the first to colonize Canada; they also explored much of the
American Midwest. They established towns and fortresses west from Pittsburgh
to St. Louis, and south to New Orleans. Jesuit missionaries such as Jacques
Marquette (1637–75) were among the first white men to explore much of this
vast region.
French Jesuit missionaries attempted to bring Christianity to the Native Ameri-
cans of Canada and the Midwest. Jean de Brébeuf (1593–1649) was arguably
the greatest of these missionaries. Born and raised in Normandy, Brébeuf entered
the Jesuits at Rouen after completing his university studies and was ordained in
1622. He volunteered to serve as a missionary in Canada and arrived at Quebec
in June 1625. He was soon assigned to work among the Hurons, who lived some
eight hundred miles to the west and south of Quebec. The Hurons, who came to
the French settlements to trade furs, did not want to take Brébeuf and his Jesuit
companion to their lands, but generous gifts persuaded them. Brébeuf was a large
and powerful man—his size proved a disadvantage on the month-long canoe trip,
except on the portages, where his ability to carry heavy loads impressed the
Hurons. Once settled among the Hurons, he had to learn their language and
study their beliefs and customs. He wrote a Huron grammar book and translated
a catechism. Still, converts were hard to come by. The Huron priests blamed a
drought on the Jesuits. France’s defeat in a minor war against the English forced
Brébeuf to return to France from 1629 to 1633; it was there that he wrote the
document printed here. He returned to the Huron mission in 1634.

56. This is the end of Montoya’s account. He then appends three more chapters
containing related documents. One is a letter from the governor of Buenos Aires to
Philip IV in which the governor relates that he saw in Rio de Janeiro how the Indi-
ans captured by the citizens of São Paulo were being sold as slaves. He calculates that
sixty thousand Indians were abducted from the Jesuit reductions.
122 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

On March 16, 1649, Brébeuf was captured during an Iroquois attack on

the village where he was working. After repeatedly torturing him, the Iroquois
cut out his heart and ate it. The Iroquois later destroyed most of the Huron na-
tion, whose remnants drifted to Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Brébeuf and the seven other Jesuit North American martyrs were canonized in
1930.57
This excerpt from Brébeuf was written to warn eager young Jesuits about
the hardships they would face if they volunteered to work in North America.58
According to Brébeuf only the truly courageous should apply. Brébeuf stresses
both the physical hardships and the spiritual consolations such young men will
experience in bringing help to a people with a frugal lifestyle and dangerous
enemies. This document was printed in the Jesuit Relations of 1636. (The
Relations were annual reports that described the work of Jesuit missionaries
and encouraged Frenchmen to support the Jesuits’ work.)]

We have learned that the salvation of so many innocent souls, washed

and made white in the blood of the Son of God, is stirring very deeply the
hearts of many, and is exciting new desires in them to leave old France that
they may come to the New France. God be forever blessed that he, as this
shows us, has at last opened to these Tribes the bowels of his infinite pity. I
wish not to chill the ardor of this generous resolution. Alas! it is those hearts
after God’s own heart whom we are expecting; but I only wish to give one
word of advice.
It is true that “Love is as strong as death” [S. of S. 8:6], the love of God
has power to do what death does,—that is to say, to detach us entirely from
creatures and from ourselves; nevertheless, these desires that we feel of
working for the safety of infidels are not always sure signs of that pure love.
There may be sometimes a little self-love and regard for ourselves, if we
look only at the blessing and satisfaction of putting souls in heaven without
considering fully the pains, the labors, and the difficulties which are insep-
arable from these evangelical functions.

57. For a detailed biography, see Joseph P. Donnelly, S.J., Jean de Brébeuf,
1592–1649 (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1975). For a sample of Brébeuf’s
writings and those of the other North American martyrs, see An Autobiography of
Martyrdom: Spiritual Writings of the Jesuits in New France, edited by François Rous-
tang, translated by M. Renelle (St. Louis: Herder Books, 1964).
58. This excerpt is found in Reuben G. Thwaites, The Jesuit Relations and Allied
Documents (Cleveland: Burrows Bros., 1896–1901), vol. 10, pp. 87–115. Latin
quotations scattered through the document have been translated by John Patrick
Donnelly.
Jean de Brébeuf 123

On this account, in order that no one may be deceived in regard to this,

I will show him how much he ought to suffer for the name of Jesus. True,
the two who came last, Fathers Mercier and Pijart, had no such trouble in
their journey as those of us who came here the year before. They did not
paddle; their men were not sick, as ours were; they had not to bear the
heavy loads. Yet notwithstanding this, easy as may be a trip with the sav-
ages, there is always enough to greatly cast down a heart not well under sub-
jection. The readiness of the savages does not shorten the road, does not
smooth down the rocks, does not remove the dangers. Be with whom you
like, you must expect to be, at least, three or four weeks on the way, to have
as companions persons you have never seen before; to be cramped in a bark
canoe in an uncomfortable position, not being free to turn yourself to one
side or the other; in danger fifty times a day of being upset or of being
dashed upon the rocks. During the day, the sun burns you; during the
night, you run the risk of being a prey to mosquitoes. You sometimes as-
cend five or six rapids in a day; and, in the evening, the only refreshment is
a little corn crushed between two stones and cooked in fine clear water; the
only bed is the earth, sometimes only the rough, uneven rocks, and usually
no roof but the stars; and all this in perpetual silence. If you are accidentally
hurt, if you fall sick, do not expect from these barbarians any assistance, for
whence could they obtain it? And if the sickness is dangerous, and if you are
remote from the villages, which are here very scattered, I would not like to
guarantee that they would not abandon you, if you could not push yourself
to keep up with them.
When you reach the Hurons, you will indeed find hearts full of charity;
we will receive you with open arms as an Angel of Paradise, we shall have all
the inclination in the world to do you good; but we are so situated that we
can do very little. We shall receive you in a hut, so mean that I have scarcely
found in France one wretched enough to compare it with; that is how you
will be lodged. Harassed and fatigued as you will be, we shall be able to give
you nothing but a poor mat, or at most a skin, to serve you as a bed; and,
besides, you will arrive at a season when miserable little insects that we call
here Taouhac, and, in good French, fleas, will keep you awake almost all
night, for in these countries they are incomparably more troublesome than
in France; the dust of the cabin nourishes them, the savages bring them to
us, we get them in their houses; and this petty martyrdom, not to speak of
mosquitoes, sand flies, and other like vermin, lasts usually not less than
three or four months of the summer.
Instead of being a great master and great theologian as in France, you
must reckon on being here a humble Scholar, and then, good God! with
what masters!—women, little children, and all the savages, and exposed to
their laughter. The Huron language will be your Saint Thomas and your
124 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

Aristotle;59 and clever man as you are, and speaking glibly among learned
and capable persons, you must make up your mind to be for a long time
mute among the barbarians. You will have accomplished much, if, at the
end of a considerable time, you begin to stammer a little.
And then how do you think you would pass the Winter with us? After
having heard all that must be endured in wintering among the Montagnet
savages,60 I may say that is almost the life we here lead among the Hurons. I
say it without exaggeration, the five and six months of winter are spent in
almost continual discomforts,—excessive cold, smoke, and the annoyance
of the savages; we have a cabin built of simple bark, but so well jointed that
we have to send some one outside to learn what kind of weather it is; the
smoke is very often so thick, so annoying, and so obstinate that, for five or
six days at a time, if you are not entirely proof against it, it is all you can do
to make out a few lines in your Breviary. Besides, from morning until
evening our fireplace is almost always surrounded by savages, above all, they
seldom fail to be there at mealtimes. If you happen to have anything more
than usual, let it be ever so little, you must reckon on most of these gentle-
men as your guests; if you do not share with them, you will be considered
mean. As regards the food, it is not so bad, although we usually content
ourselves with a little corn, or a morsel of dry smoked fish, or some fruits, of
which I shall speak further on. For the rest, thus far we have had only roses;
henceforth, as we have Christians in almost every village, we must count on
making rounds through them at all seasons of the year and on remaining
there, according to necessity, for two or three whole weeks, amid annoy-
ances that cannot be described. Add to all this, that our lives depend upon
a single thread; and if, wherever we are in the world, we are to expect death
every hour, and to be prepared for it, this is particularly the case here. For
not to mention that your cabin is only, as it were, chaff, and that it might be
burned at any moment despite all your care to prevent accidents, the malice
of the savages gives especial cause for almost perpetual fear; a malcontent
may burn you down, or cleave your head open in some lonely spot. And
then you are responsible for the sterility or fecundity of the earth, under
penalty of your life; you are the cause of droughts; if you cannot make rain,
they speak of nothing less than making away with you. I have only to men-
tion, in addition, the danger there is from our enemies; it is enough to say
that, on the thirteenth of this month of June, they killed twelve of our
Hurons near the village of Contarrea, which is only a day’s journey from us;
that a short time before, at four leagues from our village, some Iroquois

59. The theological training of the early Jesuits was based on the writings of St.
Thomas Aquinas; their philosophical training was based on Aristotle.
60. The Montagnets were a tribe of Canadian Indians who lived on the north shore
of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and spoke an Algonquian dialect.
Jean de Brébeuf 125

were discovered in the fields in ambush, only waiting to strike a blow at the
expense of the life of some passer-by. This [Huron] nation is very timid,
they take no precautions against surprise, they are not careful to prepare
arms or to inclose their villages with palisades; their usual recourse, espe-
cially when the enemy is powerful, is flight. Amid these alarms, which affect
the whole country, I leave you to imagine if we have any grounds for a feel-
ing of safety. After all, if we had here the exterior attractions of piety, as they
exist in France, all this might pass. In France the great multitude and the
good example of Christians, the solemnity of the feasts, the majesty of the
churches so magnificently adorned, preach piety to you; and in the houses
of our Order the fervor of our brethren, their modesty, and all the noble
virtues which shine forth in all their actions, are so many powerful voices
which cry to you without ceasing, “Go and do likewise” [Lk. 10:37]. You
have the consolation of celebrating every day the holy Mass; in a word you
are almost beyond the danger of falling, at least, the falls are insignificant,
and you have help immediately at hand. Here we have nothing, it seems,
which incites towards good; we are among peoples who are astonished
when you speak to them of God, and who often have only horrible blas-
phemies in their mouths. Often you are compelled to deprive yourself of
the holy sacrifice of the Mass; and, when you have the opportunity to say it,
a little corner of your cabin will serve you for a chapel, which the smoke,
the snow, or the rain hinders you from ornamenting and embellishing, even
if you had the means. I pass over the small chance of seclusion there is
among barbarians, who scarcely ever leave you, who hardly know what it is
to speak in a low tone. Especially I would not dare to speak of the danger
there is of ruining oneself among their impurities, in the case of any one
whose heart is not sufficiently full of God to firmly resist this poison. But
enough of this; the rest can only be known by experience.
“But is this all?” someone will ask. “Do you think by your arguments to
throw water on the fire that consumes me, and lessen ever so little the zeal I
have for the conversion of these peoples? I declare that these things have
served only to confirm me the more in my vocation; that I feel myself more
carried away than ever by my affection for New France, and that I bear a
holy jealousy toward those who are already enduring all these sufferings; all
these labors seem to me nothing, in comparison with what I am willing to
endure for God; if I knew a place under heaven where there was yet more to
be suffered, I would go there.” Ah, whoever you are to whom God gives
these sentiments and this light, come, come, my dear brother, it is work-
men such as you that we ask for here; it is to souls like yours that God has
appointed the conquest of so many other souls whom the Devil holds yet in
his power; apprehend no difficulties,—there will be none for you, since it is
your whole consolation to see yourself crucified with the Son of God; si-
lence will be sweet to you, since you have learned to commune with God,
126 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

and to converse in the heavens with saints and angels; the food would be
very insipid if the gall endured by our Lord did not render them sweeter
and more savory to you than the most delicious delicacies of the world.
What a satisfaction to pass these rapids, and to climb these rocks, to him
who has before his eyes that loving Savior, harassed by his tormentors and
ascending Calvary laden with his Cross; the discomfort of the canoe is very
easy to bear, to him who considers the crucified one. What a consolation!
For I must use such terms, as otherwise I could not give you pleasure. What
a consolation, then, to see oneself even abandoned on the road by the sav-
ages, languishing with sickness, or even dying with hunger in the woods,
and of being able to say to God, “My God, it is to do your holy will that I
am reduced to the state in which you see me,”—considering above all that
God-man who expires upon the Cross and cries to his Father, “My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me” [Mt. 27:46]. If God among all these
hardships preserve you in health, no doubt you will arrive pleasantly in the
Huron country with these holy thoughts. “He sails smoothly who is carried
by God’s grace.”
And now, as regards a place of abode, food, and beds—shall I dare to say
to a heart so generous, and that mocks at all that of which I have already
spoken, that truly, even though we have hardly more of those necessities
than the savages have, still, I know not how, the divine Goodness renders
every difficult thing easy; and all and every one of us find everything almost
as comfortable as life is in France. The sleep we get lying on our mats seems
to us as sweet as if we were in a good bed; the food of the country does not
disgust us, although there is scarcely any other seasoning than that which
God has put into it; and, notwithstanding the cold of a winter six months
long, passed in the shelter of a bark cabin open to the daylight, we have still
to experience its evil effects; no one complains of his head or his stomach;
we do not know what diarrhoea, colds, or catarrh are. This leads me to say
that delicate persons do not know, in France, how to protect themselves
from the cold; those rooms so well carpeted, those doors so well fitted, and
those windows closed with so much care, serve only to make its effects
more keenly felt; it is an enemy from whom one wins almost more by hold-
ing out one’s hands to him than by waging a cruel war upon him. As to our
food, I shall say this further, that God has shown his providence very clearly
to our eyes; we have obtained in eight days our provision of corn for a
whole year, without making a single step beyond our cabin. They have
brought us dried fish in such quantities that we are constrained to refuse
some of it, and to say that we have sufficient; you might say that God, see-
ing we are here only for his service, in order that all our work may be for
him, wishes to act himself as our provider. This same Goodness takes care
to give us from time to time a change of provisions in the shape of fresh
Jean de Brébeuf 127

fish. We live on the shore of a great lake, which affords as good fish as I have
ever seen or eaten in France; true, as I have said, we do not ordinarily pro-
cure them, and still less do we get meat, which is even more rarely seen
here. Fruits even, according to the season, provided the year be somewhat
favorable, are not lacking to us; strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries
are to be found in almost incredible quantities. We gather plenty of grapes,
which are fairly good; the squashes last sometimes four and five months,
and are so abundant that they are to be had almost for nothing, and so
good that, on being cooked in the ashes, they are eaten as apples are in
France. Consequently, to tell the truth, as regards provisions, the change
from France is not very great; the only grain of the country is a sufficient
nourishment, when one is somewhat accustomed to it. The savages prepare
it in more than twenty ways and yet employ only fire and water; it is true
that the best sauce is that which it carries with it.
As for the dangers of the soul, to speak frankly, there are none for him
who brings to the country of the Hurons the fear and love of God; on the
contrary, I find unparalleled advantages for acquiring perfection. Is it not a
great deal to have, in one’s food, clothing, and sleep, no other attraction
than bare necessity? Is it not a glorious opportunity to unite oneself with
God, when there is no creature whatsoever that gives you reason to spend
your affection upon it? when the exercises you practice constrain you with-
out force to inward meditation? Besides your spiritual exercises, you have
no other employment than the study of the language and conversation with
the savages. Ah, how much pleasure there is for a heart devoted to God to
make itself the little scholar of a savage and of a little child, thereby to gain
them for God, and to render them disciples of our Lord! How willingly and
liberally God communicates himself to a soul which practices from love of
him these heroic acts of humility! The words he learns are so many treasures
he amasses, so many spoils he carries off from the common enemy of the
human race; so that he has reason to say a hundred times a day, “I rejoice at
your word like one who finds great spoils” [Ps. 119:162]. Viewed in this
light, the visits of the savages, however frequent, cannot be annoying to
him. God teaches him the beautiful lesson he taught formerly to Saint
Catherine of Siena,61 to make of his heart a room or temple for him, where
he will never fail to find him, as often as he withdraws into it; that, if he en-
counters savages there, they do not interfere with his prayers, they serve
only to make them more fervent; from this he takes occasion to present
these poor wretches to this sovereign Goodness, and to entreat him warmly
for their conversion.

61. St. Catherine of Siena (1347–80) was a medieval mystic and writer. She per-
suaded Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon and return to Rome in 1377.
128 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

Certainly we have not here that exterior solemnity which awakens and
sustains devotion only for what is essential in our religion is visible, the
holy Sacrament of the Altar, to the marvels of which we must open the
eyes of our faith without being aided by any sensible mark of its grandeur,
any more than the Magi62 were in the stable. But it seems that God, sup-
plying what we lack,—and as a recompense of grace that he has given us in
transporting it, so to speak, beyond so many seas, and in finding a place
for it in these poor cabins,—wishes to crown us with the same blessings, in
the midst of these infidel peoples, with which he is accustomed to favor
persecuted Catholics in the countries of heretics. These good people
scarcely ever see either church or altar; but the little they see is worth
double what they would see in full liberty. What consolation would there
be, in your opinion, in prostrating ourselves at times before a Cross in the
midst of this barbarism? Or to turn our eyes toward, and to enter, in the
midst of our petty domestic duties, even into the room which the Son of
God has been pleased to take in our little dwelling? Is it not to be in para-
dise day and night, that we are not separated from this Well-Beloved of the
Nations except by some bark or the branch of a tree? “Behold, there he
stands behind our wall” [S. of S. 2:9]. “I have sat beneath the shadow of
him whom I desire” [S. of S. 2:3]. See what we have within. If we go out-
side our cabin, heaven is open to us; and those great buildings which lift
their heads to the clouds, in large cities, do not conceal it from our view;
so that we can say our prayers in full liberty before the noble chapel that
Saint Francis Xavier loved better than any other. If the question is of the
fundamental virtues, I will glory not in myself, but in the share which has
fallen to me; or, if I must, acknowledge it humbly beside the Cross which
our Lord in his grace gives us to bear after him. Certain it is that this coun-
try, or our work here, is much more fitted to feed the soul with the fruits
of heaven than with the fruits of earth. I may be deceiving myself, but I
imagine that here is a grand means of increasing the soul in faith, in hope,
and in charity. Should we scatter the seeds of the faith without ourselves
profiting by them? Could we put our confidence anywhere but in God in
a region where, as far as man is concerned, everything is lacking to us?
Could we wish a nobler opportunity to exercise charity than amid the
roughness and discomfort of a new world, where no human art or indus-
try has yet provided any conveniences? Or to live here that we may bring
back to God men who are so unlike men that we must live in daily expec-
tation of dying by their hand, should the fancy take them, should a dream
suggest it to them, or should we fail to open or close the heavens to them

62. The Magi were the three wise men, often called “kings,” who came from the
East to present gifts to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem: see Mt. 2:1–12.
Jean de Brébeuf 129

at discretion, giving them rain or fine weather at command? Do they not

make us responsible for the state of the weather?
And if God does not inspire us, or if we cannot work miracles by faith,
are we not continually in danger, as they have threatened us, of seeing them
fall upon those who have done no wrong? Indeed, if he who is the Truth it-
self had not declared that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life,
verily and once for all, for one’s friends, I should conceive it a thing equally
noble, or even more so, to do what the Apostle said to the Corinthians,
“Every day I die for your glory, my brothers, which I have in Christ Jesus
our Lord” [1 Cor. 15:31] than to drag out a life full of misery, amid the fre-
quent and ordinary dangers of an unforeseen death, which those whom you
hope to save will procure for you. I call to mind occasionally what Saint
Francis Xavier once wrote to Father Simon [Rodrigues],63 and wish that it
may please God to so act that at least the same thing may be said or written
one day even of us, although we may not be worthy of it.
Here are the words [of Xavier], “Good news has been brought from the
Moluccas [Islands], namely that John Beira and his companions are work-
ing with a mighty increase of the Christian religion.”64
There seems to be one thing here which might give apprehension to a
son of the Society, to see himself in the midst of a brutal and sensual people,
whose example might tarnish the luster of the most and the least delicate of
all the virtues, unless especial care be taken—I mean chastity. In order to
obviate this difficulty, I make bold to say that if there is any place in the
world where this so precious virtue is safe, for a man among us who wishes
to be on his guard, it is here. “Unless the Lord guards the city, he who
guards it stands watch in vain” [Ps. 126:1]. “I know that I can only be con-
tinent if God grants it. And this of itself is wisdom, to know whose gift it
is” [Wis. 8:21]. It is said that the victories which this Daughter of Heaven
[i.e., chastity] gains over her enemies are gained by flight; but I believe it is
God and no one else who puts to flight this very enemy in the most severe
encounters, before those who, fearing nothing so much as his approaches,
go with bowed heads, and hearts full of confidence in his Goodness, where
his glory calls them. And where should we seek this glory? I should say,
where find it more fully purified and disentangled from our own interests
than in a place where there is nothing more to be hoped for than the reward
of having left all for the love of him of whom Saint Paul said, “I know in
whom I have believed” [2 Tim. 1:12]? You remember that plant, named

63. Rodrigues was the superior of the Jesuits in Portugal.

64. Juan de Beira (1512–64) started the Jesuit mission in the Moluccas Islands (In-
donesia), where he opened a school for children on Ternate. Many Jesuits regarded
him as a saint.
130 Jesuit Missions in Asia and the Americas

“the fear of God,” with which it is said our Fathers at the beginning of our
Society charmed away the spirit of impurity: it does not grow in the land of
the Hurons, but it falls there abundantly from heaven, if one has but a little
care to cultivate that which he brings here. Barbarism, ignorance, poverty,
and misery, which render the life of these savages more deplorable than
death, are a continual reminder to us to mourn Adam’s fall, and to submit
ourselves entirely to him who still chastises disobedience in his children, in
so remarkable a way. Saint Teresa [of Avila] said once that she never found
her meditations more profitable than in the mysteries in which she found
our Lord apart and alone, as if she had been in the Garden of Olives; and
she called this a part of her simplicity.65 You may reckon this among my fol-
lies, if you like; but it seems to me that we have here so much the more
leisure to caress, so to speak, and to entertain our Lord with open heart, in
the midst of these uninhabited lands, because there are so few people who
trouble themselves about him. And, on account of this favor, we can boldly
say, “I fear no evil because You are with me” [Ps. 23:4]. In short, I imagine
that all the guardian angels of these neglected and abandoned nations are
continually endeavoring and laboring to save us from these dangers. They
know well that if there were anything in the world that ought to give us
wings, to fly back whence we came both by obedience and by our own in-
clination, it would be this misfortune, if we were not shielded from it by
the protection of heaven. This is what excites them to procure for us the
means to guard against it, that they may not lose the brightest hope they
have ever had, by the grace of God, of the conversion of these peoples. I fin-
ish this discourse and this chapter with this sentence: If, at the sight of the
difficulties and Crosses that are here prepared for us, someone feels himself
so fortified from above that he can say it is too little, or like Saint Francis
Xavier, “More, more,” then I hope that our Lord will also draw from his
lips this other confession, in the midst of the consolations he will give him,
that it will be too much for him, that he cannot endure more. “It is enough,
Lord, it is enough.”

65. St. Teresa of Avila (1515–82) was a mystic, gifted writer, and reformer of the
Carmelite nuns. She was canonized on the same day in 1622 as Ignatius of Loyola
and Francis Xavier. The Garden of Olives was the place outside Jerusalem where
Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion.
 CHAPTER 4

JESUIT OPPOSITION
TO PROTESTANTISM

Introduction

Pedro de Ribadeneira (1526–1611), Loyola’s earliest biographer, depicted

the founder of the Jesuit Order as the champion of Roman Catholicism
against Luther and Protestantism. But Ribadeneira’s description is only half
right. True, the Jesuits were arguably the most effective Catholic opponents
to the spread of Protestantism from 1550 to 1650. They wrote hundreds of
books in which they attempted to refute Protestant ideas and ran hundreds
of schools that tried, often very successfully, to inculcate Catholic beliefs
and practices. Loyola himself toward the end of his student days at Paris
added an appendix to The Spiritual Exercises entitled “Rules for Thinking
with the Church,” in which he sharply opposed the Protestant ideas that
were spreading among students at the University of Paris. He devoted his
life to reforming the Catholic Church and had no sympathy for the dis-
tinctive theologies of Luther, Calvin, and their followers.
Yet the original goal of Loyola and his first companions was not to oppose
Protestantism but to work for the salvation of souls in Jerusalem. During
Loyola’s lifetime, the growth of the Jesuits was fastest in Portugal and Sicily,
lands hardly touched by the spread of Protestant ideas, and where Islam was
considered to be the main threat to the Church. In contrast, growth of the
Jesuits was very slow in German-speaking lands. In his more than six thou-
sand letters Loyola never once mentions John Calvin by name; he only men-
tions Luther once or twice. In the century after the Order was founded in
1540 the Jesuits expended far more effort in educating young men and evan-
gelizing rural Catholic peasants and the native peoples of Asia and the Amer-
icas than they did in mounting offensives against the Protestants.
Protestant apologists usually saw the Jesuits as deceptive schemers and
disciples of Machiavelli.1 Jesuit schools were not allowed in Protestant

1. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a Florentine politician; his most famous

work, The Prince, was seen as advocating immoral behavior in politics—e.g., that
the end justifies the means.

131
132 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

countries, so Jesuits usually had to work secretly in such places. If caught in

England, they faced arrest, imprisonment, and often execution, as will be
seen in the selection by Edmund Campion printed in this chapter.
In what ways did the Jesuits oppose Protestantism? Reviving Catholic
doctrine and practice in Catholic countries was perhaps the most obvious
means to block the spread of Protestant ideas. In officially Catholic areas
where there was a considerable Protestant minority—for example, in
Poland and the Habsburg lands in central Europe—Jesuit schools were
often open to Protestant students. Their Jesuit teachers hoped to convert
such students or at least to undermine their hostility to Catholicism. Jesuit
theologians wrote many controversial works to refute Protestant teaching,
the most famous of which is Robert Bellarmine’s Controversies; this chapter
contains a key section from that work.
Jesuits cultivated good relations with Catholic rulers, sometimes serving
as royal confessors or simply as trusted but unofficial advisers. Jesuit royal
confessors often tried to influence Catholic rulers to unite against Protes-
tant rulers or against the Turks. This chapter prints Loyola’s letter urging
Peter Canisius to use his warm friendship with Emperor Ferdinand I
(1556–64) to have Protestants excluded from positions of authority at the
royal court and in universities.

Loyola’s Letter to Canisius on How King Ferdinand

Should Oppose Protestantism in Austria
[Loyola’s most militant statements against Protestantism are found in this let-
ter of August 18, 1554, to the leader of the German Jesuits, St. Peter Canisius
(1521–97). In the letter Loyola suggests many ways to block the spread of
Protestantism in Vienna and Austria and encourages Canisius to share these
suggestions with King Ferdinand. Ferdinand was king of Hungary and Bo-
hemia and ruled Austria in the name of his brother Emperor Charles V.
When Charles abdicated in 1556, Ferdinand became emperor; he founded
the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, which ruled much of east central Europe
until 1918.2 Although he was a strong Catholic and a supporter of the Jesuits,
Ferdinand was slow to implement Loyola’s suggestions for fear they would stir
up unrest among Ferdinand’s subjects. The letter nonetheless gives valuable

2. In 1552 an alliance of the German Lutheran princes with Henry II of France de-
feated Charles V. This defeat led to Charles’ abdication and the Peace of Augsburg
(1555), which gave Lutherans equal rights with Catholics and curtailed the power
of the Habsburg emperors.
Loyola’s Letter to Canisius 133

insight into how Loyola thought Catholic rulers should deal with their Protes-
tant subjects.3]

Greetings and lasting love, etc. We understood what you were request-
ing with devout concern in your letters written on July 7 and 17, namely
that we consider what could help his royal majesty [Ferdinand] keep these
lands in the Catholic faith, and that we write on how to reestablish that re-
ligion in those areas where it has collapsed and shore it up where it is
shaky. It seems we must make a greater effort because the heart of this
truly Christian prince is regarded as well disposed to listen to our sugges-
tions and carry them out. Otherwise, if we fail to do our utmost to execute
our plans, our efforts will be regarded as something to mock rather than as
having any worth. It will be up to you to use prudence in deciding which
of the things written here should be proposed to his royal majesty. They all
seem very useful if the disposition of place, time, and persons affords the
opportunity to undertake them. But it may be necessary to dispense with
some of them because of the adverse disposition of the regions and the
men with whom one often has to work. Hence you and Father Rector [at
Vienna, Nicholas Lannoy] have been forewarned about these recommen-
dations. You should note, after making a choice, which of these sugges-
tions will aid our purpose and ignore the rest. I will give you a short
account of what several other important theologians of our Society think
about this matter; they are men of learning, good judgment, and a strong,
loving disposition toward Germany.
Just as when a body is in bad health one should first get rid of those
things contributing to sickness and then bring in things contributing to
strength and a good disposition, so too in this sickness of minds—which
has festered in the king’s territories through various heresies—the first thing
to consider is how to get rid of the causes of this disease, then how the vigor
of healthy Catholic teaching can be restored and strengthened in them.
For the sake of brevity the conclusions I offer here will be as succinct as
possible, since anyone with eyes can see what reasons have led us to specific
measures.
First of all, if his royal majesty will claim, as he has always done, that he

3. This translation is by John Patrick Donnelly from the Latin text printed in Beati
Petri Canisii Societatis Iesu Epistulae et Acta, edited by Otto Braunsberger (Freiburg
im Breisgau: Herder, 1896) vol. 1, pp. 488–94. For the life of Canisius, the founder
of the Jesuits in Germany, see James Brodrick, St. Peter Canisius, S.J., 1521–1597
(New York: Sheed and Ward, 1935).
134 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

is not only a Catholic but also the dangerous enemy of heresies, and has de-
clared open and not hidden war against all heretical errors, this will doubt-
less be the most effective and important of human remedies.
Something else of greatest importance follows from this: if his royal
majesty will prevent any heretic from sitting in his royal council, he will be
seen as holding those men in low esteem whose advice, both open and hid-
den, should ultimately be regarded as favoring and supporting the heretical
depravity with which they have been stained. Moreover, it will be very use-
ful if he permits no one infected by any heresy to hold a job in governing a
province or any area, especially on the highest levels, or in any magistracy or
level of dignity.
Lastly, I wish it to be approved and made clear to all that as soon as any-
body has been convicted of heretical depravity or has been under grave sus-
picion, he should not have honors or wealth conferred on him; rather he
should be cut off from them instead. This remedy will be more effective if
some examples are made known by punishing some people with the expro-
priation of their life or goods or with exile—in this way it will be under-
stood that religious matters are dealt with seriously.
All public professors and all persons holding administrative positions at
the University of Vienna or other universities should be stripped of those
positions if they speak negatively about things pertaining to the Catholic
religion. We feel the same about rectors, administrators, and teachers at pri-
vate colleges, lest those who should be guiding young people to godliness
corrupt them instead. Hence those who are suspect should not be retained
there lest they taint young people. Those who are openly heretical should
certainly not be retained. It also seems obvious that those students, if any,
who seem incapable of reconsidering, should also be expelled. All school-
masters and teachers should understand this and be fully aware of the fact
that they will hold no position in the king’s provinces unless they are, and
comport themselves as, Catholics.
All heretical books, as many as have been discovered in a careful previous
investigation of libraries and private collections, should be burnt or shipped
out of all the provinces of the kingdom. The same should be done to any
non-heretical books—such as books on grammar, rhetoric, or logic—written
by known heretics; such books should be completely banned out of hatred of
their authors’ heresy. Since heretics insinuate themselves through such books,
the authors should not even be named, especially not to young people who
might be attracted to them. Other, more learned books that are free of this se-
rious danger can be found. Also, it would be very helpful if all publishers were
forbidden, under severe penalties, to print any heretical books. . . . It should
also be illegal under the same penalties for any merchant or other persons to
import similar books, printed elsewhere, into areas under royal jurisdiction.
Loyola’s Letter to Canisius 135

No priests or confessors should be tolerated who have a bad reputation

regarding heresy. As soon as they are convicted of heresy they should be
stripped of all ecclesiastical revenues. It is better for the flock to have no
shepherd at all than to have a wolf for a shepherd. It would also be good to
severely punish any pastors who are Catholic in faith but who through their
great ignorance, bad example, and public sins corrupt the people. Their
bishops should strip them of their stipends and certainly not entrust the
care of souls to them. The plague of heresy was brought into Germany
through the evil lifestyles and ignorance of such priests.
Preachers of heresy, heretical leaders, and (finally) all those found infecting
others with the plague of heresy should be severely punished. A public decla-
ration should be made, in whatever place you think best, that those who re-
cant their heresy within a month of the day of the declaration will be kindly
absolved under both church and civil law. After that month has passed, those
caught in heresy should perhaps be regarded as shameful and ineligible for
any honors; and if it seems appropriate, such heretics could be punished by
exile, prison, or even sometimes by death. But I am not suggesting we estab-
lish the Inquisition4 or capital punishment there because such measures seem
out of the question in Germany as presently constituted.
Any person who calls the heretics “evangelicals” should be subject to a
monetary penalty lest the devil rejoice that the enemies of the Gospel and
of the cross of Christ usurp a name contrary to the facts. Heretics should be
called by their right name; it would be terrible to even misname such
people who cover their deadly poison with the cloak of the saving name.
Perhaps unlearned clergymen and those seduced by others will recant
after they are taught the truth by synods of bishops and by declarations of
dogmas and the main decrees of the Church issued by [Ecumenical] Coun-
cils. By clearly stressing the abominable errors of the heretics good preachers,
curates, and confessors will also aid the people, so long as the people profess
the Catholic faith and believe in the things necessary for salvation. We may
need to close our eyes on some other questions that can be tolerated.
So far [we have addressed the issue] of reversing errors. Now [I will

4. The notorious Spanish Inquisition was authorized by the pope in 1478 but re-
mained under the control of the Spanish monarchs; it dealt mainly with Spanish
Jews and Muslims who outwardly claimed to have converted to Catholicism but
continued to practice their religion in secret. The Papal Inquisition was set up in
1542 to prevent the spread of Protestantism in Italy. Its effective jurisdiction was re-
stricted to central and southern Italy. Both Inquisitions resorted to torture and exe-
cution of relapsed heretics. Loyola did not want Jesuits to serve as inquisitors, not
because he opposed the Inquisitions, but because that task was largely left to Do-
minican and Franciscan friars who would resent the Jesuits’ invading their turf.
136 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

address] those issues pertaining to the cultivation and solid teaching of

Catholic truth. First, it will help if the king will, in his council and else-
where in his court, favor, honor, and promote only Catholics; likewise, he
should honor only Catholics with revenues and secular and ecclesiastical
honors and titles. If Catholics are to be appointed as governors, magistrates,
or to other positions of command and authority over the people, let them
first swear that they will always be Catholics.
Careful attention must be paid to the selection of good bishops who will,
in word and deed, edify the people in the areas under royal jurisdiction. As
many preachers as possible must be sent out along with confessors from the
religious orders and members of the diocesan clergy who, in their zeal for
God’s honor and the salvation of souls, will fervently and steadily propose
Catholic teaching to the people and confirm it through the example of their
lives. Church dignities and stipends should be granted to these men. By
traveling through the towns and countryside, these men can teach the
people on feast days those things appropriate for the salvation of their souls
and can return afterwards to their churches. Their explanations of the
Gospel will be more edifying if offered free of charge. If ignorant [priests]
and those suspected of disseminating incorrect doctrine cannot be easily re-
moved from their benefices, they should be ordered to feed, at their own ex-
pense, the skilled and good shepherds who will tend to the people in their
place by administering the sacraments and announcing the word of God.
Such ignorant priests must abstain completely from these duties. Hencefor-
ward a benefice with the care of souls should be granted only to somebody
who, having been examined, was found to be a Catholic and a good man of
sufficient intelligence. All such funding is owed only to those [priests] who
do not refuse to take on the care [of souls].
It seems prudent that all administrators, public professors of universities
and academies—both rectors of private colleges and also schoolmasters—
and indeed all teachers should be found to be Catholics by a preliminary
examination or by confidential information and should be recommended
by the testimony of Catholics before they are hired. They ought to take an
oath that they are Catholics and will remain so in the future. If such per-
sons are later discovered to be heretics, they should be severely punished for
perjury. Some men should be given the responsibility of checking those
books imported by merchants and those that are to be printed in the areas
of royal jurisdiction. Books can be sold only after having been approved by
these censors. It would be helpful if teachers everywhere could suggest to
their students one or two catechisms or manuals of Christian doctrine;
these books should contain a summary of Catholic truth that the boys and
unlearned will wear out through repeated reading. It would also be helpful
to have some books composed for curates and those pastors who are less
Loyola’s Letter to Canisius 137

Peter Canisius (1521–97) preaching in Vienna.

learned but of sound minds. Such books would instruct them in the things
they should teach in order that their people will correctly embrace or reject
the things that should be embraced or rejected. It would also be good to
have a summary of scholastic theology of the sort that will not repel the
minds of the learned men of today (nor of those who think themselves
learned).
Because in the areas under royal jurisdiction there is an extreme shortage
of suitable curates, confessors, preachers, and teachers who are at once
Catholic, learned and good, his royal majesty on the one hand should take
very diligent care to gather such men from other places, even if he must
offer high salaries to do so; on the other hand, he should also prepare as
many seminaries as possible [to train] such men for use in his lands. If only
a few seminaries are available, then let them be as big as possible. Four types
of seminaries might be prepared. The first type could be established by
members of those religious orders who are used to performing this sort of
work. To this end his royal majesty will find it valuable to carefully increase
the number of Germans from both the Society of Jesus and from the other
[Religious] Orders in the monasteries and colleges. This increase should be
138 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

accomplished through royal generosity so that those engaged in literary

studies will subsequently become energetic preachers, lecturers and confes-
sors both at Vienna and at his other universities. The second type of semi-
nary is the German College at Rome to which his majesty can send many
talented young men at his expense; these young men will all return to his
regions when they have matured in good letters and morals—unless, that is,
he prefers to set up a similar college at Rome for his Austrian, Hungarian,
Bohemian, and Transylvanian subjects.5 The third type of seminary are new
colleges similar to the German College at Rome, which he can establish at
his own universities under the leadership of learned and devout men. The
students at these colleges will later go out and take on the care of souls or
will be trained as schoolmasters or preachers. [Financing for] these three
types of seminaries could come partly from the income of deserted monas-
teries, partly from parochial churches lacking their own pastors, and partly
from a light tax levied on the people. One source of income can be as-
sumed—that is, income generated by fees imposed on the bishops and
other important priests, or from what sources seem appropriate to his royal
majesty. The fourth type of seminary would consist of colleges in which no-
bles and rich lads—men who later would be apt candidates for secular and
ecclesiastical positions of importance, even supreme importance—are sup-
ported at their own expense. It seems that in this and in the other three
kinds of seminary it will be absolutely necessary to have the sort of rectors
and teachers from whom the students can imbibe godliness joined to sound
and Catholic doctrine.
At Rome, 18 August 1554.

Edmund Campion

“The Brag” or “Challenge”

[St. Edmund Campion (1540–81) was born in London and educated at Ox-
ford. After gradually turning away from the Anglican Church, he left England
and converted to Catholicism at Douai in the Netherlands in 1571. He entered
the Jesuits two years later. In 1580 three Jesuits—Campion, Robert Persons
(1546–1610), and Ralph Emerson (1551–1604)—entered England in dis-
guise to minister to the underground Catholic Church. At that time, Catholic

5. The German College was a residence hall under Jesuit supervision in Rome
where German and Hungarian students lived and studied. Students took their
courses at the Roman College, the premier Jesuit school. It was founded in 1552
and still exists.
Edmund Campion 139

priests were forbidden to enter England or celebrate Mass and could be executed
if caught. Campion expected to be arrested at some point, and so at the request
of friends he dashed off the following challenge, popularly known as his “Brag.”
In it he challenged the English government to hold a disputation between him
and Anglican theologians chosen by the government. Disputations were a stan-
dard part of the training at Oxford and Cambridge, and Campion himself had
participated in a disputation before Elizabeth I (1558–1603) when she visited
Oxford in 1566. Since Campion believed that the truth was on his side, he was
confident that he could overcome his adversaries in a fair and public debate.
Though he did not expect the “Brag” to be published, he did want English
Catholics to have copies in case the government attempted to claim—via a false
confession or statement issued in his name—that he had come to England for
political reasons. Handwritten copies of his challenge circulated widely; when
some fell into government hands, English officials redoubled their efforts to find
and arrest Campion. Meanwhile, Campion’s much longer Rationes Decem
(Ten Reasons), a defense of Catholicism in Latin, was published by an under-
ground Catholic press. Copies of the Rationes Decem were secretly passed
around at Oxford University, much to the government’s outrage. Campion was
captured on July 17, 1581. The government arranged four disputations with
Protestant theologians but did not notify Campion of the debates in advance; he
was furnished with only a Bible by way of preparation. As in most Reformation
debates, government officials made sure that the rules of engagement strongly fa-
vored their own representatives. Campion “lost” the debate and was executed for
treason on December 1, 1581. He was canonized in 1970.6]

Right Honorable,
Whereas I have come out of Germany and Bohemia, being sent by my
superiors, and brought myself into this noble realm, my dear country, for

6. This document is reprinted from Thomas H. Clancy, S.J., An Introduction to Je-

suit Life (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1976), pp. 327–29, with the permis-
sion of the Institute of Jesuit Sources. The spelling and some wording have been
modernized by John Patrick Donnelly to make the document easier to read. James
V. Holleran’s A Jesuit Challenge: Edmund Campion’s Debates at the Tower of London
in 1581 (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999) discusses Campion’s “Brag”
(pp. 25–8) and Campion’s later debates as a prisoner with Protestant theologians as-
signed by the government to refute him. Although not the most scholarly, the clas-
sic biography of Campion is Evelyn Waugh’s Edmund Campion (London:
Longmans, 1961). For the larger context of Campion’s mission, see Thomas Mc-
Coog, S.J., “Our Way of Proceeding,” in The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland and
England, 1548–1588 (Leiden: Brill, 1996).
140 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

the glory of God and the benefit of souls, I thought it likely enough that in
this busy, watchful and suspicious world, that I would either sooner or later
be intercepted and stopped from my course. Wherefore, providing for all
events and uncertain what might happen to me, when God shall haply de-
liver my body to suffering, I supposed that I needed to make this statement
ready in writing since I desire your good Lordships to read it so you may
know my cause. In doing this I trust I shall make your work somewhat eas-
ier. For that which otherwise you must have sought for by intellectual labor
I do now lay in your hands by a plain confession. So that the whole matter
may be understood in order and be better understood and remembered, I
therefore reduced it to these nine points or articles, thus directly, truly and
resolutely laying open my full enterprise and purpose.
1. I confess that I am, although unworthy, a priest of the Catholic
Church, and through the great mercy of God have taken vows eight years
ago in the religious order of the Society of Jesus. Thereby I have taken on
myself a special kind of warfare under the banner of obedience and have
moreover resigned all my interest in or chance for wealth, honor, pleasure
or worldly happiness.
2. At the voice of our Superior General, which is to me a warrant from
heaven and the voice of Christ, I traveled from Prague to Rome (where our
said Father General is always resident) and from Rome to England, as I
might and would have done joyously to any part of Christendom or any
pagan country, had I been assigned there.
3. My assignment is to preach the gospel free of charge, to administer the
sacraments, to instruct the unlearned, to reform sinners, to refute errors—
in brief to sound a spiritual alarm against the foul vice and proud ignorance
wherewith many of my dear countrymen are abused.
4. I never had in mind and am strictly forbidden by our Father [General]
who sent me to deal in any respect with matters of state or policy of this
realm since these things do not pertain to my vocation, and from them I
gladly restrain and withdraw my thoughts.
5. I do ask for the glory of God and with all humility and at your discre-
tion for three kinds of neutral and quiet audiences. The first is one before
your Honors where I will discourse about religion insofar as it touches the
good of the people and you noblemen. The second (which I value more
highly) is before the doctors and masters and chosen men of both [Oxford
and Cambridge] Universities; there I will undertake to defend the faith of
our Catholic Church by innumerable proofs from Scripture, the Councils,
the Fathers [of the Church], and natural and moral reasons. The third is be-
fore lawyers of civil and church law where I will justify the said faith by the
common wisdom of the laws currently in force and practice.
Edmund Campion (1540–1581). Note the dagger in his chest, symbolizing his
martyrdom.
142 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

6. I would be reluctant to speak anything that might sound like an inso-

lent brag or challenge, especially since I am now like a man dead to this
world and willing to put my head under every man’s foot and to kiss the
ground they tread upon. Yet I have such courage in defending the majesty of
Jesus my King and so much trust in his gracious favor and such assurance in
my quarrel and because my evidence is so impregnable and because I know
perfectly that no one Protestant nor all the living Protestants nor any sect of
our adversaries (however much they face down men in the pulpit and over-
rule us in their kingdom of grammarians and unlearned ears) can uphold
their doctrine in a disputation. I ask most humbly and urgently to dispute
with them, one and all, and the best leaders that can be found. I claim that
in this trial the better prepared they are, the more welcome they shall be.
7. And because it has pleased God to enrich Queen [Elizabeth], my sov-
ereign lady, with noble gifts of nature, learning and a princely education, I
really do trust that—if her Highness would grant her royal person and good
attention to such a conference as I have mentioned in the second part of my
fifth article, or to a few sermons, which in her or your hearing I am to
utter,—such clear and fair light may be cast upon those controversies by
good method and plain dealing that possibly her zeal for truth and love of
her people shall incline her noble Grace to disfavor some proceedings hurt-
ful to the Realm and procure more fairness for us oppressed [Catholics].
8. Moreover I do not doubt that you, her Highness’ Council, being of
such wisdom and discretion in very important cases, when you shall have
heard these questions of religion opened faithfully, which many times our
adversaries have jumbled up and confused, will see on what substantial
grounds our Catholic Faith is built, how feeble is that side which by the
fluctuation of time prevails against us, and so at last for your own souls and
for many thousands souls that depend upon your government, you will re-
ject error when it is disclosed and listen to those who would spend the best
blood in their bodies for your salvation. Many innocent hands are lifted up
to heaven for you daily by those English students, whose posterity shall
never die, who beyond the seas are gathering virtue and sufficient knowl-
edge for the purpose; they are determined never to give up on you but ei-
ther to win you heaven or to die on your spears. And touching our Society,
let it be known to you that we have made a league—all the Jesuits of the
world, whose succession and multitude must overreach all the practices of
England—cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us and never to
despair of your recovery while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn7 or

7. Tyburn was the usual place for executions on the outskirts of Elizabethan Lon-
don, now near Hyde Park. Campion was hung, drawn, and quartered there.
Robert Bellarmine 143

to be racked with your torments or consumed with your prisons. The ex-
pense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be with-
stood. So the faith was planted, so it must be restored.
9. If these offers of mine are refused and my endeavors cannot take place,
and I, having run thousands of miles to do you good, shall be rewarded
with rigor, I have no more to say but to recommend your case and mine to
almighty God, the searcher of hearts, that he send us his grace and bring us
to agreement before the day of payment, to the end that we may at last be
friends in heaven, when all injuries shall be forgotten.

Robert Bellarmine

De Controversiis Christianae Fidei

(Selections on Scripture and tradition)
[St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., (1542–1621) was the leading controversial
Catholic theologian8 of the Reformation. After his youth and early education
in Italy, he studied and taught theology in Belgium at the University of Lou-
vain from 1569 until 1576. He shaped his courses there to answer the objec-
tions raised by the Protestant reformers against Catholic teaching. In 1576
he was called to the Roman College to take over the new chair in controver-
sial theology. The lectures he delivered there formed the basis of his De Con-
troversiis Christianae fide (On the Controversies of the Christian Faith),
which appeared in three volumes: 1586, 1588, and 1593. The Controver-
sies went through twenty editions and provided the most comprehensive
Catholic response to the Protestant reformers. Bellarmine was named a car-
dinal in 1599 and devoted most of his last twenty years to administrative
duties in Rome.
The selections from Bellarmine translated here come from the First Con-
troversy, on the word of God. At the heart of the Protestant Reformation
movement was the question “How do we know what is true in theology?”
And the Protestant answer to that question was that Scripture is the only

8. Controversial theological writings aimed to defend the doctrinal teachings of the

author’s church against the claims of those who denied or attacked those teachings.
Never were theological polemics or controversies so popular as in the Reformation.
Just as a willingness to fight a duel was a badge of honor for young noblemen in the
16th century, so too skill at defending the teaching of one’s church established a
theologian’s reputation. Catholics fought Protestants; Lutherans attacked Calvin-
ists. To give but one example, more than one hundred books were published during
the Reformation in the controversy between Lutherans and Calvinists over the na-
ture of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.
144 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

acceptable and sure source of Christian doctrine. That answer had serious
theological ramifications: the criteria accepted for religious truth obviously
dictated the answers to all other specific questions regarding such important
issues as justification, the sacraments, and so forth. Bellarmine divided his
treatise on the word of God into four books: the first book largely addresses
the question of which books belong in the Bible; the second examines various
editions of the Bible; the third is concerned with the interpretation of Scrip-
ture; and the fourth considers tradition as a supplement to Scripture. Bel-
larmine’s arguments were based on a wide array of quotations from the Bible
and the early Church Fathers as well as references to the Catholic and Protes-
tant theologians of his time. William Whitaker (1548–95), an English Puri-
tan theologian who wrote a book defending the doctrine of Scripture alone
against Bellarmine, said that despite Bellarmine’s belonging to “the Jesuit
swarm of papist locusts,” he seemed “an invincible champion, as one with
whom none of our men would dare to engage, whom nobody can answer,
and whom, if anybody should hope to conquer, they would regard him as an
utter madman.” 9 Bellarmine’s tract employs many citations to Scripture and
the Fathers of the early Church; reference to such medieval scholastics as
Thomas Aquinas (1224?–74) are conspicuously absent. Bellarmine’s Protes-
tant opponents felt that the early Church was generally free from errors; they
held that the institutional Catholic Church fell from the true faith during
the Middle Ages. Controversialists who supported their case with abundant
quotations from the Church Fathers were considered to be arguing from a
strong position, whether they were Roman Catholics or Protestants; hence
Bellarmine frequently references the Church Fathers. Both Lutherans and
Calvinists felt that Roman Catholic teaching on the role of free will and
good works in the process of salvation was contrary to the teaching of both St.
Paul10 and St. Augustine.11 In fact Luther and Calvin cited Augustine more
than any other nonbiblical author.
Chapter 5, on Jesuit spirituality, and Chapter 7, on the duties of a Chris-
tian king, include very different contributions from Bellarmine. In the first se-
lection he is writing primarily for theologians; in those chapters he is writing
for a devout lay audience.]

9. Quoted in Jonathan Wright, God’s Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigue and

Power; A History of the Jesuits (New York: Doubleday, 2004), p. 40.
10. Theologians of the Reformation attributed fourteen of the twenty-seven books
of the New Testament to St. Paul. He was also considered to be the best theologian
of the New Testament writers.
11. St. Augustine (354–430), the most influential theologian of the early Church,
is best known for his Confessions.
Robert Bellarmine 145

Book 3: On the interpretation of the word of God12

Chapter 1: Scripture is not so clear of itself that it suffices for settling con-
troversies about doctrine without explication.
I thought it good to begin in this third book on the scriptures with this
question about the interpretation of the Divine Letters: Are the sacred
Scriptures easy and clear by themselves, or do they need interpretation?
Martin Luther13 indeed speaks thus in the preface to his assertion of the ar-
ticles condemned by Pope Leo [X]:14 “This sentence ought to be supported
by the judgment of Scripture—which it cannot be. Unless we have given
Scripture the leading role in all the things which are attributed to the Fa-
thers, namely that it is by itself the most certain, easy and clear interpreter
of itself, proving, judging, and illuminating all things in all cases,” etc. Here
he argues that Scripture is clearer than the commentaries of all the Fathers.
He teaches the same thing in his book on the servitude of the will and else-
where.
But Luther saw that an objection could soon be raised: “Why, then, are
there so many controversies if Scripture is so clear?” He thought up two ways
of escape. First, that even if Scripture is obscure in some places, it still states
the same matter clearly elsewhere. Secondly, that even though Scripture is of
itself most clear, it is nonetheless obscure to the proud and unbelievers be-
cause of their blindness and depraved disposition. [Johann] Brenz adds a
third way of escape in his Prolegomena against Pedro de Soto:15 that scripture
is also sometimes obscure because it includes phrases in a foreign language,
that is, Hebrew and Greek; still the meaning of scripture is very clear. This
contention is obviously false because Scripture itself bears witness to its own
difficulty and obscurity. In Psalm 119[:34], “Give me understanding that I

12. This whole discussion covers pp. 14–141 in the first volume of Roberti Bel-
larmini Opera omnia (Naples: Apud Josephum Giuliano, 1836). Only key parts are
translated here by John Patrick Donnelly.
13. Martin Luther (1483–1546), greatest of the early Protestant theologians, in-
sisted that the Bible was the only criterion for determining true Christian doctrine
and justifying religious practices.
14. Leo X (pope 1513–21) condemned several of Luther’s famous Ninety-five The-
ses of 1517. Bellarmine here cites Luther’s reply to that condemnation.
15. Johann Brenz (1499–1570), a leading Lutheran theologian in the decades after
Luther’s death, wrote extensively against both Catholics and Calvinists. Pedro de
Soto (1500–63) was a Spanish Dominican friar who taught at the Catholic Univer-
sity of Dilligen in Germany; he answered Brenz’s attack in his Defensio catholicae
confessionis . . . adversus prolegomena Johannis Brentii, which was published in
Antwerp in 1557.
146 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

may search your law.” In the same place [Ps. 119:18]: “I will open up my
eyes and gaze on the marvels of your law.” In the same place [Ps. 119:135],
“Let your face shine on your servant and teach me your laws.” Certainly
David knew all the Scripture that existed then, and he knew the idioms of
the Hebrew language; he was neither proud nor unbelieving. Dealing with
these statements in his epistle to Paulinus, St. Jerome16 rightly says on this
point, “If so great a prophet confesses the darkness of ignorance, how much
night of unknowing do you think surrounds us, who are little children, al-
most nursing on milk?”
Moreover, in the last [chapter] of Luke [24:27] the Lord interpreted the
Scriptures for his disciples, who certainly knew Hebrew idioms since they
were Hebrews; they were not proud or unbelieving. The eunuch of the
queen of Ethiopia in Acts 8[:28–35] was wrestling with the Scriptures and
was reading them carefully and was holy, devout and humble, as Jerome
teaches in his epistle to Paulinus on the study of Scripture. Still when Philip
asked him, “ ‘Do you think you understand what you are reading?’ He an-
swered, ‘And how can I, unless somebody shows me?’ ”
Finally, blessed Peter asserts in the last chapter of his second epistle
[3:16] that “the ignorant and unstable twist” certain passages in the epistles
of Paul which are hard to understand. It is to be noted there that the
Apostle Peter did not say that these things were difficult only for the igno-
rant and unstable, as the heretics make out, but difficult absolutely. For
blessed Augustine, who was certainly not ignorant and unstable, confesses
in his book De fide et operibus (On faith and works), Chapters 15 and 16,
that he found it very difficult to understand this passage from 1 Corinthi-
ans 3[:12], “But if somebody builds upon the foundation,” etc. He says
that this is one of those passages about which blessed Peter warned that they
were difficult to understand.
Secondly, aside from the testimony of Scripture, the same thing can be
proved from the common consensus of the ancient Fathers. [A long section
of this chapter, omitted here, consists of quotations from the following
Church Fathers: Irenaeus, Origen, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine,
and Gregory the Great].17

16. St. Jerome (342–420) was widely regarded as the greatest biblical scholar of the
early Church; his translation of the Bible into Latin, known as the Vulgate, was the
official translation of the medieval and early modern Catholic Church. His view
that the Bible was hard to understand cut against Luther’s claim that Scripture was
self-clarifying.
17. The dates of Irenaeus’s birth and death are unknown, but he was bishop of
Lyons and the leading theologian of the late second century. His most important
work was Against Heresies. Origen (185?–254?) taught and wrote at Alexandria and
Caesarea. His most famous work is his refutation of the pagan philosopher Celsus’
Robert Bellarmine 147

Aside from these authorities, reason also does not fail to prove the same
point. For two things can be considered in the Scriptures: the things spoken
about and the way in which they are spoken about. If you were to consider
these things, it would be necessary to confess that the Scriptures are very
obscure since they deal with the supreme mysteries, about the divine Trin-
ity, about the incarnation of the Word, about the heavenly sacraments,
about the nature of angels, about God working in the human mind, about
eternal predestination and reprobation,18 and also about other hidden and
supernatural things which are investigated not without great keenness and
work and not without grave danger of error. Certainly if the knowledge of
metaphysics is more difficult and obscure than all other natural disciplines
because it deals with the highest causes, how will sacred Scripture not be
most obscure, which deals with things far more lofty? A large part of Scrip-
ture contains prophecies about future events and prophecies written in po-
etry, than which nothing certainly is more difficult and nothing more
obscure.
But if we were to examine the way things are said, we would find count-
less obscure passages. First there are in the Scriptures many passages that at
first glance seem contradictory, as that statement of Exodus 20[:5]: “I am a
jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers on the sons in the third and
fourth generation.” And that of Ezekiel 18[:20], “The son will not bear the
iniquity of his father, but the person who sins, he will die.” Second, there
are ambiguous words and statements, as in John 8[:25] to the Jews who
asked, “ ‘Who are you?’ Christ replied, ‘The beginning, who am also speak-
ing to you.’ ” Here all the exegetes torture themselves marvelously, and even
now it is not known what “The beginning, who” means. And in the Greek
the business is even more obscure where “beginning” is in the accusative
case: “ten archen.” Third, there are incomplete statements, as in Romans
5[:12], “Just as through one man sin entered into the world and through
sin death; and so death has passed over to all men, in whom all have
sinned,” and what follows. In that whole sentence there is no main verb.

attack on Christianity. His writings popularized allegorical interpretation of the

Bible. St. John Chrysostom (345?–407), the patriarch of Constantinople, was re-
garded as the greatest preacher of the early Greek-speaking church. He wrote bibli-
cal commentaries and a treatise on the priesthood in six books. St. Ambrose
(340?–97) was bishop of Milan; he is known for his sermons on the Bible and his
book on the Holy Spirit. St. Gregory the Great (540?–604) was pope from 590 to
604; he organized the papal administration and sent missionaries to England. His
theological writings are more practical than speculative.
18. Eternal predestination means that God from all eternity has chosen a person for
salvation and heaven; eternal reprobation means God from all eternity has chosen
one for damnation and hell.
148 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

Fourth, there are proleptic19 statements, as in Genesis 10[:31], “These are

the sons of Shem, by their families, their tongues, and their lands by their
tribes.” Immediately the beginning of Chapter 11 follows, “But the earth
was of one tongue and of the same speech.” Fifth, there are idioms re-
stricted to the Hebrews, as Psalm 89[:30], “His throne is like the days of
heaven.” Likewise Psalm 119[:109], “My life is ever within my hands” and
very many other passages. Sixth, there are many figures of speech, tropes,
metaphors, allegories, inverted word orders, uses of irony, and countless
other similar figures of speech.
Lastly comes the confessions of our adversaries: whether they like it or
not, they are forced to acknowledge this truth. For if the Scripture were as
clear as they say, why did Luther and the Lutherans write so many com-
mentaries? Why have they published such different translations of the
Scripture? Why do they explain the Scripture so differently? Certainly [An-
dreas] Osiander, in refuting the writing that Philip [Melanchthon] pub-
lished against him, witnesses that there are twenty very different views of
justification according to the Scriptures being employed just among those
who [accept] the [Augsburg] Confession. And has not Luther himself in his
first book against [Huldreich] Zwingli and [Johann] Oecolampadius left
this in writing:20 “If the world were to stand longer, it would again be nec-
essary, because of the different interpretations now being given Scripture,
for us to accept the decrees of the Councils and to take refuge in them, for
the sake of preserving the unity of the faith.” I ask, whence come so many
interpretations of Scripture if Scripture is so easy and clear? Do they not
fight among themselves in wondrous wise over this question?
Luther, in the preface of the assertion of his articles, asserts that Scripture
is of itself completely open and clear and boasts in his book on the enslaved
will that there are no difficulties in the sacred letters and that no passage

19. Proleptic means “by anticipation, by looking ahead.”

20. Andreas Osiander (1496?–1552) was a maverick Lutheran reformer who
worked in Nuremberg; he was often at odds with the city government and with
other Lutheran theologians on a wide range of questions. Several of his teachings
were condemned by later Lutherans. Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) was
Luther’s right-hand man at Wittenberg. After Luther’s death Melanchthon was the
most prominent Lutheran theologian, although his teaching on the Eucharist edged
toward that of Calvin. He was the author of the 1530 Augsburg Confession, which
has long served as the most basic statement of the Lutheran faith. Huldreich
Zwingli (1484–1531) and Johann Oecolampadius (1482–1531) were the leading
Swiss theologians of the early Reformed tradition, at Zurich and Basel respectively.
Their main differences with Luther were over the presence of Christ in the Eu-
charist and over the use of religious art.
Robert Bellarmine 149

can be brought to him that he cannot easily interpret; nonetheless he him-

self in his preface on the Psalms says, “I would not want anybody to pre-
sume of me what none of the most holy and learned men so far has been
able to do, that is, understand and teach the whole Psalter in its legitimate
sense. It is enough to have understood some of them, and those only par-
tially. The Spirit keeps much to himself so that he may always have us as
disciples. He shows many things only to entice [us], he entrusts many
things so that he can influence [us].” Later [he says], “I know that it would
be very insolent and rash should some one dare to claim to have understood
one book of Scripture in all its parts.” On page 12 of his book on the
Councils he says, “Twenty years earlier I was forced to spurn the commen-
taries of the Fathers when lecturing on Scripture in class and to seek its true
and genuine meaning with much sweat.”

Book 4: On the unwritten word of God

Chapter 4: The Need for Traditions is Demonstrated.
Now as we come to the proof, we will try to demonstrate three things.
First, that the Scriptures without Traditions were neither absolutely neces-
sary nor sufficient. Second, that apostolic Traditions are found dealing not
just with morals but also with of faith. Last, how we can be certain about
true Traditions.
I prove the first from the various eras of the Church. Some Church of
God existed in the world from Adam right up to Moses, and people wor-
shiped God by faith, hope, and charity and by external rites, as is clear from
Genesis where Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek,21
and other just persons are introduced. Also from Augustine’s City of God,
Book 11 and the following, where he traces the City of God from the be-
ginning of the world right down to the end. But there was no divine Scrip-
ture before Moses, as is clear, both because by common consensus Moses
was the first sacred writer and because in Genesis there is no mention of
written doctrine but only doctrine handed down. God says in Genesis
18[:19], “I know that [Abraham] will command his children and his house-
hold after him to keep the way of the Lord.” Therefore religion was pre-
served for two thousand years by Tradition alone. Therefore Scripture is not
absolutely necessary. For just as that ancient religion could be preserved for

21. All of these except Melchizedek were descendants of Adam and predecessors of
the Jewish nation as traced in the book of Genesis. Melchizedek was “king of Salem
who brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High” who blessed
Abraham (Genesis 14:18–20). He is also referred to in Psalm 110:4. The author of
the Letter to the Hebrews (5:6; 6:20; 7:1–19) links the priestly role of Jesus to that
of Melchizedek.
150 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

two thousand years without Scripture, so too the teaching of Christ could
have been preserved for fifteen hundred years without Scripture. Then from
Moses up to Christ for another two thousand years the Scriptures did in-
deed exist, but they were the sole possession of the Jews, but the rest of the
nations, in which there were some people with true religion and faith, had
the use of only unwritten Tradition.
For besides the Jews many other people belonged to the Church, as is
clear from Job and his friends.22 Likewise from Augustine who constantly
asserts this in his On Original Sin, Book 2, Chapter 24 and his On the Pre-
destination of the Saints, Book 1, Chapter 9, and his City of God, Book 18,
Chapter 47. Also in the very people of God, even though the Scriptures ex-
isted, the Jews used Tradition more than Scripture, as is clear from the
[statement] of Exodus, Chapter 13[:8], “You will relate to your son in that
day saying, ‘This is what the Lord has done,’ ” etc. [Here Bellarmine adds
further quotations from Dt. 32:7, Jb. 8:8, Jgs. 6:13, Ps. 44:1, Ps 78:3–4,
and Sir. 8:9.] And yet Ecclesiasticus [the author of the book of Sirach] was
from the last writers of the Old Testament.
The reason why the Hebrews used Tradition more than Scripture seems
to have been because right up to the times of Ezra23 the Scriptures were not
edited to the form of books so that they could be used easily and comfort-
ably; rather they were dispersed in various annals and notes and meanwhile
they were not found because of the negligence of the priests, as is clear from
2 Kings 22[:13] where it is related as a new discovery that in the days of
Josiah a volume of the law of the Lord was found in the Temple.24 But after
the captivity25 Ezra gathered everything together and organized it into one
corpus, adding in Deuteronomy the last chapter about the life of Moses and
some other things thereafter toward continuing the history. . . . 26

22. Bellarmine here means that Job and his friends are not Jews but believers in the
true God (Job 1:1).
23. Ezra was a Jewish priest and scribe who lived in Babylon but returned to
Jerusalem where he addressed the people and presided over a two-day reading from
the Jewish Bible—so it is clear that much of the Bible was in written form by his day
(Neh. 8:3, 13).
24. Josiah was king of Judah (640–609 B.C.). During his reign Hilkiah discovered
the book of the law in the temple at Jerusalem and gave it to Josiah, who ordered his
secretary to read it to him (2 Kg. 22:8–20).
25. The elite of Jewish society were forced into captivity at Babylon by Nebuchad-
nezzar in 586 and were encouraged to return to Israel in 539 by Cyrus the Great,
founder of the Persian Empire. This period is known as the “Babylonian captivity.”
26. Bellarmine credits Ezra with gathering and organizing various manuscripts into
what became the first five books of the Bible. Many of these manuscripts were
Robert Bellarmine 151

Indeed, after the coming of Christ the Church was for many years with-
out Scriptures so that even in his time Irenaeus wrote, Book 3, Chapter 4,
that there were some Christian nations which lived splendid lives without
the Scriptures but only with Traditions. Therefore it its rather clear from
this deduction that the Scriptures are not absolutely necessary. But what
[John] Chrysostom says in his first homily on Matthew that Scriptures
were not necessary for the patriarchs and apostles but are necessary for us
because of human corruption—this is to be understood not because of an
absolute necessity but for our well being, that is, our utility, because there
were generally many sinful persons even in the times of the patriarchs and
apostles.
My first proof that the Scriptures do not contain everything so that they
themselves suffice without another Tradition is this: because either the
whole canon of Scripture taken together is sufficient, or the individual
books are sufficient by themselves. Chemnitz27 cannot say that the individ-
ual books are sufficient, for then it would be false what he also says, that the
use of Tradition was used in the Church up to the completion of the whole
canon of the Scriptures. Moreover we see that the individual evangelists do
not contain everything. For John wrote nothing about the annunciation,
the nativity, the circumcision, and the epiphany of the Lord and about
many other things. The same can be said about the other books. Likewise,
if one book sufficiently contains everything, what need was there for so
many books?
Finally, [Protestants] themselves say openly that the whole canon is
needed for this—that sufficient teaching be available. But not even that can
be rightly asserted. For many truly sacred and canonical books have per-
ished; therefore we do not have and have not had for 1,500 years sufficient
teaching if everything is located in the Scriptures. In his homily on Matthew
9, regarding the statement that Jesus was called a Nazarene [cf. Mt 2:23],
Chrysostom teaches that many books of the Old Testament have perished.
He says, “Many of the prophetic documents have perished, which can be
proved from the history of Chronicles. Since the Jews were lazy and not only
lazy but also evil, they lost some things out of negligence, but others they

brought to Jerusalem by Ezra and other Jews returning from Babylonian captivity.
The last chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy describes the death of Moses, so it
was not written by Moses. Bellarmine credits Ezra with writing this chapter, but
that is a guess.
27. Martin Chemnitz (1522–86) was, in the last two decades of his life, the most
influential Lutheran theologian. He wrote a four-volume attack on the Roman
Catholic Council of Trent and played a key role in drafting the Formula of Con-
cord, which reunited various Lutheran factions.
152 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

both burned and tore up.”28 He teaches the same thing in his seventh hom-
ily on First Corinthians. It cannot be alleged that all those things that per-
ished were restored by Ezra, for Chrysostom wants to prove that not all of
the predictions of the prophets are extant now, and he proves it because the
Jews lost many of them.
Ezra, moreover, did not restore the lost books but repaired and collected
those which were extant; the last chapter [29:29] of First Chronicles says,
“The acts of David, from first to last, are written in the book of Samuel the
seer and in the book of Nathan the prophet and in the volume of Gad the
seer.” And in 2 Chronicles 9[:29], “The remaining deeds of Solomon are
written in the words of Nathan the prophet and in the book of Ahijah the
Shilonite; also in the vision of Iddo the seer.” And 1 Kings 4[:32] [says],
“Solomon spoke three thousand proverbs, and his poems numbered five
thousand.” Are these all? It is likely that the epistle of Paul to the
Laodiceans has perished from the New Testament; he himself in the opin-
ion of some recalls it in the last chapter of Colossians [4:16], and undoubt-
edly another epistle to the Corinthians [has perished]; there seems to be a
reference in 1 Corinthians 5[:9], in those words, “I wrote to you in the epis-
tle.” And it can easily have happened that still some other things have per-
ished. So let the heretics try to figure out how they are going to sew back
together such a nasty tear.
Second, the same point is proved by the difference that existed between
the apostles’ preaching and Scripture. For if it had been the purpose of
Christ and the apostles to narrow and restrict the word of God to Scripture,
Christ would above all have openly commanded something of so much im-
portance, and the apostles would have testified somewhere that they were
writing by the Lord’s command just as they were teaching by the Lord’s
command throughout the whole world. But we never read that. Moreover,
the apostles did not wait for an opportunity or need to come up for preach-
ing orally; they went forward spontaneously of their own accord, but they
did not apply their mind to writing except when pressured by some need.
Eusebius29 writes in Book 3, Chapter 24 (or Chapter 18 in another edi-
tion) of his history that Matthew wrote on the occasion when after having
preached to the Hebrews, as he was preparing to go to the Gentiles, he
judged it useful to leave some memorial of his teaching and preaching to
those from whom he was departing in body. Eusebius also relates in Book

28. Obviously Bellarmine shared the anti-Semitic attitudes that were so common
in 16th-century Europe.
29. Eusebius (260?–340?) was born in Palestine, served as bishop of Caesarea, and
attended the Council of Nicaea. Because of his Historia ecclesiastica he is known as
the Father of Church History.
Robert Bellarmine 153

2, Chapter 15 of his history that Mark wrote his gospel neither of his own
choice nor because of an order from Peter (whose disciple he was) but
under pressure from the requests of the Romans. The same Eusebius in
Book 3, Chapter 24 of his history notes that Luke wrote only because he
saw many other people who were rashly presuming to put into writing
things which they did not fully know. [He wrote] so that he could steer us
away from the unsure accounts of others.
In the same place Eusebius also writes that John preached the Gospel
until extreme old age without any Scripture, and Jerome adds in his book
on ecclesiastical writers that the bishops of Asia finally forced him to write
his gospel because of the heresy of the Ebionites30 that was popping up
then. Therefore, had the heresy of Ebion not existed, perhaps we would not
have John’s gospel, just as [we would not have had] the other three if the
aforesaid occasions had not come up. Rightly does Eusebius write in the
passage noted earlier that only two of the twelve apostles wrote [gospels],
and those [two] were driven to it by some need.
From this we obviously gather that the first intention in the minds of the
apostles was to preach the Gospel, not to write. Moreover, if they had
wished to commit their teaching to writing of set purpose, they certainly
would have prepared a catechism or similar book. But either they wrote a
history, as did the evangelists, or epistles on some occasion, as [did] Peter,
Paul, James, Jude, and John; in them they deal with disputed questions of
doctrine only obliquely. Finally, either the individual apostles would have
produced a written account of evangelical teaching since each of them had
care of some province, or certainly they all would have gotten together be-
fore they dispersed to their provinces and written some joint book, just as it
is agreed that they composed together the Creed of the Faith, which, how-
ever, they did not write out but passed on only orally, as is taught by blessed
Irenaeus in Book 3, Chapter 4; by Jerome in his letter to Pammachus
against the errors of John of Jerusalem; by blessed Augustine in his book De
fide et operibus; by blessed Ambrose in Letter 81 to Syricius; by blessed Leo
in his Letter 13 to Pulcheria; by Ruffinus; and by Maximus in his exposi-
tion of the creed.31

30. The Ebionites, who get their name from their supposed founder Ebion, were a
Jewish Christian sect that began in Palestine, spread to Syria, and continued from
roughly 100 to 300. They strongly opposed the teachings of St. Paul.
31. This is a good example of how Bellarmine employs citations from the Church
Fathers to support his arguments. We have already noted Irenaeus, Jerome, and Au-
gustine. St. Ambrose (340?–97) was bishop of Milan. His writings included many
sermons and scriptural commentaries. He played a key role in the conversion of St.
Augustine. St. Leo I (390?–461) was the first pope counted among the Church
154 Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism

A third proof [comes] from many things which cannot be ignored but
which are not contained in the Scriptures. First, in the time of the Old Tes-
tament, they undoubtedly had some remedy for women no less than for
men by which they were cleansed of original sin; still in the opinion of
many circumcision was established for men, but about what there was for
women, the Scripture has nothing. Moreover, it is completely unbelievable
that there was not at that same time some remedy for males that died before
the eighth day, on which alone circumcision could take place, but nothing
on this point exists in Scripture.
Third, many Gentiles were able to be saved and were saved in the time of
the Old Testament and really belonged to the Church, as we showed above;
but the Scriptures contain nothing at all about their justification from orig-
inal sin and other sins.
Fourth, it is necessary to know with certainty that truly divine books
exist, which cannot be obtained in any way from the Scriptures. For even if
Scripture says that the books of the prophets and apostles are divine, still I
certainly would not believe it unless I had previously come to believe that
the Scripture which says this was divine. For we read scattered through the
Koran of Mohammed that the Koran itself was sent by God from heaven,32
but still we do not believe it. Therefore this dogma which is so necessary,
namely that there is some divine Scripture, cannot be sufficiently based on
Scripture alone. Hence, since faith rests upon the word of God, we will
have no faith unless we have an unwritten word of God.
Fifth, it is not enough to know that there is divine Scripture but one has
to know which it is—something which cannot in any way be obtained
from the Scriptures. How can we gather from Scripture that the gospel of
Mark and Luke are true and that those of Thomas and Bartholomew are
false? For reason would rather say that more belief should be put in a book
bearing the name of an apostle than of a nonapostle.
Where am I to get to know that the epistle to the Romans is really by
Paul and the epistle to the Laodiceans which is now passed around is not by

Fathers. He convened the Council of Chalcedon (451) which condemned the

Monophysites, kept Attila the Hun from sacking Rome, and wrote many sermons
and letters. Tyrrannius Ruffinus (345?–410) was a monk in Egypt before returning
to his hometown of Aquileia in Italy; he is best known for translating writings of
Eusebius and Origen from Greek into Latin. St. Maximus the Confessor
(580?–662) was a Greek monk and writer; he opposed writers who argued that
Christ had only a divine and not a human will.
32. The Koran is the sacred book of Islam. Muslims believe that it is literally the
words of God conveyed by the angel Gabriel to Mohammed, who wrote them
down.
Robert Bellarmine 155

Paul? Both have the title by Paul on the front, and Paul says in the last chap-
ter of his epistle to the Colossians [4:16] that he wrote to the Laodiceans,
but he never says he wrote to the Romans.
Sixth, we must not only know which are the sacred books but also specif-
ically that we now hold those books in our hands. It is not enough to be-
lieve that the gospel of Mark is true, that the gospel of Thomas is not true;
we must also believe that this gospel which is now read under the name of
Mark is the true and incorrupt one written by Mark. This can certainly
never be gained from the Scriptures. How shall I gather from the Scriptures
that this gospel is not a fake substitute, as the Muslims say, or certainly
completely corrupted as once the Manichees used to say and the Anabap-
tists [say] now?33

[The rest of this chapter presents and answers various objections against tradi-
tion raised by John Calvin, Johann Brenz, and Martin Chemnitz, the leading
Protestant theologians in the previous decades. Bellarmine gives several ex-
amples of traditions that are not found in Scripture such as infant baptism
and Mary’s perpetual virginity.]

33. The Manichees were members of a religious system, founded by Mani in the
third century A.D., which spread through the late Roman world. Manichaeism
taught that there were two divinities—Light, or Goodness, and Darkness, or Evil—
locked in perpetual struggle. The Anabaptists who arose in Switzerland and Ger-
many in the 1520s generally rejected infant baptism. Some of them valued the Holy
Spirit speaking in their hearts over the written Bible.
 CHAPTER 5

JESUIT SPIRITUALITY

Introduction

All faiths have developed their own rich traditions of spiritual literature,
and spiritual texts have always outsold books of theology. The first and
most popular book of Jesuit spirituality was Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual
Exercises. Since several selections from The Spiritual Exercises are printed
in Chapter 1, that book is not represented in this chapter. Other early Je-
suits wrote hundreds of books on spirituality, many of which became best
sellers.1
Early Jesuit spiritual writers were strongly influenced by the 15th-
century movement called the devotio moderna. The most prominent work
of this movement was The Imitation of Christ, attributed to Thomas à
Kempis (1380?–1471); the Imitation strongly influenced Loyola’s own spir-
itual development after his conversion and was, for a long time, required
reading for Jesuit novices. Book 4 of the Imitation encourages Christians to
receive the Eucharist frequently, a practice the Jesuits also advocated. Above
all, the Imitation stressed inwardness—a deep personal union with God.
The Jesuits embraced this idea in general but rejected the anti-intellectual-
ism inherent in the devotio moderna.
The most influential scholar and spiritual writer in the first two
decades of the 16th century was Desiderius Erasmus (1466?–1536), the
prince of humanism; though he was deeply indebted to the devotio, he
too opposed its anti-intellectualism. He also opposed the scholastic phi-
losophy and theology that dominated the universities of his day. For Eras-
mus, the scholastics were so dry and caught up in their own abstract
speculations that they ignored the practical, pastoral dimension of theol-
ogy. He and many humanists urged a return to teaching of such early

1. The classic work on Jesuit spirituality is Joseph de Guibert’s The Jesuits: Their
Spiritual Doctrine and Practice; A Historical Study, translated by William J. Young
(St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1964). De Guibert discusses the four authors
in this chapter: Rodriguez (pp. 261–64), Bellarmine (pp. 248–49), Nadal (pp. 204–
7), and La Puente (pp. 253–56).

156
Introduction 157

Church Fathers as St. Augustine, whose writings combined scholarship

with concern for the needs of his flock. Loyola and the Jesuits tried to em-
brace both the Church Fathers and the medieval scholastic theologians,
especially St. Thomas Aquinas. Above all, they tied scholasticism, hu-
manism, and their own personal spiritual growth to helping others, espe-
cially those people in greatest need. They helped prostitutes reform their
lives; they visited people in prison; they educated young men in their
schools; they evangelized peasants in rural areas; they sent out missionar-
ies to Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Jerome Nadal—whom Loyola sent
to explain Jesuit spirituality to communities in Italy, Spain, France, and
Germany—put it this way: “The world is our home.” To the Jesuits spir-
itual growth was (and is) not a private matter; they felt it should flow out
to others.2
During his university studies Loyola found that the delight he took in
prayer was distracting him from his academic studies, which were essential
for his gaining the knowledge he needed to be an effective apostle to others.
He then forced himself to cut back severely on the time he devoted to
prayer. Later, he wanted young Jesuits in training to devote no more than
an hour each day to formal prayer in addition to the time they spent in at-
tending Mass. He expected them to devote half an hour to a formal medi-
tation similar to those found in The Spiritual Exercises. Priests were given
more latitude to devote more time to meditation and were required to re-
cite, privately, the prayers of the Divine Office. This took about seventy
minutes daily, far less than the amount of time Benedictine monks or such
mendicant friars as the Dominicans and Franciscans devoted to the singing,
in common, of their Office. Many friars denied that the Jesuits were a true
religious order precisely because the Jesuits did not sing or recite the Office
in common together.
Why did Loyola and his early companions insist on Jesuits’ praying the
Office in private? Because private recitation would save about two hours a
day that could be devoted to working for souls: teaching, writing, studying,
preaching, hearing confessions, visiting hospitals, and other apostolic
works. Did this mean that the Jesuits were less spiritual than the monks and
friars? Not if they took to heart a key goal of Jesuit spirituality: finding God
in all things. Jesuits wanted every one of their activities—indeed, the activi-
ties of all Christians—to be part of an effort to see God in all they saw and
did, not only in formal prayer. They believed they should try to see God in

2. For a fuller discussion of Jesuit innovations in spirituality, see John O’Malley,

“Some Distinctive Characteristics of Jesuit Spirituality in the Sixteenth Century,” in
Jesuit Spirituality: A Now and Future Resource, edited by John O’Malley et al. (Chi-
cago: Loyola University Press, 1990), pp. 1–20.
158 Jesuit Spirituality

all the beauties of nature, in the face of everybody with whom they came
into contact, in their own joys and sorrows. Action and contemplation were
not considered to be opposites. Jesuits were invited to be, simultaneously,
men of action and men of contemplation. They were to encourage all the
women and men with whom they worked to the same goal. As the English
Jesuit poet Gerard Manly Hopkins (1844–89) wrote:

The World is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil crushed.

This chapter presents selections from the spiritual writings of four early
Jesuits. The first selection is by Alfonso Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s book on
the practice and perfection of Christian virtues was compulsory reading for
Jesuits; it was also popular among members of other religious orders from
the 17th century until the mid-20th century. The selection by Rodriguez
printed here reveals the ways in which the early Jesuits saw their spiritual
life as distinctive. The second selection is from Jerome Nadal, Loyola’s clos-
est assistant in his last years. Nadal here presents a systematic meditation
on the birth of Christ. Loyola stressed that those making the Spiritual Ex-
ercises must use their imaginations to mentally re-create the biblical scenes
and events on which they were centering their prayers, and Nadal’s medi-
tation book included splendid engravings designed to help readers envision
the events of Christ’s life. The third selection is taken from the meditations
of Luis de La Puente (1554–1624). Few books of meditation were as pop-
ular or as detailed as La Puente’s. In the selection included here he reflects
on the devotional meaning of Christ’s first parable, that of the sower. The
fourth selection, from Robert Bellarmine’s Ascent of the Mind to God, de-
velops the same theme of the crowning meditation in Loyola’s Spiritual Ex-
ercises, the Contemplation to attain love, in which Loyola teaches
Christians to see God in all things. Here Bellarmine directs his readers’
spiritual gaze above, to the sun and the stars as reflections of God’s great-
ness and beauty.

Alfonso Rodriguez
Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues
[Alfonso Rodriguez was born in 1538 at Valladolid and entered the Jesuits at
the age of nineteen. For many years he served as rector or spiritual director at
Alfonso Rodriguez 159

Jesuit communities in southern Spain; he also taught moral theology. The first
edition of his Ejercicio de perfeccíon y virtudes cristianas was published at
Seville in 1609. The revised and definitive edition came out in 1616, the year
of his death. The modern English edition runs to 1,744 pages in three vol-
umes. Though Rodriguez lived during the golden age of Spanish mysticism, his
massive book hardly addresses mystical spirituality. Many contemporary Span-
ish religious writers of his day offered a more vibrant style and deeper spiritual
insight. Rodriguez, on the other hand, provided readers with a somewhat
bland but encyclopedic synthesis of Christian spirituality with a bent toward
practical applications. He divided his work into twenty-four treatises averaging
some twelve chapters each. The first two volumes of his book address the virtues
and religious beliefs and practices of all devout Catholics. The third volume is
aimed at the special virtues, vows, and practices that members of religious or-
ders were expected to cultivate.
Within ten years after Rodriguez’s death, his book appeared in seven Span-
ish printings and was translated into six languages. During the 17th century
there were six different French translations, one of which went through eighty-
three editions. By the mid-20th century some three hundred printings existed
in twenty-three languages. In some convents Rodriguez’s book was read to the
nuns at breakfast every day of the year.
Given the comparative blandness of Rodriguez’s style, why did his book
achieve such lasting success? For starters, his style was simple, his suggestions
prudent—he did not advocate severe penances and austerities. He laced in apt
quotations from the Bible, the early Church Fathers, and such medieval saints
as Benedict, Bernard, and Francis of Assisi as well as colorful anecdotes to il-
lustrate the points he was making.3 He avoided controversial topics. Aside from
the Eucharist, his treatment of the sacraments was brief. Christians were
called, he insisted, to devote themselves to private prayer, the love of God, and
the service of their neighbors. Rodriguez did not dwell much on the social ap-
plication of the Gospel or such deeper mysteries of the Christian faith as the
Trinity or the Incarnation. He did, however, set himself against two move-
ments prevalent among the Spanish Jesuits of his day. Some of the Spanish Je-
suits wanted to devote much more time to prayer and less time to pastoral work
or teaching; for such priests the goal of Jesuit life was a mystical union with
God. Other Jesuits wanted to overhaul the highly centralized authority of the
Jesuit general in Rome and work toward local autonomy. Rodriguez repeatedly
refers his readers to the Jesuit Constitutions; his treatise on prayer is grounded

3. Benedict (c. 480–c. 547) was the founder of the Benedictine monks, Bernard
(1090–1153) was the founder of the Cistercians, and Francis of Assisi
(c.1181–1226), the most beloved saint of the Middle Ages, was the founder of the
Franciscans.
160 Jesuit Spirituality

on Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.4 The excerpts printed here are all from Ro-
driguez’s Treatise 17.]

“On the end and institute of the Society of Jesus”5

Attend to yourself, and attend also to the teaching and instruction of your
neighbor; apply yourself with all diligence to the one and to the other, for in
this way you shall save yourself and also them that hear you. In these two
things consists the end for which the Society was instituted, as our Constitu-
tions and the apostolic bulls6 say: “The end of this Society is not only to at-
tend by the grace of God to the salvation and perfection of our own souls, but
by the same to apply ourselves earnestly to the salvation and perfection of our
neighbor.” And this is to be done not in any “as you like it” fashion, but
“earnestly,” a word expressive of vigor, efficiency, fervor, and intensity. The
Society looks for men who will go about attaining the end of their calling
with fervor, vigor, and energy. Here we must take note that, as in our own
case, our aim should be not salvation merely, but salvation with perfection, so
we are required by our Institute not to be content with helping our neighbors
unto salvation, but we should endeavor to get them to make progress and go
forward in virtue and perfection, each one according to his state. And so Fa-
ther General Claudius Acquaviva7 in his “Instruction for Confessors” recom-
mends us not to set our eyes on having a great number of penitents, but on
those that we have to deal with making good progress. We should take the
same interest in the progress and perfection of our neighbor as in our own,
using the same care and diligence over the one as over the other.
For this, the Society was founded in these troublous times. Our blessed
Father Ignatius saw the Church of God well provided with Religious Orders
that attend to their own spiritual progress, keeping up choir and divine ser-
vice; but at the same time he saw her straitened and afflicted with heresies,

4. For an overview of Rodriguez and his book, see John Patrick Donnelly, S.J., “Al-
fonso Rodríquez’s Ejercicio: A Neglected Classic,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 11,
no. 2 (1980): pp. 16–24.
5. For the sections printed here, see Alphonsus Rodriguez, Practice of Perfection and
Christian Virtues (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1929), vol. 3, pp. 3–6, 12–5,
22–3. Used with the permission of Loyola University Press.
6. The apostolic bulls were formal papal documents authorizing the Jesuits and
their work.
7. Acquaviva was superior general of the Jesuits from 1581 to 1615. Chapters 6
and 7 contain Acquaviva’s rules for Jesuits working with peasants and serving as
royal confessors.
Alfonso Rodriguez 161

sins, and great losses. Thereupon, inspired and guided by the Holy Ghost,
he established this Religious Order, this troop and company of soldiers, to
be, as he said, like so many light horse, ever ready to rush to the rescue
against the sudden onslaughts of the enemy, and to defend and aid our
brethren. And therefore he would have us free and disengaged from choir
and other offices and observances which might hinder this end. “The har-
vest is plentiful, but laborers are few” (Lk. 10:2). How can we have the heart
to let our neighbor perish and go to hell when it is in our power to succor
him? St. [John] Chrysostom8 says: “If you saw a blind man likely to fall
headlong into a morass, you would lend him a hand; now seeing daily our
brethren on the point of falling into the abyss of hell, how can we hold back
and fail to stretch out a hand to them?”
Even of those holy Fathers of the Desert, whom God had called to soli-
tude, we read in the Church histories that, when they saw the Church af-
flicted and persecuted by tyrants and heresies and the faithful in need of
teaching and spiritual succor, they quitted the repose of the desert, and
went round making excursions into the towns, answering heretics, teaching
the Catholics, and encouraging them to martyrdom. So we read that the
great Anthony9 did in the time of Constantine;10 as also did another holy
man named Acepsemas,11 who had been previously enclosed for sixty years
without seeing or speaking to mortal man. And we read the same of many
others. One of these, named Aphraates,12 gave the Emperor Valens13 a won-
derfully good answer in this matter. This holy man, postponing his own
peace and quiet to the salvation of the faithful, had quitted the cave in
which he dwelt, and set to work to guide and guard the Lord’s flock. For the
Emperor had given orders to banish the Catholics, not only from their tem-
ples and cities, but even from the mountains, where they used to make their
processions, singing hymns and praising God. While Aphraates was thus
engaged, he passed one day by the house of the Emperor; and someone told
Valens: “There goes that Aphraates, of whom all the faithful make so much
account.” The Emperor had him called, and said: “Where are you going?”
He answered: “I am going to offer prayer for your empire.” The Emperor
said to him: “You would do better to pray at home, as monks generally do.”
To which the sagacious man replied: “Certainly you say well; that would be

8. For more on Chrysostom, see footnote 17 in the previous chapter.

9. St. Anthony (c. 251–356) is frequently called the Founder of the Religious
Life; he spent most of his very long life as a hermit in the Egyptian desert.
10. Constantine was a Roman emperor (306–37).
11. Acepsemas was an early fourth-century Egyptian hermit.
12. Aphraates was also a fourth-century Egyptian hermit.
13. Valens was a Roman emperor (364–78).
162 Jesuit Spirituality

the better course if you left room for it; and so I did all the time that
Christ’s sheep had the peaceful enjoyment of their pastures; but now that
they are in great danger of being stolen or devoured by wolves, one is
obliged to rush in all directions to the rescue. Tell me, Serene Highness, if I
were a delicate young girl, and while I sat at my work in my room I saw my
father’s house on fire, what would be the right thing for me to do? Would it
be well for me to sit still, and for my tender years take no heed of the home
of my father’s being burned, or should I run in search of water to put out
the fire? Wherefore, seeing the house of God our Father is now on fire, and
that you yourself, sir, have set it on fire, it is to put this fire out that we, who
lived before in retirement, now come from all quarters to the rescue.”
St. [John] Chrysostom, speaking of the care we ought to have for the sal-
vation of our neighbors, makes use of another very pat comparison. Sailors
on the vast ocean, says he, if they catch sight of a wreck a long way off,
however good a wind they have to steer on their own course, nevertheless,
in disregard of their own advantage, put their ship about, hasten to the
spot, take in sail, anchor, and throw out ropes and planks for the drowning
mariners to lay hold of and save themselves. So we ought to behave in our
navigation of the wide ocean of this world, swept by many storms, pestered
by many rocks and sand-banks, and the scene of so many shipwrecks. So,
when you see a fellow voyager in danger, in the waves and tempests of this
ocean, leave all your business and fly to his succor, for the necessity of a
drowning man brooks no delay.
It was to this end, then, that God our Lord raised up the Society in such
calamitous times, to succor and meet the particular need which the Church
was then experiencing; it was a great stroke of His providence and a singular
act of clemency. Writers of ecclesiastical history have noted and observed
very reasonably that on the same day on which Pelagius was born in England
to pervert and darken the world with his errors, there was born in Africa
[St.] Augustine, that great luminary of the Catholic Church, to scatter by his
radiant splendor the darkness of a malignant and dangerous heresy.14 Also
the writer15 of our blessed Father Ignatius’s Life observes that in the same
year in which that infernal monster, Martin Luther, threw off the mask and
began openly to declare war on the Catholic Church by preaching his blas-

14. The year, much less the day, when Pelagius (360?–420) was born is uncertain.
His writings stressed the role of human free will in achieving salvation. Augustine
devoted many of his most important works to refuting Pelagius and his followers.
Both Roman Catholic theologians and the leading Protestant reformers such as
Luther and Calvin sided with Augustine against Pelagius.
15. Rodriguez has Pedro de Ribadeneira’s pioneering biography of Loyola in mind.
It depicted Loyola as the champion of the Catholic Church against Luther and the
Protestant Reformation.
Alfonso Rodriguez 163

phemies and heresies—it was in the year 1521—that same year God our
Lord broke the leg of Ignatius at the castle of Pamplona, to heal him and
change him from a dissolute and vain soldier into His captain and leader,
and the defender of His Church against Luther. Hereby is seen the provi-
dence and clemency of the Lord, always careful to send new succors and re-
inforcements to His Church in the hour of her greatest need. . . .
The lessons we should thence learn for our own spiritual advancement are:
first, a great affection for our ministries and devotion to them, as being so ex-
alted, so pleasing to God, and so profitable to our neighbor; secondly, a great
sense of shame at God’s having called us, being what we are, to a rank so high
and lofty; and whereas I am not in a position to give a good account of my-
self alone, God has over and above entrusted to me and put in my hands the
salvation and perfection of others. It is a wonderful good piece of advice
which that apostolic man, our Father Francis Xavier,16 gave like a veteran and
experienced soldier in a letter he wrote to the fathers and brothers of Portugal.
He says to them: “I advise you, my brothers, never to touch upon the office
and ministry that you hold, nor upon the good opinion and esteem that the
world has of you, except to turn it to your confusion.” . . . The higher the of-
fice to which God has called you, the more you ought to humble yourself.
An older father,17 very distinguished for learning and virtue, used to say
that, when he considered the high purpose and end of the Society and
looked at himself, he felt so ashamed, seeing how insufficient and unworthy
he was, that not only he felt no pride in seeing himself called to so exalted a
function, but on the contrary it was an occasion to him of greater shame
and humiliation. In this way the high state we are in will do us no harm,
nor the opinion of our holiness that the world entertains, nor the honor
done us on that account. The third lesson that we have to learn is to apply
ourselves in good earnest to our own spiritual advancement, for to deal
with our neighbor and make a better man of him, a great foundation of
virtue is necessary, as we shall say afterwards. . . .
Since some heart perhaps may be melancholy, thinking that the end of
which we have spoken is only for priests, who hear confessions and preach
and have such immediate dealings with their neighbor, we will give some ex-
planation here for the consolation of those who serve and help in temporal
and exterior offices.18 This end and enterprise belongs to all who are in the

16. Chapter 3 discusses Xavier’s life and includes several of his letters.
17. Rodriguez is referring to Jerome Nadal. The next selection in this chapter is by
Nadal.
18. Here Rodriguez has the Jesuit lay brothers in mind. Most were from the lower
classes and received no academic training but were bound by the same vows as most
other Jesuits. They performed such basic tasks as cooking and cleaning in the Jesuit
communities.
164 Jesuit Spirituality

Society, and not only to priests and men in their studies. Thus all should
know to what end their labors are directed, of whatever sort they be, and the
value and merit of them, and thus be better disposed to do them. We all
make one body, one Order, one Society; and the end of all this body and So-
ciety is what we have said, to attend not only to our own advancement and
perfection by the grace of God, but also to attend to the salvation and per-
fection of our neighbor. For the compassing and attaining of this end proper
to our Order, some must be preachers, others confessors, others lecturers,
and others coadjutors to aid in outward offices. So in war, for the gaining of
victory, it is needful for some to fight and others to guard the baggage. The
latter aid the former to fight and gain the victory, and deserve no less reward
and remuneration than those who fight. As David said: “Equal shall be the
portion of him who goes down to battle and of him who stays with the bag-
gage; and they shall share alike in the division of the spoil” (1 Sam 30:24).
Holy Writ says that this is a standing rule in Israel to this day, and with rea-
son, for they are all one army, and for the gaining of the victory the one is as
necessary as the other; the one party could not fight if the other did not stay
on guard with the baggage. So it is here; we all make one body, one army,
one company and troop of soldiers of Christ, for this enterprise of the con-
version of souls. This man could not preach, nor that other hear confessions,
nor that other lecture or study, if there were not someone to remain in
charge of the temporalities. Thus he who minds the latter helps in preaching
and in hearing confessions and in saving souls, and has his share in the vic-
tory and fruit that is won. St. Augustine says that at the death of St. Stephen,
the first martyr, while others were stoning him, Paul was keeping their
clothes, and thereby did more than all the rest, since he kept the clothes of
them all.19 If we may say this of an evil deed, much more may we say it of a
good deed, since God is more inclined to reward than to punish.
Father Master Avila,20 in a letter that he wrote to two priests who were on
the point of entering the Society, being already missionaries and coming to
a Society which makes that its profession, tells them not to fix their minds
on rendering spiritual aid to their neighbor, nor be troubled at their not
being employed in such ministries, since in the Society all that is done
down to the washing of dishes in the kitchen is, he says, for the saving of
souls. The saving of souls being the end of this Order, and great profit of
souls depending upon its preservation and increase, all that is done to pre-
serve and increase this Society, though it be the discharge of very humble

19. The martyrdom of St. Stephen and St. Paul’s role in it, are described in Acts of
the Apostles 7:54–8:2.
20. St. John of Avila (1500–69) was a good friend of the Spanish Jesuits.
Alfonso Rodriguez 165

offices, counts for the conversion of souls, and should be done very cheer-
fully. Members as we are of this body and this Order, every one of us by
doing his duty and fulfilling his office helps to the fruit and profit that is
made in the body, and so is partaker in the conversions and good works
that are wrought throughout the whole Society. Our Father [Ignatius of
Loyola] lays this down expressly in the Constitutions, speaking of the tem-
poral coadjutors. So each one should be highly content and comforted in
his office, taking it for a great blessing to be a member of this body of the
Society, in which God is so well served and so much help is given to souls.
Thus in the Society everything is for the conversion of souls, the being
cook, the being porter, the being sacristan, because the end of it all is con-
verting souls, and whatever helps the Society helps to that end. . . . More-
over, as we see in the course of nature that a plant, say a lettuce, does not
produce seed while it is small, but only when it is grown to maturity—then
does it begin to shed its seed, to multiply itself in others—so in the things
of the spirit and of grace God requires a man first to be well advanced and
grown in virtue into a perfect man before begetting spiritual sons to God
and being able to say: “In Christ Jesus through the gospel I have begotten
you” (1 Cor. 4: 15). For this reason the first thing the Society takes in hand
is to attend to ourselves and to our own spiritual advancement; it would
have its subjects well grounded in this first of all. To this end there is such a
long probation in the Society; two years of novitiate to begin with, before
starting the studies; and when these are over, she puts her men once more
into the furnace and the mold, keeping them another whole year in proba-
tion, that in case study and speculation have dried up and cooled any of
their spirit and devotion, they may refit themselves once more, now that
they are on the point of entering upon their ministry to their neighbor, and
not treat of matters of the spirit without themselves having the spirit. And
even after that it seems that we are never to cease being novices; our profes-
sion is put off for so many years21 that one may say our whole life is spent in
novitiate and probation before the Society gives a man his grade as a formed
workman in its service. Much is to be entrusted to him, and so he must be
much proved and tried first for all he is worth; he is to be put to high
things, dealing with others to make them not only good, but perfect, and so
it is necessary that he himself be perfect.
Hence it will be seen how great is the mistake of those to whom these
probations appear long, and who even fancy that their time is lost in them,
and would like to see themselves already preaching and dealing with their

21. Jesuits usually made their profession (i.e., took their final vows) only after at
least fifteen years in the Society. Members of most other religious orders took
solemn vows after several years.
166 Jesuit Spirituality

neighbor. The moment they get a little devotion in meditation, or one or

two good thoughts, they want to be in the pulpit.

Jerome Nadal

Annotations and Meditations on the Gospels

[Jerome (Gerónimo) Nadal was born in 1507 on the island of Majorca off
Spain’s Mediterranean coast. He studied at the University of Alcalá and the
University of Paris where he encountered Ignatius of Loyola, who encouraged
him to join the companions. Nadal declined. After being ordained a priest and
earning a doctorate in theology he returned to his native Majorca to work as a
priest. But after reading the published letters of Francis Xavier, he was so im-
pressed that he went to Rome and joined the Jesuits in 1545. He so deeply ab-
sorbed the new spirit of the Jesuits that he has frequently been called Loyola’s
Alter Ego and even the Second Founder of the Jesuits. Loyola quickly entrusted
major tasks to him. Among other responsibilities, Nadal took on the role of su-
perior at the first Jesuit college for lay students at Messina, promulgated the Je-
suit Constitutions in many countries, and worked as a sort of general problem
solver for Loyola. After Loyola’s death Nadal carried out similar important
tasks for later Jesuit generals. He died in Rome in 1580.22
Nadal wrote many spiritual works.23 His largest and most important work
was the Annotations and Meditations on the Gospels, which follows the order
of the gospels in the Masses of the liturgical year. Nadal spent his leisure time
from 1568 until 1575 writing this massive work, which was not published until
1595. The definitive edition was published in Antwerp in 1604. The delays in
its publication arose because of the size of the work (six hundred folio pages) and
because Nadal wanted to have it illustrated with 153 engravings. He also
wanted Europe’s most prestigious publishing house, that of Christopher Plantin
in Antwerp, to publish it. Distinguished Flemish artists, the three brothers Hi-
eronymus, Johan, and Antoon Wierix, contributed the engravings.24
The brothers’ engravings were not just illustrated afterthoughts. Loyola’s

22. For Nadal’s life and work, see William Bangert, S.J., and Thomas McCoog,
S.J., Jerome Nadal, S.J., 1507–1580: Tracking the First Generation of Jesuits (Chicago:
Loyola University Press, 1992).
23. Nadal’s spiritual writings are discussed by Jean-François Gilmont, S.J., Les écrits
spirituels des premiers Jésuites (Rome: Institutum historicum Soceitatis Iesu, 1961),
pp. 232–49; most of them were written for the use of young Jesuits.
24. A leading expert on early Jesuits and the arts comments, “But by far the most
important Jesuit image cycle of the period—and one which was virtually over-
whelmed with landscape—was the magnificent set of 153 illustrations to Nadal’s
Evangelicae historiae imagines . . . which were extremely influential not only in
Jerome Nadal 167

Spiritual Exercises insisted that those making the meditations should try to re-
construct in their imagination the physical scene of the meditations on the
gospels—they were to use their imagination much as a modern film director
has to visualize and plan out the scenes of a movie.25 Perhaps no Jesuit book of
meditations provided so much visual help as did Nadal’s. Each engraving has
a number of letters inserted at key points of the picture; the subject of each let-
ter is spelled out (here A to M) under the engraving. Nadal then provides an
annotation or explanation of each subject or miniscene, plus its biblical or pa-
tristic sources. The illustrated scenes are to stimulate the imagination and de-
votion of those making the meditation no less than the biblical text itself does.
The meditation chosen here, Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, is the third in
Nadal’s book. (The two previous meditations are on the Annunciation and the
Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.)]

Volume 1: Infancy Narratives26

The Night of the Lord’s Nativity
A. Bethlehem, David’s city.27
B. The forum where the tax is paid.
C. The cave where Christ is born.
D. JESUS, newly born, lies in straw on the ground before the manger. The
Virgin Mary wraps Him in swaddling clothes.
E. Angels adore the newborn Child.
F. The ox and the donkey at the manger are roused by the new light.

Europe but on the missions from China to Paraguay.” Gauvin Alexander Bailey,
“Jesuit Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts,” The Jesuits: Culture, Sciences and
the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John O’Malley et al. (Toronto: Toronto University
Press, 1999), p. 70.
25. Nadal also produced an edition of The Spiritual Exercises with illustrations: The
Illustrated Spiritual Exercises, edited by Jerome Nadal (Scranton: Scranton Univer-
sity Press, 2001).
26. This meditation of Nadal is reprinted from The Infancy Narratives, vol. 1, Anno-
tations and Meditations on the Gospels, edited and translated by Frederick Homann,
S.J. (Philadelphia: St. Joseph’s University Press, 2003), pp. 127–33. It is printed with
the permission of St. Joseph’s University Press. The first volume (two more are pro-
jected) contains a long and valuable introductory essay, “The Art of Vision in Jerome
Nadal’s Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia,” by Walter Melion, pp. 1–96.
27. The letters A through M are all found in the engraving On the Night of the
Lord’s Birth and are explained here.
168 Jesuit Spirituality

On the Night of the Lord’s Birth: The Nativity of Christ, by Jerome Nadal. Engraving
by Hieronymus Wierix, 1607.

G. Light from the newborn Christ scatters the darkness of night.

H. The Heder (Flock) Tower.
I. Shepherds and flocks at the tower.
K. An angel appears to the shepherds, and with him the heavenly host.
L. An angel that devout belief holds was sent as messenger to the Elders in
Limbo.
M. The star and the angel sent to the Magi first call them to their journey.
Jerome Nadal 169

Gospel reading—Luke 2
Now it came to pass in those days, that there went forth a decree from Cae-
sar Augustus28 that a census of the whole world should be taken. This first
census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.29 And all were
going, each to his own town to register.
And Joseph also went from Galilee out of the town of Nazareth into
Judea to the town of David, which is called Bethlehem—because he was of
the house and family of David—to register, together with Mary his es-
poused wife, who was with child. And it came to pass while they were there,
that the days for her to be delivered were fulfilled. And she brought forth
her firstborn son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in
a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were shepherds in the same district living in the fields and
keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord
stood by them and the glory of God shone round about them, and they
feared exceedingly.
And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you
good news of great joy which shall be to all the people; for there has been
born to you today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign
to you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a
manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heav-
enly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace
on earth among men of good will.”

Annotations

A. Bethlehem, or Ephrata, David’s city in the tribe of Judah, is set on a

little hill six miles south of Jerusalem.
B. The forum at Bethlehem where a tax collector sits at his table. One
man pays the tax; others come to do the same.
C. The cave (St. Jerome called it an aperture) where JESUS was born.
The manger was hewn from the rock inside. Christ’s sepulcher30 was
similar. Here a manger was hewn in the back of the cave, there a sep-
ulcher. Contemplate the lowliness, and at the same time the majesty

28. Octavian Augustus Caesar ruled as the first Roman emperor from 27 B.C. to
A.D. 14.
29. P. Sulpicius Quirinius was Roman legate of Syria from A.D. 6 to A.D. 7, but
modern scholars doubt that he was governor of Syria at the time of the birth of
Jesus.
30. Christ’s sepulcher or tomb was also in a cave.
170 Jesuit Spirituality

of this most sacred place. Nothing in the sepulcher could be more ab-
ject, nothing here more venerable.
D. JESUS, newly born, is set on straw on the ground before the manger
in the cave, as He cries and reaches out for His mother. The Virgin
Mother, in adoration, exulting in spirit, her soul filled with delight,
moves to wrap the shivering Child in the swaddling clothes she
made, and nourishes Him. See how in these mysteries Mary keeps
her virginal integrity, and how she has a woman to assist her. Her
mind is filled with heavenly praise and spiritual exultation at her
Son’s birth, both eternally from the Father and from herself in time.
Most dutifully she cares for her Son. Joseph, rapt in admiration,
adores the Infant.
E. Angels sent from heaven to Bethlehem gaze at the manger. Many of
them fill sky and earth. They adore the Child born of the Virgin, their
King and Lord, singing to Him celestial hymns of praise.
F. The ox and the ass are tied to the manger hewn from the rock. Their
heads are raised and turned to the place of birth, as though sensing
that the stable saw an unprecedented event.
G. The dark sky suggests night, yet brilliant light from the Infant God
Who brought the world celestial light, illumines the cave.
H. Heder (Flock) Tower, where Jacob pitched his tent and pastured his
flock, a mile east of Bethlehem [Gen. 35:21; Mic. 4:8].
I. There, shepherds keeping their watch in the fields, marking night vig-
ils, or standing guard over the flock, are terrified at the sight of an
angel. Flocks and dogs stare at the new light.
K. An angel from on high approaches the shepherds. The glory of God
shines round them. They fear exceedingly, and draw back. They hear
from the angel that Christ is born. A multitude of the heavenly host
accompanies the angel, praising God and singing Glory to God in the
highest and peace on earth among men of good will.
L. The angel whom devotion suggests the Infant God sent to the Elders
in Limbo to announce His birth as man.31 (The cavern is not shown
however since the artist had to draw the earth open to show a place for
the angel and let the viewer look into it.)
M. The new star and its angel mover who was sent by the infant JESUS.
At His revelation through the star, the Magi Kings, each in his own

31. Nadal here refers to the belief, which had no basis in the Bible, that an angel
was sent to Limbo to give the encouraging message to the saints of the Old Testa-
ment and others who were going to be saved that their salvation and transfer to
heaven was approaching, since the Savior had been born.
Jerome Nadal 171

realm, were inspired, and began to make ready for the journey. For
we know this happened when Christ was born. An angel was sent to
the shepherds, another to the Elders in Limbo, a third to the Magi
Kings in the East. The newborn Christ was announced to all hu-
mankind. God’s infinite goodness to us was celebrated on earth,
under it, and in the heavens. Can you doubt that every angel in
heaven sang divine praises at His birth? that they knew the ruin their
peers [i.e., the devils] wrought would be gloriously repaired by the
Infant God now born on earth? Not just angels in heaven and hu-
mans on and under the earth give thanks for the newborn God-man.
The heavens too, the elements, every creature bows to adore the God
now born, and to thank Him. They sense how Divinity’s presence en-
nobles them. Heaven, earth, everything rejoices. The hope surges
that they can slough off corruption and that no creature will be sub-
ject to it any longer.

Meditation
[Reader:] Little Child JESUS, today You are born of a humble Virgin
in a Bethlehem stable, laid on straw, crying, cold, and poor. Wrapped in
swaddling clothes, You lie before a manger because there is no room for
You, not even in the inn [Lk. 2]. What shall we admire, herald, and con-
template here first? Some things strike us right away, others more subtly, so
that through them we will be even more moved and gracefully refreshed by
the first.
What then are these deeper ideas? Are they not Your two nativities, great
JESUS? What majestic greatness here! You, immense Word, Who are born
as infinite light in eternity, are now born in a stable. Today, I say, You are
generated of the Father, God from God, Yourself God, consubstantial with
the Father.32 Because You have been born from eternity, You are always
being born, and never cease to be born of the Father. Infinite power,
majesty, and divinity, an immense nativity and generation from eternity, are
all found in this Your humble birth. Your first nativity has incomparable
mystery, and the greatest mystery in keeping with Your generation when,
Yourself almighty God, glorious Splendor, and Image of the Father’s im-
mense substance, You became man from the substance of a Virgin only, in

32. The Nicene Creed asserts that the Second Person of the Trinity is consubstan-
tial with the Father, that is, fully equal and sharing the same substance with the Fa-
ther. This statement, which was formulated by the First Ecumenical Council, held
at Nicaea in 325, condemned the teaching of the Arians, who claimed that the Sec-
ond Person of the Trinity was a sort of super angel, not true God of true God, not
equal to the Father.
172 Jesuit Spirituality

her womb, from whom You are now born. [Leo, Letter 10.]33 Because each
nature’s properties were kept when the natures were united in one Person,
lowliness was assumed by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by Your
eternity.
Those lofty, infinite mysteries fascinate us. To see Christ born should stir
us far more than what we don’t see, for we are most deeply moved and de-
lightfully refreshed by what we see. But we aren’t, dear JESUS! This, be-
cause of our spiritual inertia, our lack of faith and neglect of Your gifts! For
who, on using God’s gifts a little better, wouldn’t first be filled with de-
lightful serenity and celestial light, and then be absorbed with divinity?
Knowing God’s infinite power, glory, and immense majesty, one would sing
praise with divine jubilation through You, Christ JESUS, born of a Virgin’s
sacrosanct womb, Who are here set in the straw, crying, a cold little pauper
wrapped in swaddling clothes. Good Child JESUS, explain these Your
wonders to us. This I want to know: What did You work during those nine
months in the Virgin’s womb? And what marvels will You do when You
leave it?
[Jesus:] Why do you ask? You would believe all I could tell you, but
only halfheartedly, with no vital, profound assent. Even in My Mother’s
womb, in a single dynamic spiration with the Father, I eternally spirated
the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.34 With the Father and the Holy Spirit I
provided for angels, heaven, and all creation by the divinity’s infinite
power and wisdom. The angels I gave eternal glory, the demons eternal
pain. As Almighty God I reigned in eternity. I filled the Virgin Mother’s
mind, spirit, and soul with My presence and power. She gave Me bodily
substance and food even as I was at work. Each day I made her share more
fully in My divine nature. Each day I grew in body from her, she in spirit
from Me. I was living by My mother in My mother, she by Me and
through Me.

33. This letter of Leo I (pope 440–61) discusses the relationship of the divine and
human natures in Christ. His teaching that Christ was one Person possessing both
divine and human nature exerted a strong influence one the 4th Ecumenical Coun-
cil held at Chalcedon in 451. The teaching of the Council on this point remains
normative for the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and mainstream Protestant
churches. J. N. D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1986), pp. 43–5.
34. The Nicene Creed as used in the Western churches, both Roman Catholic and
Protestant, claims that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Ac-
cording to the Catholic Church, this procession has existed from all eternity and
continues forever. Traditionally the Father is said to beget the Son; the Father and
the Son are said to spirate, or breathe forth, the Holy Spirit.
Jerome Nadal 173

In her womb, I was generated eternally from the Father, and in time
from My Mother. From My Father I had the Divinity’s infinite fullness,
from My Mother growth in human stature and perfection. My bodily
senses were not yet active, save for the usual natural functions. My mind
worked in a divine mode, above human or angelic faculties and nature. My
soul enjoyed celestial paradisiacal delight and unbounded happiness.
[Reader:] Great and little JESUS, You were most intimately in the
eternal Father’s bosom, and ever so humbly and warmly in Your Mother’s.
You spoke not, You lived in your Mother, and yet with the Father You
worked and merited our salvation. Truly You are a hidden God [Is. 41], a
Savior from and in the womb of Your Father, and in that of Your Mother.
Lord, You have shown me deep mysteries. Through them, blessed Child,
now reveal the others.
[Jesus:] Indeed as human I had to be shut in my Mother’s womb, yet I
leaped and exulted as a giant running My course [Ps. 19:5]. I wanted to
leave her sweet womb, I longed for birth into your mortal life, to battle
Satan, the world, the flesh, death, and Hell, to do battle in My mighty
power from heaven, indignant wrath, and zeal, and yet to walk on earth as
humble, gentle, and meek, a fragile human.
[Reader:] Be born! Come to us, Holy Child! What a transcendent
divine blessing! God’s profound mystery! The most holy Virgin bore You,
God and man! No sorrow there, nothing of the usual needs, no midwife, no
solicitous women about. Fruitful herself, the joyful Virgin with the greatest
sweetness of spirit bears, adores, and nurses the God-man. Mother and
midwife, she wraps Him in swaddling clothes. The angels tend their infant
King and their Queen Mother, should they want anything. They get straw
for His bedding. Angel hands receive Him at His birth, and reverently place
the little One in the straw on the ground. Holy JESUS, I beg You, tell me
Your birth in Isaiah’s words.
[Jesus:] Today I am born a humble child, not for Myself or the angels
or God, but for you mortals. Only you need My human birth. My
humanity is for you alone [Tit. 3; Is. 9]. I was born for you mortals, and
given to you, that is, for you, with this mortal life’s endless sorrows, labor,
and pains. With truculent thieves I was sentenced to death, to infinite
contempt, and to crucifixion. All this for your life and salvation. I, your
Lord and God, was given as your brother. I became your friend, aide, and
servant, your way, salvation, truth, and life, your wisdom, justice,
sanctification, and redemption [Mt. 20; Jn. 13, 14]. Treasures of wisdom,
knowledge, and divinity hidden in Me are yours in and through Me [1 Cor.
1; Col. 2]. They are also hidden within you.
174 Jesuit Spirituality

I am given to you as food and drink, too. I am your sustenance. Come,

My beloved, eat, drink, be filled. Be sated at the breasts of My heavenly, di-
vine wisdom, delight, and grace [S. of S. 5]. All is given to you with Me and
through Me. Put to work the infinite power given you with and through
Me. It will work in you, if you want it to.
[Reader:] Good, holy JESUS, what incomparable, adorable good will
You show us! What immense blessings in and through You the eternal
Father told in David’s psalm: “I have said you are gods, and all sons of the
Most High” [Ps. 81]. So it is, Lord. But what is added terrifies me: “Yet you
will die like all men, and fall like any prince,” unless I take it as Your
Father’s warning, and a prophecy about those who are perishing. The
warning, the sign, urges us to greater hope in You.
Your Father speaks with intensity because He seeks intensely our salva-
tion. He wants to turn us from our vices to adhere to Him. Gentle JESUS,
You were born for us, given to us. What sign do You give of Your power?
[Jesus:] I bear on My shoulders the cross, the preeminent sign of My
kingdom. On coming into the world I did that first which I ever did in My
Mother’s womb, and still do: I offered My death on the cross to the Father
for you. That is My kingdom, My reign. With it I will vanquish Satan,
Hell, Death, and Sin. With it I will reign for eternity and sit at the Father’s
right hand, I Who am ever in the bosom of the Father. Through the power
of the cross all My Father’s elect will reign.35

Luis de La Puente

Meditations on the Mysteries of Our Holy Faith

[Luis de La Puente (1554–1624) was born at Valladolid, where he stud-
ied theology before entering the Jesuits in 1574. He completed much of his
theological training under Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), the greatest Jesuit
scholastic theologian. La Puente completed his spiritual training under the
guidance of Baltasar Alvarez, S.J., (1535–80), the Jesuit mystic and spiritual
writer whose biography La Puente wrote in 1615. La Puente’s massive Med-
itaciones de los misterios de nuestra santa Fe was first published at Val-
ladolid in 1605. Of all the many meditation books in the 17th century, few
could rival his Meditaciones for enduring popularity: since its publication
more than four hundred editions of the book have been published in many

35. Only roughly half of the whole meditation is printed here.

Luis de La Puente 175

languages. The English translation from which this selection is taken runs to
six volumes.36]

Meditation 44: on the parable of the sower [Mt. 13:3–23]

Point 1
1. “Behold the sower went forth to sow” [Mt. 13:3].
Our Redeemer Himself provided an explanation for this parable; it there-
fore ought to be meditated on according to His explanation: i. What seed this
is which he sows. ii. In what ground. iii. For what cause. iv. How he sows it.
i. The seed is the word of God, both the outward word, which enters by
the ears of the body, and the inward word, which resounds within the soul,
which is the divine inspiration, from whence principally spring those fruits
which our heart produces, because it gives a feeling of that which is heard,
and is as the seminal virtue, which is within the grain that is sown.
ii. The principal sower is Almighty God. Three and One, who sometimes
sows the seed of His inspiration, by the means of His preachers, in those
who hear them; or by means of good books, in those who read them; or by
the means of good examples or devout pictures, in those who behold them.
Sometimes by Himself alone, He casts the seed of His inspiration on a sud-
den into our heart.

36. Luis de La Puente, Meditations on the Mysteries of our Holy Faith, translated by
John Heigham (London: Richardson and Son, 1853), vol. 3, pp. 429–36.
Heigham’s translation was originally published in 1619 in St. Omer in Belgium. I
have modernized his spellings. For discussions of La Puente’s life and spiritual writ-
ings, see J. Allison Peers, Studies of the Spanish Mystics (New York: Macmillan,
1951–60), vol. 2, pp. 241–69 and Joseph de Guibert, S.J., The Jesuits: Their Spiri-
tual Doctrine and Practice, translated by William J. Young (Chicago: Loyola Univer-
sity Press, 1964), pp. 253–56. Jesuit meditation books strongly influenced such
English poets as John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Robert
Southwell, S.J.: see Louis Martz, The Poetry of Meditation: A Study in English Reli-
gious Literature in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1954), pp. 27–50. The first two poets were Protestant clergy, the second two, Cath-
olic priests. Jesuit devotional books, such as Bellarmine’s Ascent of the Mind to God
and his Art of Dying Well, were often issued in Protestant adaptations. The most
popular English Jesuit devotional work of the Elizabethan age was Robert Persons’
Christian Directory (Rouen: Fr. Person’s Press, 1583). Martz points out that it went
through seven editions on the Continent by 1633, but the translation/adaptation
by the Protestant clergyman Edmund Bunny enjoyed twenty editions by 1640
(Martz, The Poetry of Meditation, p. 7).
176 Jesuit Spirituality

iii. The ground on which this seed is sown, is the soul, with her powers and
faculties; in the memory are sown holy thoughts and devout imaginations,
such are the remembrance of our sins, the pains of hell, the rewards of
heaven, the shortness or our life, our death, judgment, the presence of God,
and of His benefits. In the understanding are sown heavenly illustrations,
which suddenly discover the secrets which are enclosed in the mysteries of
our faith, and are the seed of meditation and contemplation. He also sows
therein good counsels, inspiring it with that counsel which it is to take for
itself, or to give to others, sowing likewise, the dictates of conscience, which
exhort to virtue, and condemn vice. In the will are holy desires and. affec-
tions, which flash forth like sparks, and produce the fire of perfect love,
with the fruit of virtues: such are the effects of the fear of God, of hell, of
death, sorrow for sins, love of God, desires to see Him, and to serve Him
sincerely.
iv. The reason why He sows this seed in the soul is not His own advan-
tage, which other sowers seek, but the profit and the utility of the same soul;
forasmuch as this seed has a very special power to alter and improve the
ground on which it is sown, even if the ground of itself may be bad, barren,
dry, and unprofitable. And this purpose why Almighty God sows it, not for
the worthiness of the earth, but only because of His bounty and mercy, be-
cause He is good and liberal, and greatly delighted to sow His gifts in us, to
amend us with them. Hence it is that He ofttimes sows His seed in all
places, times and occasions, especially when it most aids us for our salva-
tion. For which reason Christ our Lord said, “The sower went forth to
sow.” Giving us to understand that it is His office to sow, and that He ever-
more fulfils His office in one way or other.
2. From all these considerations, and from every one of them, I am to
draw affections of praise and gratitude to this divine sower, as also a great es-
teem of His seed, and very fervent desires, that He sow it within my soul,
begging it of Him from my very heart, by colloquies made to all the three
divine Persons.
Colloquy. O heavenly Father, who has sent into the world the eternal
Word, your Word engendered within yourself, that He might be the seed of
all seeds, and of all your words, which are the seeds of our only good; I beg
you by this Word your Son to sow in my memory the abundant seed of
holy thoughts, that there may spring from thence an abundant harvest of
good works. O eternal Word, who came forth from the bosom of your eter-
nal Father, and descended from heaven into our earth to sow the seed of
holy doctrine, seed which properly is your own, and not another’s, nor
begged elsewhere. Come, O Lord, to sow in my understanding abundant
seed of divine illuminations, by which I may know you and know myself
and I know what I am to believe and do in such way that I may put the
Luis de La Puente 177

same into practice. O most sacred Spirit, who inspires where you will [Jn.
3:8], and will inspire where there is need of your inspiration; touch my will,
sow it with the seed of holy affections, and cast into it the sparks of fervent
desires, by which there may be enkindled within my heart a vehement fire
of divine love, that with your seed may bud forth abundant fruits of the
spirit which proceed from this love [Gal. 5:22]. O blessed Trinity, I give you
thanks for the liberality with which you sow your seed in a ground so vile
and so contemptible. O divine seed, who can esteem you as you deserve! O
that I were full of your holy virtue! O my soul, unprofitable ground, do you
not desire this heavenly seed? Sigh for it, demand it, solicit it, and you shalt
not be denied it.
Point 2 Although this seed be so precious, and efficacious, and that
the sower should sow it in very good season, and with a desire that it
fructify, yet three parts of it perish through the fault and bad qualities of the
ground in which it is sown: I will search and examine into myself, what the
defects and causes are, and how to remedy them, being sorry to have them,
and having compassion on others that have them, and for the loss of so
much seed, with so much injury to the sower.
1. “Some fell by the wayside,” and was trodden upon by the passers-by, and
the fowls of the air came and ate it, so that it did not fructify. The earth by
the wayside and without a ditch is a heart hardened, like a way much trod-
den and trampled upon, which hears the word of Almighty God exteriorly,
and receives it superficially, without penetrating or embracing it, giving en-
trance to all sorts of earthly thoughts, without any guard or circumspection
at all; there this seed is tread and trampled upon, and the devils themselves
run speedily thither to steal it away out of their heart and memory. In this
condition and state will I put myself and say, “Woe is me, who for the hard-
ness of my heart have not desired to receive the word of Almighty God,
which, if it has entered in at one ear, has gone out at the other. I am like the
wayside or path for travelers, admitting all manner of evil thoughts and de-
sires, which seek to have passage through my heart. I have permitted the in-
fernal fowls, with the beaks of their perverse suggestions, to rob me of the
seed of good inspirations, receiving those and rejecting these.”
Colloquy. It grieves me, O my God, for the small account which I have
made of this sacred seed, and I purpose to till the earth of my heart with the
tillage of true mortification and to soften its hardness, that it may receive
your holy word and hide and cover it, “that I may not sin against you” [Ps.
119:11]. But as you know my frailty, cause your inspirations to soften me
and help me to produce the fruit which you desire for your glory. Amen.
2. “And some others fell upon stony ground, where they had not much earth,”
as being next to a rock, this seed “sprung up,” and grew high, but the sun
178 Jesuit Spirituality

with its heat parched it, because it had not deep roots, nor sufficient hu-
midity to nourish it. Such are those who have a certain natural tenderness
and facility to hear the word of God with great delight and to read good
books, conceiving good desires and resolutions and beginning to put them
in execution; but when temptations from the Devil, the flesh, and the per-
secutions of men arise, immediately that good which they had withered
away, and they quite forsake and leave it off, being inconstant and not
deeply rooted in humility and confidence in Almighty God, nor have they
the humidity and sap of substantial devotion; and as St. Mark says: “They
are devout for a little time, which presently passes like the dew that goes
away in the morning”37 or like the flower that withers, and hangs its head
with the least heat. Nor is it without mystery that Christ our Lord com-
pares persecutions to the sun, whose property is to shine with its light and
to scorch with its heat. By this two sorts of persecutions are represented,
one of prosperity, praise, flattery, vainglory, and worldly ambition; the
other, of adversity, calumny, dishonor, poverty, fear, and other afflictions,
against which we ought to be fortified and deeply rooted, to the end that
the fruit does not wither, which the divine inspiration has sowed within us,
showing ourselves like the apostles, faithful ministers of God, in “honor
and dishonor, by evil report and good report” [2 Cor. 6:8].
Colloquy. O eternal God, since you know my great mutability, fortify me
with your holy grace, that I may cast such deep roots in charity, that noth-
ing created may be able to uproot me from it. Amen.
3. “And others fell among thorns,” and the thorns grew up and choked
them. These are they who hear the word of Almighty God, but do not fruc-
tify, because the riches, and cares of the world and pleasures of the flesh,
after which they go, choke the spirit. So that there are three things which
choke and smother divine inspiration and hinder our spiritual profit,
namely riches, pricking cares, and sensual pleasures. All three in the school
of Christ are called thorns.
Colloquy. O sovereign master, how different are your judgments from
ours; that which the world calls riches and delights, you call thorns and
thistles: because, howsoever they delight the body, they prick, hurt, and
damage the soul and draw forth a great deal of blood by sins, and pierce it
with pains, anguishes and remorse. Deliver me, O Lord, from these thorns
and crown me with your own thorns, which, although they prick and
pierce the flesh, yet they nourish and comfort the spirit, because there is no
greater consolation than to embrace your crown of thorns on earth, with
the hope of obtaining the crown of glory in the Kingdom of Heaven.

37. This statement is not found in Mark’s Gospel; the idea is found in Hos. 6.4
and 13.3.
Robert Bellarmine 179

Point 3 “And others, (the fourth part), fell upon good ground, and
they brought forth fruit.” “These are they who are sown upon the good
ground,” who “in a good and very good heart hear the word and receive it,
and yield fruit in patience,” “the one thirty, another sixty, and another a
hundredfold” [Mk. 4:20].
1. In like manner, therefore, as there are three sorts of wicked who destroy
this seed, so are there three sorts of good Christians, who bring forth good
from it: some in the state of beginners, with a little profit, others in the state
of proficients, with greater profit, and others in the state of the perfect, with
great excellence; all laboring with patience and persistence, expecting the re-
ward. And although they are fewer in number than the wicked, yet they
compensate by their gain for the loss of the other three parts of the seed.
Colloquy. I rejoice, O sweet and sovereign sower, that there are to be found
such grounds in which your seed discovers its virtue and brings forth a hun-
dred for one. O that there were much such ground, that many might glorify
and serve you as reason requires. Encourage yourself, O my soul, to serve
your God with diligence, and content not yourself with the fruit of thirty, nor
even of sixty, but with that of a hundredfold [Mk. 4:20] since proportionate
to the fruit of this life will be the recompense of the other. Even in this life
God will give you a hundred for one, if you serve Him with fervent affection.
2. Other applications may be made, as the saints say, attributing the fruit
of thirty to the married; that of sixty to widows and virgins; and that of a
hundred to martyrs, or to such Religious38 as profess a contemplative or
mystical life; teaching others the way of perfection, which they themselves
tread. Regardless of my own state in life, I ought to aspire after that which
is the most perfect, for it may well be that the state be only of thirty, and yet
may yield the fruit of a hundredfold, the greatness of the fervor supplying
the imperfection of the state.

Robert Bellarmine

The Ascent of the Mind to God

[Chapter 4, “Jesuit Opposition to Protestantism,” offers an introduction to the
life of St. Robert Bellarmine and his refutation of the Protestant belief that
Scripture is the only norm and source of Christian faith. Although Bellarmine is
best known as a controversial theologian, his most popular works were his cate-
chisms. His second most popular works were a series of short books written near
the end of his life. Each September from 1614 to 1619, Bellarmine took a
month off from his administrative work as a cardinal and remade the Spiritual

38. Religious are members of religious orders.

180 Jesuit Spirituality

Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola at the Jesuit novitiate in Rome; in his spare time
during these retreats he wrote five short devotional books. All five of these be-
came very popular and enjoyed many editions in several languages. The most
popular of these books was the first, The Ascent of the Mind to God by the
Ladder of Created of Things. The influence of Loyola’s The Spiritual Exer-
cises—most notably the Contemplation to Attain Love—on The Ascent of the
Mind is evident. The theme of physical creation providing a ladder of ascent is
one common to all mainstream Christian traditions, to Eastern Orthodox writ-
ers and Protestants no less than to Roman Catholics. Several Protestant transla-
tions of Bellarmine’s Ascent have been published over the years.
The Ascent belongs to a popular devotional genre called the Ladder of Ascent,
which has its roots in pre-Christian tradition. Such Greek writers as Pindar, Plato,
and especially Plotinus39 saw human spiritual development as a series of upward
steps toward the Ultimate. The idea of a Ladder of Ascent is found in ancient Chi-
nese and Indian religious writings; the theme that life is climbing a ladder to God
is also found in the Bible (Gen. 28:12; Ezek. 40:26, 31). Christians such as St.
John Climachus (c. 569–c. 649) and St. Bonaventure (1221–74) wrote classic
works developing this theme. Bellarmine’s ladder has fifteen steps. Each step shows
readers how different creatures can lead them to God. Step 3 through Step 6 dwell
on the ways the four elements of ancient cosmology (earth, air, water, and fire) re-
flect the glory and beauty of God. The seventh step, on the heavens, sun, moon, and
stars, has been chosen here as a sample of Bellarmine’s longer work. Step 7 is di-
vided into six short chapters; Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 6 are printed here.40
The Latin text of The Ascent of the Mind to God was first published in
1615 by Plantin of Antwerp; it ran through six printings that first year—it
was, in its time, a best seller. By 1930 the book had appeared in sixty editions
in fifteen different languages.]

Step 7: The consideration of the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars
Chapter 1: “How the sun is the dwelling place of God, who is high
and beautiful.”
Here we will not have to work hard to build ourselves a step to God
from the consideration of the heavens since we have a predecessor in the

39. Pindar (522?–443 B.C.) was a Theban poet. Plato (427?–347 B.C.) was not
only a master of Greek prose but also the most influential philosopher of antiquity.
Plotinus (A.D. 205?–70) was the greatest Neoplatonic philosopher.
40. These passages from The Ascent of the Mind to God are taken from Robert Bel-
larmine: Spiritual Writings, edited and translated by John Patrick Donnelly, S.J., and
Roland Teske, S.J. (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 119–24, 128–30. They
are printed with the permission of Paulist Press.
Robert Bellarmine 181

Royal Prophet [King David] who sings in the psalms, “The heavens show
forth the glory of God, and the firmament declares the work of his hands”
(Ps. 19:1). There are two times, day and night, by which we ascend from
heaven to God on the wings of contemplation. He writes in the psalm
about the first, “He has set his tabernacle in the sun, and he, as a bride-
groom coming out of his bride chamber, has rejoiced like a giant to run
the way. His going out is from the end of heaven, and his circuit over to
the end thereof, and there is no one that can hide himself from his heat”
(Ps. 19:5–6). In another psalm he writes of the second, “I will behold your
heavens, the work of your fingers: the moon and the stars which you have
founded” (Ps. 8:4).
Let us begin with the first time. The Holy Spirit by the mouth of David
praises in song four features of the sun which we see during the day: the
first, that it is the tabernacle of God; the second, that it is very beautiful; the
third, that it is always running tirelessly and extremely fast; and the fourth,
that it mainly shows its power in illuminating and warming. For all these
reasons Ecclesiasticus41 writes that it is “an admirable instrument, the work
of the Most High; great is the Lord that made him” (Sir. 43:2, 5).
First, God the Creator of all things placed his tabernacle in the sun as in
the most noble of things; this means that God chose the sun out of all bod-
ily things so that he might dwell in it as in a royal palace or a divine sanctu-
ary. God, of course, fills heaven and earth (Jer. 23:24), and heaven and the
heaven of heavens do not contain him (2 Chr. 2:6). Still he is said more ap-
propriately to dwell where he manifests greater signs of his presence in
working marvels. Since the Hebrew text says that he placed his tabernacle
at the sun in them, that is, the heavens, we gather from this verse of the
psalm another excellence of the sun which does not contradict the first one.
The sun is large, and for it God made a vast, beautiful, and noble palace.
He wished that the sky itself be the palace of the sun in which it might
roam freely and do its work and that the sun itself might be the palace of
God, the highest prince. Just as we know the greatness and eminence of the
sun from the fact that its tabernacle is the sky, so we know the greatness and
eminence of God from the fact that his tabernacle is the sun, clearly a mar-
velous instrument, and nothing more wonderful than it is found among
bodily things.
To show from things we know the outstanding beauty of the sun,
David compared it to a groom leaving his bridal chamber. Men never
dress themselves up more and never desire more to show off their beauty
and handsomeness than when they marry. They want beyond measure to
please the eyes of the bride whom they love intensely. If we could fix our
gaze on the sun and if we were closer to it and if we could see it in all its

41. Ecclesiasticus was the old title given to the biblical book now known as Sirach.
182 Jesuit Spirituality

size and splendor, we would not

need the analogy of the bride-
groom to grasp its incredible
beauty. The whole beauty of col-
ors depends on light, and the
whole beauty of colors vanishes if
light disappears. Nothing is more
beautiful than light, and God
himself, who is beauty itself,
wanted to be called light. Saint
John says, “God is light, and in
him is no darkness” (1 Jn. 1:5).
Furthermore, there is no bodily
object more luminous than the
sun and, therefore, nothing is
more beautiful than the sun. Be-
sides that, the beauty of lower
creatures and especially human
beauty fade quickly, but the sun’s
St. Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) in his beauty is never extinguished,
old age. never lessened, and always gives
joy to all things with equal splen-
dor. Do we not feel that somehow everything seems to rejoice at sunrise?
Not only are men happy, but gentle breezes whisper, flowers open, the
grain crops up, and the little birds sweeten the air with their song. When
the angel said to the blind old man, Tobit, “May joy be to you always,” he
answered, “What manner of joy shall be to me, who sit in darkness and
see not the light of heaven?” (Tb. 5:11–12).
Come, my soul, and think over within you, if the created sun makes all
things so happy at its rising, what will the uncreated sun do, which is in-
comparably brighter and more beautiful, when it rises in pure hearts to be
seen and contemplated, not for a short time but forever? How unhappy and
sad will that hour be, when condemned men are turned over for burial in
everlasting darkness where the rays of neither the uncreated nor the created
sun ever penetrate? What will be the joy of the soul to whom the Father of
lights says, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Mt. 25:21)?

Chapter 2: “The sun’s course shows God’s greatness.”

Later the same prophet celebrates the truly marvelous course of the sun:
“He has rejoiced as a giant to run the way” (Ps. 19:5). He is certainly a pow-
erful giant, if he stretches his stride to match the size of his body and runs
with a speed to match the strength of his forces, for he covers an absolutely
Robert Bellarmine 183

immense space in a short time. The Prophet, since he had compared the
sun to a bridegroom to explain as well as he could the beauty of the sun,
later compared it to a giant man so that he could explain as well as possible
the sun’s speedy course by using the same analogy. Even if he had compared
the sun to flying birds, arrows, winds, and lightning bolts instead of to
men, however large and strong, he would still have fallen far short of the
truth. If what we see with our eyes is true, the sun runs the whole circum-
ference of the earth, and if the circumference of the earth measures about
twenty thousand miles—and all this is absolutely true—it undoubtedly fol-
lows that the sun completes a run of many thousands of miles every hour.42
What am I saying, every hour? Rather every quarter hour and almost every
minute. Anybody who wants to observe the rising or the setting of the sun,
especially above a clear horizon as is found on the sea or a flat plain, will re-
alize that the sun’s whole body rises above the horizon in a shorter span of
time than an eighth of an hour, and yet the diameter of the sun’s body is
much greater than the diameter of the earth, which measures seven thou-
sand miles.
Once I myself out of curiosity wanted to find out how much time it
would take for the whole sun to set into the sea. At the beginning of its set-
ting I started to read the psalm “Have mercy on me, O God” (Ps. 51:1). I
had barely read it through twice when the sun had already entirely set.
Hence, the sun in that short time in which the psalm “Have mercy” is read
twice had to traverse in its course a distance much greater than seven thou-
sand miles. Who would believe that, unless it had been demonstrated by
certain argument? Should some person now add that the body which
moves so fast has a mass much greater than the whole earth and that the
movement of such a large body at such speeds goes on without any pause or
weariness and, if God were to command it, could last for eternal time, cer-
tainly that person could not help admiring the infinite power of the Creator
unless he was a dunce or a blockhead. Ecclesiasticus wrote accurately that
this was a wonderful instrument, the work of the Most High, and the Lord
who made it was great indeed (Sir. 43:2).

Chapter 3: “Sun gives light and heat, but God gives true wisdom and
charity.”
There remains the efficacy of light and heat to consider. David says
about it, “There is no one that can hide himself from his heat” (Ps. 19:6).
This one luminous body stationed in the middle of the universe illumi-
nates all the stars, all the air, all the seas, and all the earth. Everywhere on

42. Bellarmine, like most of his contemporaries, thought that the sun circled the
earth each day.
184 Jesuit Spirituality

earth it makes all the buds, all the plants, and all the trees become green
and leafy by its life-giving warmth, and it makes all the crops ripen. It
even spreads its power beneath the earth and produces every kind of
metal. This is why Saint James at the beginning of his Letter compared
God with the sun: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change,
nor shadow of alteration” (Jas. 1: 17). The sun is the father of bodily
lights, while God is the Father of spiritual lights, but God differs greatly
from the sun in three ways. First, the sun must be constantly changing in
order to fill the whole earth with light and heat, but God who is totally
present everywhere needs no change. For this reason Saint James says, “In
him there is no change.” Second, because the sun is always changing its
place, it brings day in turn to place after place, leaving some in night,
shining on others, bringing shadows elsewhere. But God never moves and
is always present to every place. Hence Saint James adds, “In him there is
no shadow of alteration.” Finally, the greatest boon of all from the sun as
father of bodily lights is all the gifts and benefits which are born from the
earth. But these good things are not supreme or perfect but rather poor,
temporary, failing, and they do not make man good and can be misused
by those who so wish, and many turn them to their damnation. But
“every good gift and every perfect gift” comes down from the Father of
spiritual lights, and these make their possessor very good and perfect. No-
body can misuse them, and they lead him who perseveres in them to the
state of true happiness, a state made perfect by the accumulation of every
good.
Investigate, my soul, what are these best gifts and perfect boons which
are from above, coming down from the Father of lights so that when you
discover them, you will be on the alert for them and will strive to obtain
them with all your strength. It is not that you have to go far away—the na-
ture of the sun will show you that well enough. The sun achieves all its ef-
fects by heat and light, and these are the gifts and boons of the father of
bodily lights, light and heat. So too the best gifts and the perfect boons
which are from above and come down from God, the true Father of lights,
are the light of wisdom and well-ordered love. The light of wisdom, which
makes a person truly wise, which no one can misuse, and which leads to
the fountain of wisdom which lies in our heavenly fatherland, is the light
which teaches us to scorn temporal things and esteem eternal things. It
teaches us “not to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God”
(1 Tim. 6:17); it teaches us not to make this exile our fatherland and to
endure rather than love this pilgrimage; lastly it teaches us to bear pa-
tiently this present life, which is full of dangers and temptations, and see
Robert Bellarmine 185

death as desirable, for “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Rev.
14:13).
What is well-ordered love except to love God, who is the end of all de-
sires, without end or limit, and to love other things, which are means to
the end, within limits and only to the degree to which they are necessary
for the end, that is, for attaining happiness? Nobody among the sons of
men would turn things upside down in taking care of his body so that he
would love health within limits and love a bitter medicine without limit
since he knows that one is the end and the other the means. How comes
it then, that so many who want to pass for wise can set no limit in heap-
ing up riches, in seeking the pleasures of the flesh, and in acquiring titles
of honor, as if these goods were the end for the human heart? But in lov-
ing God and seeking eternal happiness they are content with narrow lim-
its, as if these were means to an end and not the end of all means. This
above all is the reason why they have the wisdom of this world and not
the wisdom which is from above coming down from the Father of lights
and why they do not have a well-ordered love and, therefore, do not have
true love, which cannot exist without being well-ordered. Rather they are
full of covetousness, which does not come from the Father but from the
world. While you are a pilgrim, my soul, away from your fatherland and
sojourning among enemies who plot against true wisdom and true love
and substitute guile for wisdom and covetousness for love, sigh with your
whole heart for the Father of lights that he make the best gifts and perfect
boons, namely, the light of wisdom and the passion of well-ordered love,
come down to your heart so that filled with them you may run with a sure
foot the path of the commandments and reach the fatherland where one
drinks from the very fountain of wisdom and lives on the pure milk of
love. . . .

Chapter 6: “The order and harmony of the stars mirror the hierarchy of
heaven.”
Among the ornaments of the heavens there are also the stars. Ecclesias-
ticus says of them, “The glory of the stars is the beauty of heaven,” and im-
mediately adds, “The Lord enlightens the world on high” (Sir. 43:10). Just
as with the sun and the moon, whatever beauty the stars have comes to-
tally from the Father of lights. The sun does not illumine the world by day
nor the moon and the stars by night; rather it is the Lord who dwells above
and illumines the world by the sun, the moon, and the stars. As the
Prophet Baruch says, it is he who “sends forth light and it goes; he has
called it and it obeys him with trembling; and the stars have given light to
their watches and rejoiced. They were called and they said, ‘Here we are’
186 Jesuit Spirituality

and shined forth with cheerfulness to him who made them” (Bar. 3:33,
34). These words signify God’s infinite power which instantaneously pro-
duced, beautified, and set to work the vast and beautiful bodies with in-
credible ease. What for us is the word to call is for God the word to create.
“He calls things that are not” (Rom. 4:17) and by his calling makes them
exist. When the stars say “Here we are” this means nothing other than
their existing and working instantly at his word of command. “With
cheerfulness they shined forth to him that made them” suggests that their
prompt and ready obedience to their maker brought them great happiness
and joy in obeying.
What is utterly wonderful in the stars is how, even though they move
with extreme speed and never stop from their rapid course, some moving
in slower and others in faster orbits, still they always keep their measure
and proportion with the others so that they give rise to a sweet and melo-
dious harmony. God speaks of this harmony in the Book of Job when he
says, “Who can declare the order of the heavens, or who can put the har-
mony of heaven to sleep?” (Job 38:37). This is not the harmony of voices
and sounds which our bodily ears hear but the harmony of the propor-
tions in the stars’ movements which the ear of the heart recognizes. For
the stars of the firmament all race together through the whole circle of the
sky at the same speed during twenty-four hours; for those seven stars
which are called planets or wandering stars are hurled with differing
movements, some faster, some slower, so that the stars of the firmament
seem to represent the bass notes (to use the common expression) and the
planets play a sort of eternal and sweet counterpoint. But they are above
us and that harmony is hearable only to those who live in heaven and
grasp the order of their movement. Since the stars keep their proper dis-
tances and never tire in turning in their orbit, they seem to behave like a
joyous chorus of noble virgins who are ever dancing skillfully through the
sky.
Do you, my soul, climb a bit higher if you can and reflect on the
utter brilliance of the sun, the beauty of the moon, the great number
and variety of the other lights, the marvelous harmony of the heavens
and the happy chorus of the stars. What will it be to see God above the
heavens, the sun “who dwells in light inaccessible” (1 Tim. 6:16); to
gaze on the Virgin, the Queen of heaven, who is “beautiful as the
moon” (S. of S. 6:9), who gives joy to the whole city of God; to watch
the choirs and ranks of many thousands of angels who, more numerous
and brighter than all the stars, add beauty to the heaven of heavens; to
see the souls of holy men mingling with the choirs of angels as planets
mixed among the stars of the firmament? What will it be to hear the
Robert Bellarmine 187

songs of praise and sing sweetly that eternal alleluia with harmonious
voices in the streets of that glorious city? May it come about that even
the beauty of the sky may not seem great to you and the things beneath
the sky be accounted utterly puny and almost nothing and hence con-
temptible and despicable.
 CHAPTER 6

SPECIAL PASTORAL MINISTRIES

Introduction

This chapter concentrates on Jesuit ministries to people usually held in

contempt by the upper levels of early modern society: men engaged in
vendettas, prostitutes, peasants, and women accused of witchcraft. These
ministries, especially those among peasants, were almost as important to
the early Jesuits as were their efforts as educators and missionaries (exam-
ined in Chapters 2 and 3, respectively).
The first set of documents in this chapter examines how a Jesuit preacher
healed a bitter vendetta in Italy; the second set examines early Jesuit efforts
to rehabilitate prostitutes in Italian cities. These documents are taken from
Juan Polanco’s Chronicon.
The third section includes directives for Jesuits who were preaching
among peasants. The Jesuits are often seen, and rightly so, as an urban
order; Loyola himself left his family’s country estate and spent the key parts
of his life in Paris, Venice, and Rome. But in the 16th and 17th centuries,
the vast majority of Europeans still lived on country farms. The success or
failure of both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations pivoted on mak-
ing real Christians out of the still semipagan rural folk, and the Jesuits and
Capuchins (a strict branch of the Franciscans founded in the early 16th
century) reached millions through their preaching during missions to the
countryside.
The fourth document illustrates how a famous Jesuit attacked the judi-
cial procedures, including torture, employed against those accused of
witchcraft—most of whom were poor women. The final set of documents
shows how early Jesuits attacked the pastimes of bullfighting and carnivals.

188
Juan Polanco 189

Juan Polanco

Selections from Chronicon, on healing vendettas

and caring for reformed prostitutes1
[We have read selections from Polanco’s chronicle of the Jesuits (1540–56) in
Chapter 2 and will read still others in Chapter 8. In the excerpt offered here,
Polanco relates how the preaching of Father Silvestro Landini put an end to a
bloody and long-standing vendetta in an Italian city. Such vendettas were
widespread in early modern Europe, particularly in Italy. Landini stood out
among the early Jesuits for his skill as a peacemaker. Several other passages
from Polanco’s Chronicon printed here illustrate how the Jesuits tried to rescue
young women from lives of prostitution.]

The Year 1549: Section 407. Silvestro Landini stops vendettas in Correggio.
. . . [Landini] then came to a large town called Correggio where he was
so badly received at first that when he was preaching some people left the
church and by throwing stones against the door disturbed his audience. But
he preached for eight straight days, sometimes twice the same day. Not only
did they stop throwing stones, but right at dawn they came to his sermons
with great devotion. The vendettas in that place were so many that forty-
five people, three of them priests, had been killed; armed men came right
up to the altar. These factions had two opposing leaders who came to Fa-
ther Silvestro for Confession, something they had avoided for many years,
and they indicated that they were ready to enter a peace and to do whatever
he ordered. They were very terrifying to other people, but in listening to
the daily sermons they bore themselves with great humility. Before vespers
a herald proclaimed in public that early in the morning everybody should
come to hear God’s word, under a certain penalty [for absence]. . . . Previ-
ously Communion was seen there scarcely once a year; now it was seen
daily. On Sundays they came armed and heard barely half the mass armed;
now they came unarmed not to just one [mass], but to as many as were
being said in the church. . . . The leaders of the opposing factions finally
turned over their controversies to Father Silvestro, and he was hoping that

1. Year by Year with the Early Jesuits, 1537–1556: Selections from the Chronicon of
Juan de Polanco, S.J., edited and translated by John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. (St. Louis:
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004). These excerpts are used with the permission of the
Institute of Jesuit Sources. The section on vendettas printed here is from pp. 97–8.
For other examples of Jesuits and vendetta, see Polanco, Year by Year, pp. 36, 69,
100, 152, 220, 303, 325, 369, 398, 417.
190 Special Pastoral Ministries

an edifying peace would ensue and spread very widely. And so peace was
forged, and it was the more welcome because the opposing factions had
been fighting among each other for thirty years with bitter hatred and great
cruelty. They did not go to Confession or Communion, and [the vendetta]
also caused enormous losses in temporal goods.
Here is the approach he used: after the word of God had softened the
hearts of faction leaders when he preached before a packed audience, he
called out by name one of the two leaders—his name was Giovanni Corso.
He answered [Landini], “My Father, what do you want me to do?” Silvestro
said from the pulpit, “That you should forgive all your enemies, and be-
yond this, you should ask for pardon from all those you have offended, and
that out of love of God you grant them all peace.” He immediately threw
his weapons on the ground, prostrated himself and began to call in a loud
voice, “Peace, peace.” The rest of the men from both factions begin to say,
“Peace, peace.” Then Silvestro came down from the pulpit and said, “May
you also do what I am going to do.” He began to embrace the men and give
them the kiss of peace. They then also embraced their enemies and began
kissing them with great signs of love, and indeed with so many tears mixed
with joy that they thoroughly drenched one another amidst the kisses of
peace. Old and young, men and women, made the whole church resound
with “Peace” along with their tears. Those hearts, which a few days before
thirsted like lions for nothing except vengeance and murder, were like
lambs touched by a gentle and mutual love, and from then on they began
to compete with one another in the duties of charity. . . .

[In his Chronicon Polanco frequently notes that the preaching of Jesuits
and their encouragement of frequent confession and Communion found
stronger support among women than men. Prostitutes were unusually recep-
tive to Jesuit preaching. Most European cities of the 16th century had legal-
ized prostitution. Some of the prostitutes were wives trying to escape abusive
husbands or unhappy marriages, but many poor girls whose parents could not
afford a dowry also ended up as prostitutes. There were few other job opportu-
nities for young women. The Chronicon relates the story of how Loyola set up
the halfway house of St. Martha for women who wished to escape the shame
and sin of prostitution. Loyola also helped establish a confraternity of noble-
men whose contributions covered the halfway house’s expenses. Converted
prostitutes could live at St. Martha’s until they decided what to do with the
rest of their lives. Basically they had three choices: married prostitutes could
return to their husbands; converted prostitutes could become nuns in special
convents; other prostitutes could receive a small dowry that would enable
Juan Polanco 191

them to marry. Jesuits soon set up halfway houses and confraternities in other
cities similar to those in Rome.2]

The Year 1544: Section 68. Loyola establishes the house of Saint Martha at
Rome for women fleeing prostitution.
Already as 1544 was beginning, through the charity of Ignatius a differ-
ent pious work was begun at Rome called [the House] of Saint Martha. It
was set up for erring young women who wished to recover from a shameful
lifestyle but could not be accepted among the nuns converted [from prosti-
tution], either because they were married or because they were not so gifted
in spirit that they wished to be cloistered and remain forever in a convent.
The House of Saint Martha accepted these women, kept them away from
sins and their wicked habits, and trained them in what would contribute to
their salvation until they were restored to their husbands (after being recon-
ciled with them), or else had dedicated themselves to the religious life
through perpetual vows, or had contracted a respectable marriage. Because
our house was laboring under conditions of dire poverty [and so could not
be of financial assistance to Saint Martha’s], Ignatius first offered one hun-
dred gold scudi (obtained from selling certain jewels) to assist the house in
its early stages; for he knew that those who had already refused to be the
first to contribute to this work had to be persuaded to do so by the example
of someone else. Other people then began to offer their financial support,
and a wonderful and helpful work was begun that in a short time achieved
great growth.3
The Year 1549: Section 365. Converting prostitutes at Messina in Sicily.
Because the Viceroy [of Sicily, Juan de Vega] had commanded women
who were public sinners to attend sermons on the day when the Gospel
about [Mary] Magdalene4 is read and because they were also present for
what followed, many of them were converted to the Lord. This was cer-
tainly the case for sixteen of them. Lady Eleonora, the Viceroy’s wife, re-
ceived them graciously into her home with her usual charity. She took care
of arranging that some of them contracted marriages (after dowries had

2. The selections on converting prostitutes in Italy are also taken from Polanco,
Year by Year, pp. 27, 93, 272, 284, 331.
3. By 1552 some three hundred women had passed through St. Martha’s on their
way to living more respectable lives.
4. Mary Magdalene was a woman from whom Jesus expelled seven demons (Lk.
8:2); she was popularly identified (probably incorrectly) with the sinful woman (Lk.
7:37–48) who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and dried them with her hair.
192 Special Pastoral Ministries

been provided) and that some entered convents for the converted [prosti-
tutes]; some of them she kept in her household.

The Year 1553: Section 483. Rehabilitating converted prostitutes at

Messina.
Father Provincial [Doménech], besides being in charge of the Jesuit col-
lege, was constantly engaged in works of piety at Messina. Among other
things, he prevailed upon the city to establish a house for those women who
had led a shameful life but who could not be admitted to the convent of the
converted prostitutes, either because the fallen women did not want to be-
come nuns or because the building could not accommodate so many. Im-
mediately some of these women began to enter this new house so that they
could prepare themselves there either for marriage or for the religious life,
depending on the grace God gave them.
Section 504. Finding support for a convent of converted prostitutes at
Messina.
So that the house for converted [prostitutes] might have more stable
sources of funds, the provincial arranged that a confraternity of noblemen
which had charge of an older monastery would also take charge of this
house too. Thus through mutual support they might better foster those
pious activities carried on in the same neighborhood. By a special gift of
God, Father Giovanni Filippo, who was acquainted with the House of
Saint Martha at Rome, seemed suited to help these women.

The Year 1553: Section 223. Saving a famous prostitute at Venice.

Some of those who partook of the sacraments [at the Jesuit church in
Venice] entered the religious life, both men and women. Some among
them were prostitutes who were received into the convent of the converted
and began to live chaste and holy lives there. One of them belonged to a
well-known family; when she was only sixteen years old and ravishing in
appearance, she seemed destined to cause the downfall of many men in that
city, as her early plunge into a disgraceful lifestyle clearly and quickly
demonstrated. When this girl had been snatched from the devil’s jaws and
wanted to confess in our church, she had to contend with her angry lovers
lying in wait for her. When she finished her confession, she tricked the men
waiting for her: she was taken down to a gondola by a different door and
then was borne off to a convent of the converted [prostitutes] by a hidden
waterway. There she applied herself with great zeal to punishing her body
and advancing in the spirit. Two hundred and fifty women lived in that
convent; among them her zeal was outstanding, as those who had charge
[of the convent] testified.

The Year 1554: Section 463. Helping former prostitutes in Palermo.

Here too, just as at Messina, our [Jesuits] worked at setting up a house of
Claudio Acquaviva 193

probation to which women might repair to recover from a shameful way of

living. These were women, whose hearts God had touched, even though
they had not yet made so much progress that they wanted to enter a con-
vent for the converted. So it was for such that, in addition to the ordinary
house of the converted, a new sort of house was set up in which they might
live temporarily until they made a firm decision about the sort of respect-
able life they should undertake. After that, those who were inclined to the
religious life would be accepted at a convent for the converted. For those
who preferred to marry, a marriage would be arranged.
Right at the beginning [the convents] had only a slender income, no
more than a hundred ducats; but our Jesuits raised so much in alms for
helping the women that not only was the house supplied with operating
funds, but during the first four or five months of this year, forty of its
women were provided with a modest dowry and given in marriage to rep-
utable men. A good number of these women were motivated to embrace a
better way of life, to some extent by the sermons preached in our church,
which they had to listen to, and to some extent by the Viceroy’s edict for-
bidding concubinage, as I mentioned a little earlier.

Claudio Acquaviva

“Instruction for Those Going Out on Missions to Evangelize Peasants”5

[Acquaviva (1543–1615) served as superior general of the Jesuits from 1581 to
1615, longer than any other general during the first two centuries of Jesuit his-
tory. Intelligent, energetic, and autocratic, he oversaw the growth of the Jesuits
from a small religious order to an international organization that at the time of
his death was maintaining 372 colleges in Catholic Europe and major missions
in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Acquaviva’s directives organized Jesuit prac-
tices for more than a century. The most important of Acquaviva’s directives was
the Ratio Studiorum (Plan of studies) of 1599; in it, committees of Jesuit profes-
sors formulated the rules for Jesuit colleges that largely remained in effect for some
three hundred years.6 Also in 1599 Acquaviva issued a directory for priests giving
the Spiritual Exercises; his directions were far more detailed than Loyola’s.
Acquaviva’s rules for preaching on rural missions were approved in 1593 by
the Fifth General Congregation, the highest governing body of the Jesuit Order.
The early Jesuits often referred to rural areas as “the other Indies” because most

5. This document is printed in Institutum Societatis Iesu (Florence: Typograpia a SS.

Conceptione, 1893), vol. 3, pp. 365–8. The translation is by John Patrick Donnelly.
6. The text is now available in English—see The Ratio Studiorum: The Official Plan
of Jesuit Education, translated and annotated by Claude Pavur (St. Louis: Institute of
Jesuit Sources, 2005).
194 Special Pastoral Ministries

European peasants were as ignorant of Christian teaching as were the native

people of newly discovered lands in Asia and the Americas. Most diocesan
priests knew little theology and had never attended a seminary or university.
They seldom preached to their parishioners. In the later Middle Ages, teams of
Dominicans and Franciscans preached their way across Europe, trying to edu-
cate peasants in their faith and urging them to live more Christian lives. The
Capuchins and the Jesuits took up and perfected this work in the 16th century.
Two Jesuits famous for this work were St. Jean François Regis (1597–1640)
and Paolo Segneri (1624–94).7
Acquaviva tried to organize this ministry. In 1590 he ordered every Jesuit
province to devote six to twelve Jesuits to travel to country towns where they
would preach, hear confessions, and teach catechism. Acquaviva’s directives to
guide their work are included here.]

1. We have decided that it is necessary to write this Instruction for the di-
rection and practice of the rules of men who are going out on missions.
Then Provincial Superiors can add to this Instruction the things that seem
appropriate for specific areas and missions.
2. The purpose of these missions is to help the many souls who live in
the state of sin and the danger of eternal damnation because they are ig-
norant of the things needed for their salvation. Hence every effort should
be made to ensure that [these Jesuit preachers] have a true and continual
union among one another as well as a desire for suffering, since these are
the necessary foundations for a solid building of peace among them all
and for the achievement of the end proposed. Let the preachers remem-
ber that this is the calling in which our first Fathers labored. For the same
reason, let them never allow themselves to omit their morning prayers or
their evening examination [of conscience], so far as is possible. In these
prayers and in other things let them work toward an intimate union with
God on whom depends the right arrangement and effectiveness of all our
actions.
3. Let the preachers walk carefully through the places they have de-
scribed in their catalogues, staying in each place as long as shall seem
proper, given the number and attitudes of the people. When the preachers
first come to a town or village, let them go to the main church before doing

7. A fine introduction to rural missions is Adriano Prosperi’s “The Missionary,” in

Rosario Villari, editor, Baroque Personae (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1995); more detailed is Louis Châtellier’s The Religion of the Poor: Rural Missions in
Europe and the Formation of Modern Catholicism, c. 1500–1800, translated by Brian
Pearce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Claudio Acquaviva 195

anything else, and, after a short prayer (taking into consideration the time
and their own convenience), let them talk with the pastor or the other
clergyman in charge, showing him signs of their goodwill. Let the preach-
ers take care not to give rise to the suspicion, even in the slightest way, that
they come to him on an [official] visitation.8 Rather, after they have pre-
sented their letters of credentials and so forth, let them state that they have
this one purpose: to teach catechism, hear confessions, and procure recon-
ciliations and so forth. Let them strive especially to win the approval and
satisfaction of the clergy in all things. Let the preachers also point out that
they have been ordered by their own superiors not to burden anybody
with supplying their food and that they will care for themselves since they
have what they need to sustain their life. The preachers should say that all
they want is a little room, free of contact with women, in which there is a
little bed to sleep in. If there is a small but clean room available in the hos-
pital, let them not seek rooms elsewhere. If this same pastor agrees, let him
designate who should buy for the preachers the foods they need. These
foods should be sufficient to sustain them but always simple enough to
cause edification.
4. Let the preachers question the same pastor about the most common
sins among the people—including usury, concubinage, feuds, abuses, su-
perstitions, and so forth—so they can direct their sermons and work with
more light and usefulness for the people. It will be especially helpful if the
preachers can become friends with a layperson of good reputation on whose
assistance they can rely in arranging for the other people to frequently at-
tend the divine sacraments and likewise in linking them to some upright
priest. It will help to visit the schools, if it is possible to do so without caus-
ing resentment. By getting into the good graces of the teachers the preach-
ers can introduce some pious devotional practice among the students.
When they have some free time, the preachers should engage in fruitful pri-
vate conversations with various people.
5. On the day they arrive at the location in which they are going to stay, the
preachers should procure, as soon as possible, a convenient site at which the
people can gather. Let the people be called together in the morning and the
evening. Let one sermon be delivered that first discusses the need for teaching
catechism and the evils that accompany mortal sin so that thereby the people
may recognize the need for confession. Then the preachers should explain the
cause and purpose for their arrival with the good graces and permission of the

8. Bishops, either by themselves or with a delegated visitator, were required to visit

and check up on how well the priest and his parishioners were carrying their duties.
Jesuits suspected of being official visitators could meet hostility and expect little co-
operation.
196 Special Pastoral Ministries

bishop; next they should proclaim

the jubilee9 granted by His Holiness
[the pope] and their power to ab-
solve from sins and so forth. The
preachers should also say that our
Society is doing all these things be-
cause our Order’s purpose is to teach
catechism, hear confessions, and so
forth. It should be stated that no
money or remuneration is being
sought and that the preachers are
even carrying some little gifts of
pious objects for the people. It
should also be stated that the preach-
ers will not be a burden on anybody
since their superiors have already
provided them with all they need.
Moreover, the preachers should indi-
cate that in the morning hours they
Claudio Acquaviva, superior general of the will be hearing the confessions of
Jesuits, 1581–1615. those people who wish to ease their
consciences, and that in the after-
noons they will teach catechism to women, boys, and girls. In the evenings,
after the Angelus,10 they will explain catechism to the men. Thus should the
preachers encourage the people to come and to send along their servants and
other family members.
6. If the town is of some importance, and if there is no other preacher, a
short sermon lasting a half hour should be delivered around noon every day,
especially during Lent; sermons should be about the Gospel but delivered
in a style adapted to the listeners’ capacity so that the people are led to the
necessary teaching on such matters. As occasion arises, the preachers should
make frequent use of examples and should earnestly encourage the people
to observe divine worship and treat the clergy with honor and respect.
7. The training of the clergy should include a short consideration of the
Trinity and the Incarnation of our Lord, the matter and form of the sacra-
ments, and their uses and practice (especially on the way to hear confes-

9. In certain years, often on special occasions, the pope granted special indul-
gences to people who went to confession or performed other pious acts.
10. The Angelus was a series of prayers centering on the words of the angel Gabriel
to Mary; church bells were usually rung to encourage people to devote a few min-
utes to these prayers.
Claudio Acquaviva 197

sions and to teach the people). The clergy should be encouraged to practice
diligence and cleanliness when it comes to divine worship. A catechism
should be given to those members of the clergy if they do not have one, also
the directory of Father Polanco and of Friar Medina.11 These things should
be done in the morning when the preachers have time free for hearing con-
fessions. But if they are prevented from doing those things at that time, care
should be taken to complete these tasks late in the evening.
8. Let the preachers always hear women’s confessions in a well-lit part of
the church. Likewise the confessions of young people. Let the preachers
strive to move along, as quickly as possible, those persons whose presence
could give rise to suspicion.
9. The afternoon hours should be devoted to teaching catechism to
women and children. Women and children should be encouraged to join
outdoor processions, especially on feast days. In such processions, the boys
and girls should appear in varied clothing carrying decorated banners and
marching at the front. A careful effort should be made to ensure that people
learn doctrine accurately. The people should be encouraged to sing hymns
instead of mindless songs while they are working in the fields.
10. At around nine o’clock in the evening, after the Angelus, a meeting
should be convened at the church with the assistance of the pastor and the
other clergy. This meeting should be as large as possible and the governor
should be invited, along with the other leading men so that their presence
will attract other people. Women, however, should not be allowed to attend
this meeting. There Christian doctrine should be explained; the mystery of
the Trinity, the Apostles’ Creed, and so forth should be reviewed. Every ser-
mon should end with a statement on the evils that abide in mortal sin. Re-
viewing this material should take about an hour. If one preacher can conduct
the meeting on his own, the other one should meantime be engaged in help-
ing individuals by hearing confessions or by bringing feuds to a peaceful end.
11. If it sometimes happens that some monetary alms must be given to
somebody who has fallen on very hard times, let the alms be given cau-
tiously and in secret lest the donation become publicly known and result in
a throng of poor people complaining that they have been denied alms.
12. When [the Jesuits] meet members of any other religious order, let
them strive to give every sign of goodwill toward them and try to win them
over so far as is possible. The preachers should take every opportunity to
administer the Spiritual Exercises to the members of any other religious
order and also to any clergyman.

11. Juan Polanco and Bartolomé de Medina, O.P. (1527–80), wrote popular books
instructing penitents and confessors how to make a good confession.
198 Special Pastoral Ministries

13. The preachers will observe and immediately write down those things
that seem worth passing on to the bishop so that later, after their return to
the city, they may report this information to him face to face. This also ap-
plies to major things worth including in the annual letters.12
14. When the opportunity arises, the preachers will devote effort to start-
ing and promoting a confraternity, either of the Most Holy Sacrament, or
of the Name of God, or of the Rosary, or of Christian Doctrine.13 Later
they will notify Rome that this has been done so that [the confraternity]
may be established in accord with Rule 22 of the missions.
15. The first [Jesuit] named in the letter of credentials will be the supe-
rior of the mission. The other will be his adviser. Lastly, they should all
know that the exact observance of the Rules for Missions has been en-
trusted to them.

Friedrich Spee

Cautio Criminalis
[Though Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, S.J., (1591–1635) is now best
known as a poet and hymn writer, he gained recognition in his own time for
his influential book attacking the persecution of witches. The “golden age” of
witch persecution was roughly 1550 to 1650. About eighty thousand people
were executed for witchcraft in early modern Europe—far more than were ex-
ecuted for the crime of heresy—and women made up some 80 percent of those
executed. The geographical pattern of persecution was uneven: very few
witches were executed in Italy, Portugal, or Spain, countries where the Inqui-
sition was strongest, probably because the Inquisitors (mainly Dominican fri-
ars) were less subject to the mass hysteria over witchcraft that swept other
countries. Nowhere was the persecution of witches more severe than in the
German prince bishoprics of the Rhine valley. Spee was stationed at Jesuit col-
leges in several of these bishoprics and ministered personally to the accused.

12. From Loyola’s time onward, a long letter or report relating all the edifying ac-
tivities of Jesuits for the year was compiled and circulated annually to Jesuit com-
munities. During Acquaviva’s term as general the letters were printed as books.
13. The great problem facing these traveling missionaries was that the revivalist fer-
vor they stirred up would quickly wane after they left. So that the effects would be
more lasting, the Jesuits set up thousands of confraternities of laypeople—some for
men, some for women, some for the nobility—to stabilize their work, especially
through the frequent reception of the sacraments of Communion and confession.
This effort is studied in Lance Lazar’s Working in the Vineyard of the Lord: Jesuit
Confraternities in Early Modern Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004).
Friedrich Spee 199

His Cautio Criminalis, which is divided into fifty-one questions and an ap-
pendix, grew out of this work.14 He also taught philosophy at Paderborn
where the wave of witch persecution peaked in 1629 through 1631. He used
to visit the local prison to lend support to women accused of witchcraft and to
hear their confessions.
Many Jesuits—including the distinguished moral theologian Martin Delrio
(1551–1606)—accepted the dominant German view that witchcraft was
widespread. Other Jesuits agreed with Spee, who borrowed some of his argu-
ments from the Jesuit theologian Adam Tanner (1572–1632). Despite the fact
that he argues against the persecution of those accused of witchcraft, Spee does
not claim that there are no witches or that such witches have no connection
with Satan. Instead he attacks the prevalent judicial procedures and the use of
torture, practices that made it virtually impossible for the accused to clear
themselves and that also forced many of them to level accusations against other
innocent people. Spee was moved from Paderborn to Cologne and then to the
Jesuit college at Trier, where he died while ministering to those stricken by
plague.]

Question 20: What should we think about tortures or questioning? Do they

frequently lead innocent people into moral danger?
Here is my answer: in most cases, the nature of torture is such that—hav-
ing seen it for myself and having read and heard about it far and wide—I
can find nothing in my memory to which I can compare it. As far as I can
see, it accomplishes nothing other than to lead innocent people into fre-
quent moral danger and to fill our Germany with witches and unheard-of
crimes. And this happens not just in Germany, but also in any other nation
that has the same experience.
My reasons for thinking thus are as follows.
Reason 1: By their very nature the most common and widespread meth-
ods of torture are terrible and cause suffering of measureless intensity. But
such is the nature of these enormous sufferings that when we are allowed to

14. Cautio Criminalis seu de processibus contra sagas: Liber ad magistatus Germaniae
hoc tempore necessarius (Rinteln: Petrus Lucius, 1631; photo reprint Frankfurt/
Main: Minerva Gmb. H, 1971). The selected passages printed here are translated by
John Patrick Donnelly from that photo reprint of the first edition, pp. 111, 130–37,
146–48, 351, 358–61. Marcus Hellyer has translated the whole book with a fine in-
troduction to Spee’s life and work: Cautio Criminalis, or Book on the Witch Trials
(Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2003). The whole book is
divided into fifty-one questions; the selections here contain parts of Questions 20,
22, and 49.
200 Special Pastoral Ministries

escape them, we fear nothing, not even death itself. Hence there is danger
that in order to escape the rack many women will confess to crimes they did
not commit or that they will falsely accuse themselves of whatever crimes
their interrogators suggest to them or which they themselves have previ-
ously thought about confessing. . . .
Reason 14. The danger also increases if one woman who is truly innocent
confesses just once and, overcome by the force of her tortures, claims that she
is guilty of the crimes [suggested to her by her interrogators] and deserving of
the flames; if this happens, countless other innocent women must immedi-
ately be charged with the same crimes and dragged to the same flames. I show
this by an example: The innocent woman Gaia15 lied in saying she was a
witch, so she will soon be pressed to point out her companions. She is not be-
lieved when she denies having such companions and is hauled off for ques-
tioning. If she was not able to save herself earlier, she is not going to save
others now. . . . So she will accuse women she does not know, especially those
she remembers as having had bad reputations. I have seen this happen more
than once; one accusation, coupled with a bad reputation, condemns a
woman to prison and torture. And then the women under torture also will
begin naming their accomplices. Who cannot see that in a very short time the
number of those accusing and those being accused will become endless? The
problem worsens when the judge is harsh and follows the opinion of those
authors who want to maintain, in exceptional crimes [such as witchcraft],
that one or several denunciations of accomplices without any other accompa-
nying evidence is enough to justify torture and even convicting [the accused].
More than once I have trembled, when examining this problem, at Ger-
many’s remarkable blindness. Let readers also reflect on this problem. Some
readers wonder what to believe in this whole question of witches; some may
wonder even whether they should believe anything at all. People under tor-
ture are forced to say incredible things about themselves and many lies
about others. In the end, what pleases the torturer is the truth. Those being
tortured agree to everything, and since they dare not take anything back
after the torture has ended, the whole business is ended only when they are
dead. I know what I am talking about, and I appeal to that court before
which both the living and the dead will appear. In that court many surpris-
ing things now wrapped in darkness will be made clear. . . .
Reason 15. The danger likewise increases if a woman submits so fully to
the pain that she wishes to plead guilty; she then will have closed every pos-
sible door to safety. Once the crime has been confessed to, there is no hope
left of escaping. A perilous situation!

15. Gaia is a name Spee uses repeatedly for any accused woman; it was used much
like John Doe is today.
Friedrich Spee 201

For if, after her torture, she corrects herself and claims that it was the in-
tense pain, and not the power of the truth, that loosened her tongue, she is
interrogated again. If she could not hold her tongue a short time earlier, she
will not hold it now, when she is anticipating the pain to come from a rep-
etition of her suffering. And if after this second torture session she again re-
cants, she will experience that suffering a third time. . . .
Reason 16. On the other hand, the danger also increases if a woman
agrees to confess under the pain of torture. She can neither free herself nor
cleanse herself of the bitter crime of which she is accused. She will be re-
called to the tortures again and again until she breaks and her repeated suf-
ferings force her to talk. Before, it was an accomplishment if, after escaping
one storm of interrogation, she was allowed to safely establish her salvation.
Now, the repetition and frequent use of the rack, clubs, torches, and the
like (which are used everywhere) destroy all hope of ever getting free. Per-
haps the devout men who share my opinion on this matter and I are com-
pletely crazy. But I am quite unable to see how innocent people can be
effectively protected from this danger. Instead, countless people have al-
ready perished—and will go on perishing in the future. Recently a very up-
right and very talented member of a certain religious order made an
excellent presentation of this argument before some judges. Toward the end
of his presentation he asked the judges to answer the question he posed to
them: by what means could a truly innocent man finally gain his freedom
once he had been thrown into chains? After considerable time the judges
could not satisfy him on the question. But he continued to press them until
they finally answered that they would think it over that night. And note
well that these judges, who had already burned so many innocent people at
the stake did not come the next day to propose an effective way for a truly
innocent person to free herself from their clutches. I propose the same
question to the rulers of Germany. If somebody thinks he has discovered
such a way, the very fact that he thinks so shows he is ignorant of what is
going on. And if he doesn’t have a solution to the problem, it is a danger to
his salvation since he ought to have one. Let such a man read, point by
point, what we have already said. It would not be wise for us to say, right
now, everything that must be said on this point; the times are such that
people will not stand for it. Why should we be surprised if the whole world
is full of witches? We should marvel, instead, at the absolute blindness of
Germany and her stupid experts. Because these men are accustomed to
quiet and leisure, and are used to conversations around their fireplaces, they
are clueless about the suffering they cause; it never crosses their minds.
They are used to speaking and talking about the torments of the accused—
and to freely decide on these torments—the same way a blind man talks
about colors, about whose appearance he knows nothing. . . .
202 Special Pastoral Ministries

So in conclusion, I agree completely with my friend, a certain distin-

guished gentleman, who jovially and rightly often spoke thus: “Why do we
go searching so avidly for witches?” He says, “Hey there, Judges, I’ll show
you where they are. Get up and grab the Capuchins, the Jesuits, and all
those men in religious orders and torture them. They’ll confess. If any re-
fuse, torture them three or four times and they’ll confess. If they are still ob-
stinate, exorcize and shave them because they are using magic. The devil is
helping them resist. Keep it up and they’ll surrender in the end. If you then
want more witches, grab the Church’s bishops, canons, and professors.
They will confess. How will those poor, delicate fellows hold out? If you
still want more witches, I will torture you. Then you can torture me. I
won’t deny what you claim. Then we are all sorcerers. We assuredly are
strong and stalwart men who can hold our tongues when enduring repeated
tortures so many times.” That’s what he said.

Question 22: Why are many judges currently reluctant to release accused
persons, even those who have cleared themselves during torture?
I answer that so far I have rarely seen, even though I often could have
seen it in many places, a woman clearing herself by claiming innocence
during her first torture session. Those thrown into prison are only rarely re-
leased, and even then only reluctantly. This could be considered an indica-
tion of a zeal for justice and an eagerness for virtue. Far be it, however, that
virtue should have such an immoderate dimension; it should exercise its
power only within the limits set by the law and reason.
Reason 1: By fair means or foul, [judges] want women they can burn, as
I have already stated in a preceding question. I do not know the cause of
this blind fury, nor do I know whether it is the fault of the judges or the of-
ficials.
Reason 2: Another factor is that the judges imagine that they will be
shamed if they are inclined to dismiss a case, as if they had been overzealous
in arresting and torturing a woman who is then found innocent. I relate
what I saw two years ago. I was in a place where the interrogation of witches
had begun. Gaia was tried first because she had a bad reputation in her vil-
lage. She was taken prisoner and tortured on the basis of this sole charge.
Under torture she pointed to Tatia as her colleague; this one accusation car-
ried so much weight that Tatia was then arrested and subjected to the rack.
Tatia overcame the torture and steadfastly denied any guilt. Meanwhile,
Gaia was brought out to the stake. There she was extremely penitent. Her
confessor judged that she was well prepared for death. Gaia then withdrew
her false accusation against Tatia, claiming that it was extracted under the
power of her torture. Gaia said that she had done evil in betraying an inno-
Friedrich Spee 203

cent woman and that now she was prepared to testify with her own death
that she knew Tatia had committed no evil. With these words Gaia strode
into the flames. Now there was no reason to prevent Tatia’s release. She
should not have been arrested to begin with. Still, she was not released be-
cause of what I have said—the judicial staff murmured among themselves
that they would acquire a reputation for carelessness if Tatia should thus re-
cover her freedom. Shame! How unworthy was this affair, how unchristian,
how contrary to all fairness!
Reason 3: The torturer earns shame, and is considered inept at his craft
and unskilled in torture, when he fails to get a confession from a weak
woman.
Reason 4: The love of money comes into play if salary—something
judges don’t want to see decreased—is based on how many heads are
chopped off. We’re not all saints, nor are we so equally given to self-
restraint that our eyes are not then tricked by the glitter of gold and silver.
More than once have I heard (and deplored) that judges will seek any
means by which they can make an accused woman out to be what they
want her to be. They tighten up her chains; they weaken her in a squalid
prison; they break her with cold and heat. They hand her over to priests of
the sort I described earlier—impetuous or untrained fellows—or to one-
time beggars who are now servants of the interrogation. They submit her to
ever newer tortures, and finally torment and afflict her until the suffering
breaks her and she finally makes a confession, regardless of whether it is
true or false. There is no lack of pretty and clever ways to repeat the inter-
rogations and to blot out for the moment the light of one’s conscience, even
if no new evidence is found, as I will now discuss. . . .

Question 49: What arguments might be made by those who want to believe
that denunciations of witches are trustworthy and who say such denunciations
are sufficient for submitting to torture those who have been denounced?
The many arguments that can be brought forward are easily refuted. We
will propose and refute them one by one. . . .
Argument 8: In their denunciations, many witches target the same person.
Therefore this is a sign they are not lying. Therefore they should be trusted.
I answer that it is not surprising that many of them point to the same per-
son; this can happen for many reasons, as I will show. But if these witches are
not otherwise individually credible, they should not be trusted when taken
together. The accusers may have been real witches, or perhaps they were in-
nocent women overcome by the force of their tortures to the point that they
named other women in order to escape their suffering. Neither of these is sur-
prising, for if they were true witches, they could have [done the following]:
204 Special Pastoral Ministries

1. Many of them could have maliciously conspired to accuse one woman.

Then, if they happened to fall into the hands of the authorities, they
would also drag her down to destruction. They could have agreed to
refer to the same circumstances before making their accusation; such
agreements have been recorded in no few cases, which I will omit for the
sake of brevity.
2. As we said above, the devil could have disguised himself as the innocent
woman in those [witches’] Sabbaths where she could have been seen and
denounced on specific evidence—time, place, and the rest—by many
people who have confessed to being present.
3. Those who accuse the same woman and pile on the incriminating evi-
dence could have been motivated to do so by suggestions or orders from
the devil.

If such women turn out not to be real witches, it should come as no sur-
prise because:

1. When many women are tortured and questioned it is most likely that
several will, by chance, point to the same woman, especially if there are
few women left in the village who have not already been denounced and
burned.
2. When they don’t know other women, most of the accused usually name
women about whom there is already a widespread rumor—either
women who have already been imprisoned once on that charge or have
been burned.
3. It is becoming increasingly apparent, as [Adam] Tanner has noted well,
that court officials do not keep secrets. The identities of the accused are
broadcast to the common folk; this enables those women who are later
tortured to free themselves from torments by accusing those same
women previously accused. Here the officials can in no way be excused
in their consciences because they have not amended this practice. Where
I live almost the whole town already knows about a good number of
women who have been recently accused. As the rumor spreads, the ac-
cused are talked about; this rumor will produce another trial next year.
What awful times! Such is our zeal in Germany!
4. As I have noted above, some malevolent fellows ask about specific
people by name during torture sessions. It should come as no big sur-
prise then, that the tortured then accuse those whose names have been
put into their mouths.
Argument 9: The criminal trials have made it clear that almost all those
women accused by other people were, in fact, real witches; these witches later
Juan Polanco 205

confessed as much under torture. So, it follows that the accusers were telling the
truth. Therefore we should not hesitate to trust such accusations.
I answer that their own confessions are not enough to prove that most of
the accused are real witches, for it is very clear how little trust can safely be
placed in confessions made under torture. This is manifest from the argu-
ments we brought forward above. As I said, it is stupid for any woman ac-
cused not to confess her guilt. She will be forced to do so by many torments
so that she finally gives in; and if she does not give in, she will be burned
alive as an obstinate [witch]. Check again what has been said in various
places above. None of those fellows who are accustomed to writing down
their speculations in their quiet and leisurely hours really knows how pow-
erful these tortures are. Their hard hearts have never experienced such pain.
Not from any hostility, but from good and Christian affection I pray that
for their greater good, and for a more sensitive conscience, they themselves
should experience seven minutes—just a taste [of the rack]—before going
forth to handle these hateful matters with it.

Juan Polanco

Selections from Chronicon, on the Jesuit opposition

to bullfighting and carnival celebrations16
[The Jesuits were not opposed to celebrations and entertainment; they were,
after all, pioneers in college dramatic presentations, as we saw in Chapter 2.
But when celebrations of what had previously been religious holidays resulted
in excesses, some Jesuits reacted in ways that revealed their puritanical tenden-
cies. One such Jesuit was the Spanish preacher Juan Bautista de Barma
(1524–60). He was the driving force behind the successful Jesuit opposition to
bullfights and wild carnival celebrations in southeastern Spain.]

The Year 1552: 547. The Jesuits oppose bullfighting at Valencia.

I will not overlook mentioning that when this jubilee occurred close to
the feast of Saint James the Greater [July 25], the patron saint of Spain,
bullfights were held in accord with the ancient tradition of that country. It
was decided that horsemen would also fight one another in a joust with
wooden rods. Our Jesuits took exception to this event because the previous
day almost everybody had prepared to obtain the jubilee [indulgence] by
confessing and receiving Communion. At this time the rector at Valencia

16. Polanco, Year by Year, pp. 239–40, 298–99, 303.

206 Special Pastoral Ministries

was Father Bautista [de Barma]; but eight of our Jesuits, four of whom were
priests, made every effort to stop those games, regarding it as inappropriate
to hold [such a spectacle] in honor of God and Saint James.
With the permission of the pro-rector, four of the men just mentioned
went to the bullring, the first and last with heads uncovered and feet bare,
as had been done earlier at Valencia, with ropes tied around their necks.
The first of them carried a large picture of the crucified [Christ], the last
carried a dead man’s scull. The two in between had their backs and arms
naked and were scourging themselves with whips. They then reached the
bullring just as the first bull had been driven in and penned up. This is why
our men were able to enter the bullring safely. All the spectators, both na-
tives and outsiders, were deeply moved by the display and shouted for
mercy with groans at the top of their voices. Climbing some steps, one of
the four began to preach to the people.
Meanwhile the second group of four [Jesuits], dressed and bearing the
same sort of penitential objects, left the college, marched down the main
street, and at the top of their voices shouted pleas for mercy. The heart of a
certain Ethiopian was moved, and he began shouting the same thing and
asked for confession. But when they came to the bullring, the shouts
and weeping began again. . . . They approached the area where the duke
and duchess were, along with big crowds of horsemen and clerics. There
one of the brethren began preaching with great fervor while loud cries for
the Lord’s mercy went up repeatedly from the whole crowd. The wife of the
duke was weeping, as were the women attending her.
The people, however, left the stands and uttering the cries mentioned
earlier accompanied our men who were returning home. Some hastened to
bring out whatever was needed to heal the welts caused by the whip lashes.
The Lord used this occasion to stir the hearts of many people to sorrow for
their sins and [the desire] to go to confession, so that people whom the ju-
bilee did not motivate were moved by this public display to receive the holy
sacraments. All the bulls were immediately driven away, and the jousting
was called off, even though all the horsemen had dressed up for it at consid-
erable expense.

The Year 1553: 757. Countering Carnival at Pamplona.

In the days before Lent, many people, following their custom, ran about
the city in masks, and on every hand many frivolities and unbecoming an-
tics could be seen. Our Jesuits arranged to have some boys stage a proces-
sion with some of them in the lead carrying a crucifix; they marched
through all the public streets of that city, visiting the churches on their way.
In each of them they would kneel and loudly beg for God’s mercy. So great
was a flock of people following them wherever they went that not only did
Juan Polanco 207

some boys discard their masks and silly trappings and join the procession,
but people of advanced age did the same. Many let it be known that they
had intended to leave their homes [wearing] masks and carrying on in
bizarre ways, but they gave up their plans after they saw and heard the pro-
cession.
830. Putting a check on the carnival at Onteniente.
. . . . When [Father Bautista de Barma] preached on the Sunday before
Lent at Onteniente,17 he so moved the citizens that they wholly abandoned
some of the foolishness that was everywhere a deeply entrenched custom.
By public decree people were forbidden to go about in disguise or to dance
to the tune of flute players, drummers, and those singing lascivious songs.18
They were not to follow their custom of dumping water from their win-
dows and dousing passers-by, nor were they to play games during the entire
season of Lent. Those who flouted this ban would be punished with a fine
or imprisonment. When six or seven teenagers did something in contraven-
tion of the decree, they were thrown into the prison until Father Bautista
pleaded for their release. Everything was silent the night [of Mardi Gras]
before the first day of Lent, and it almost defied belief that so many people
could have passed the night so quietly.

17. Lent, which is a forty-day period of fasting and penance before Easter, begins
on Ash Wednesday. In Polanco’s day, people were supposed to abstain from eating
meat during Lent; hence the term carnival—from the Latin carni vale—meaning
“good-bye to meat.” Carnival celebrations usually peaked the Monday and Tuesday
before Lent began. These days presented the last chance to celebrate and gorge one-
self before the penitential forty days began. Mardi Gras is the French term for the
“fat Tuesday” preceding Lent. Onteniente is a small city near Valencia in southeast-
ern Spain.
18. These celebrations that the Jesuits were attacking in the 1550s were mild com-
pared to the wild carnival celebrations today in Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans.
The Catholic Church has since drastically reduced Lenten fasting.
 CHAPTER 7

JESUITS AND POLITICS

Introduction

During the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, church and
state were closely tied. All European states had an official religion; none of-
ficially encouraged religious diversity or pluralism, although some did prac-
tice de facto religious tolerance on pragmatic grounds, mainly to head off
civil war. The most tolerant countries were the Dutch Netherlands, Poland,
and France (after 1598). Gaining the favor of the rulers was especially im-
portant for new religious orders such as the Society of Jesus. Jesuit schools,
for instance, were largely reliant on rulers and city governments to subsidize
their tuition-free educational programs. We have already seen in Chapter 2
how the Spanish viceroy in Sicily, Juan de Vega, played a crucial role in
gaining financial support from the city government for the flagship Jesuit
college at Messina. The survival of the Jesuit schools depended on the
Order’s ability to cultivate political leaders.
Those Jesuits who had access to a king’s ear—for example, by serving as
a Catholic king’s confessor, his court preacher, or the tutor of a crown
prince—were unusually well positioned to champion the Jesuit cause. Je-
suits filled all three of these roles at royal courts in Paris and Lisbon and at
Vienna’s imperial court. Two documents in this chapter, those by the Jesuit
General Claudio Acquaviva and by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, discuss a
royal confessor’s responsibilities—and the dangers inherent in holding such
a position. One of Loyola’s first companions, Simon Rodrigues (1510–79),
served as the tutor for the future King Sebastian of Portugal.
Juan Mariana’s book On a King and the Education of a King, written for
his student, the future Philip III of Spain, aroused intense opposition to the
Jesuits because it seemed to justify the assassination of tyrannical monarchs.
The second selection offered below is taken from the most controversial
section of Mariana’s book. The Jesuits wrote many books on the duties of a
king; in addition to the selection from Mariana’s book, this chapter prints
three sections from Bellarmine’s book written for Ladislaus, the crown
prince of Poland; these selections describe the duties of a king toward his
confessor, toward his soldiers and court officials, and toward other kings.

208
The Fifth General Congregation of the Jesuit Order 209

The Jesuit superiors general in Rome were acutely aware of the dangers
facing those priests who became involved in politics, especially at royal
courts. Such priests could easily become swollen with pride and ignore the
humility and the vows of poverty and obedience that should characterize
members of religious orders. Confessors could come to identify themselves
with king and country instead of religious values. Since confessors had ac-
cess to the king and his family, court officials could try to enlist the Jesuits
in support of their own political agendas. Unpopular royal policies were
sometimes blamed on the royal confessor or court preacher—and, by ex-
tension, on Jesuits in general.
The first document in this chapter prints two decrees of the Fifth Gen-
eral Congregation, the supreme legislative body of the Jesuits, ordering Je-
suits to avoid involvement in politics. In practice, however, it was difficult
to draw the line between involvement in politics and the legitimate fulfill-
ment of the duties of confessors, preachers, and fund-raisers. (Three earlier
documents in this volume deal with Jesuit involvement in touchy political
issues: Loyola’s suggestions for Charles V on how to fight the Turks appear
in Chapter 1; his letter to Peter Canisius urging Ferdinand of Austria to re-
move Protestants from all teaching and government posts is included in
Chapter 4; and Chapter 3 offers a selection from the book Antonio Ruiz de
Montoya wrote to win Philip IV’s protection for the Guarani Indians.)

The Fifth General Congregation of the

Jesuit Order, Canons 12 and 131
[Traditionally, Jesuit General Congregations met (as they still do) to elect a new
superior general, who then serves for life. The only general congregation in the first
century of the Jesuits that did not meet to elect a superior general but instead to deal
with a wide range of ongoing problems was the Fifth General Congregation con-
voked by Claudio Acquaviva in Rome from November, 5 1593, until January 18,
1594. Among the decrees issued by this congregation were Canons 12 and 13 pro-
hibiting Jesuit involvement in court politics. Jesuits who broke these rules were to be
deprived of any office as a superior that they might hold and were to lose their right
to vote in, or be elected by, a provincial or general congregations of the Order.]

Canon 12. So that, as far as possible every appearance of evil may be

avoided, and so that complaints arising from false suspicions may be

1. Institutum Societatis Iesu (Florence: Typographia a SS. Conceptione, 1893), vol. 2,

pp. 547–48. This excerpt has been translated by John Patrick Donnelly.
210 Jesuits and Politics

refuted, all our men are commanded to avoid involvement for any reason in
any public or secular activities of princes which (as is said) pertain to
matters of state. This is commanded in virtue of holy obedience [i.e., under
the vow of obedience taken by Jesuits] and under the penalty of their being
ineligible for any office or dignity or ecclesiastical position. They will also
lose the right to vote or be elected. Moreover, one should not dare or
presume to attend to the handling these sorts of political matters, regardless
of who requests or asks him to do so. Hence superiors are strongly urged
not to permit our men to get involved in these matters in any way, and, if
they notice men who are inclined to these things, they should as fast as
possible have them transferred elsewhere if there is an opportunity or
danger anywhere of their getting themselves entangled in such matters.
Canon 13. We must take the greatest care lest our men insinuate
themselves into the entourage of princes to the detriment of their spiritual
good and religious discipline. Neither should they be occupied in other
secular affairs, even if these particular affairs pertain to their blood relatives,
friends, or anybody else (unless, perhaps, charity should sometimes urge a
different course in the judgment of superiors). In this way, by abstaining
from such matters as things alien to us, we try to help our neighbors within
the limits of our [Jesuit] way of life. Hence this Congregation rightly
recommends that Reverend Father General [Acquaviva] employ, in accord
with his prudence, those remedies that will help our men deal with princes
according to the principles of our [Jesuit] way of life. He should correct
those of our men who are going astray, especially if they are superiors, but
also those who work at obtaining something from superiors through the
requests or interventions of non-Jesuits. He should correct those who are
going astray by punishments that he will have judged appropriate in the
Lord, punishments that will also serve as an example for others.

Juan Mariana

On a King and the Education of a King 2

[No pages written by a Jesuit have caused the Order as much trouble as the
sixth chapter of On a King and the Education of a King (1599) written by

2. Juan Mariana, S.J., De Rege et Institutione Regis Libri III ad Phillipum III His-
paniae Regem Catholicum (Madrid: Typis Welchelianis, apud heredes Ioannis
Aubrii, 1611), vol. 1, pp. 51–63. Translation by John Patrick Donnelly. In the Latin
original the whole chapter is one very long paragraph; here some sections have been
dropped and paragraphing inserted. For useful discussions of Mariana’s tract, see
G. B. Lewy, The Political Philosophy of Juan de Mariana, S.J. (Geneva: Droz, 1960),
and Ronald W. Truman, Spanish Treatises on Government, Society and Religion in the
Juan Mariana 211

Juan Mariana (1536–1624) at the request of Philip II of Spain.3 Mariana

was the tutor of the future Philip III, and the book was written to teach the
young prince his future duties. The sixth chapter weighs arguments, pro and
con, on whether it is right to kill not only tyrants but also any legitimate kings
who have become tyrannical. Although Mariana claims impartiality, his argu-
ments are usually interpreted as advocating tyrannicide. In fact, they were
probably intended to deter the young prince from tyrannical behavior once he
assumed power. The book attracted little attention until 1610 when François
Ravaillac (1578–1610), a demented former student of a Jesuit college, assassi-
nated Henry IV of France in Paris.4 Though the assassin had never even heard
of Mariana, the Jesuits’ many enemies held Mariana—and therefore all Je-
suits—responsible for the assassination.5 Mariana’s book was burned by order
of the Parlement of Paris, and Jesuits were forbidden to teach thereafter in
France even though the Jesuit General Claudio Acquaviva condemned Mari-
ana’s book and forbade any Jesuit to advocate tyrannicide.6]

Time of Philip II (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 315–84; Truman also devotes chapters to
two other contemporary Spanish Jesuits who wrote on political theory
(pp. 277–360), thereby putting Mariana’s work in a larger context. Robert Bireley,
S.J., The Counter-Reformation Prince: Anti-Machiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in
Early Modern Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990) deals
briefly with Mariana’s comments on tyrannicide but develops the political thought
of three other Jesuits—Pedro de Ribadeneira, Adam Contzen, and Carlo Scribani—
at greater length (on pp. 111–87). None of them agreed with Mariana on tyranni-
cide.
3. Mariana was a haughty but brilliant maverick. He wrote a lively, uncritical his-
tory of Spain in twenty volumes. In 1609 he published a book on currency and in-
flation that accused government officials of fraud. The Spanish government had
him locked up in a Franciscan convent for a year. He also urged that the govern-
ment of the Jesuits be overhauled so that it would become more democratic and less
centralized.
4. In 1594 Jean Chastel attempted unsuccessfully to kill Henry IV. The room of
Jean Guéret, the Jesuit who had taught Chastel philosophy, was searched and found
to contain books treating tyrannicide. Guéret was burned at the stake, and the Par-
lement expelled the Jesuits from Paris. They were allowed to return to Paris eight
years later.
5. Roland Mousnier, The Assassination of Henry IV: The Tyrannicide Problem and
the Consolidation of French Absolute Monarchy in the Early Seventeenth Century (New
York: Scribners, 1973). Mousnier devotes his last chapter to whether the Jesuits
bore responsibility for the assassination. He exonerates them.
6. The most recent and erudite study of early Jesuit political thought is Harro
Höpfl’s Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c. 1540–1630
212 Jesuits and Politics

Chapter 6: Is it right to overthrow a king?

The character and behavior of a tyrant is such that it is equally hateful to
heaven and to humans. Even though he may seem extremely fortunate, his
crimes are turned into punishment so that his evil heart and conscience are
wounded by cruelty, lust, and fear, just as bodies are wounded by whips.
The vengeance of heaven pushes those it pursues to their ruin and strips
them of their reason and wisdom. There are many recent and ancient ex-
amples at hand to show how the hostility of the people has been the end of
a ruler, however great the strength of the prince, once the hatred of the mob
is stirred up. A sad but striking example of this recently took place among
the nobility in France; this example shows how important it is to keep the
hearts of the common folk—which are not ruled the same way as their bod-
ies—quiet. Henry III, King of France, lay slain by a poisoned dagger,
stabbed in the belly by the hand of a friar. This hateful memorable specta-
cle served to teach princes that their evil deeds do not go unpunished.
Princes, no matter how powerful, are helpless once they have lost the re-
spect of their subjects’ hearts. Because he had no children, [Henry III] was
preparing to bequeath his kingdom to his brother-in-law Henry of
Vendôme [later Henry IV, 1589–1610], even though Vendôme had been
infected from his tender years by corrupt religious ideas and had at the
same time been severely condemned by the Roman pontiffs and stripped of
his right of succession. Now that he has been converted, he is the much to
be praised Most Christian King of France. When the plan [of Henry III]
became known, and other princes both inside and outside France had been
informed of the matter, a great number of the nobility took up arms for the
salvation of their country and their religion and sought help everywhere.
The hope and fortunes of France rested on the courage and family of Duke
[Henry] of Guise during this troubled time.7

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). He devotes a chapter to tyranni-

cide and the assassination of Henry IV (pp. 314–38). For his treatment of Mariana,
see pp. 318–21. Regarding Mariana he writes, “All Jesuit theologians and writers,
including Mariana, taught that it was never justifiable for a private person to kill his
own lawful prince on his own authority” (p. 316). For Acquaviva’s condemnation of
Mariana, see pp. 318–19.
7. The War of the Three Henrys (1585–89) pitted supporters of the strongly Cath-
olic Guise family, led by the Henry Duke of Guise, against moderate Catholics and
King Henry III, who also enjoyed the support of Henry of Bourbon [later Henry
IV] and the Calvinist minority. Henry III had Henry of Guise assassinated, but
Henry III was assassinated in turn by Jacques Clement, who brought the Calvinist
Henry IV to the throne. The fighting ended only when Henry IV converted to
Catholicism in 1593. Henry IV was assassinated in 1610. Enemies of the Jesuits
blamed the assassination of both kings on the Jesuits.
Juan Mariana 213

The kings, undeterred, continued to put their proposed plans into effect.
Henry [III], who was preparing to take revenge for the efforts of the leading
men and was determined to kill Guise, summoned him to Paris. When the
anger of the people and their rising up in arms prevented Henry [III] from
carrying out his plan, he quickly left Paris after a short delay; he pretended
to have been swayed by better plans and claimed that he wanted to hold
public deliberations on the common good. He summoned a meeting of all
classes at Blois, a city on the Loire River. There, in his palace, he killed
Guise and his brother the cardinal, who trusted in the good faith of the
meeting.8 After these assassinations, charges of treason were cooked up
against the [Guises] so that the murders might seem to have been commit-
ted rightfully. Nobody defended them, and it was decreed that they had
been punished under the law of treason. [Henry III] took other people pris-
oner, among them the Cardinal of Bourbon, whose bloodline placed him in
the rightful line of succession regardless of his old age. This business stirred
up the hearts of many Frenchmen. Many cities renounced Henry and
openly rebelled for the common good. Paris, which had no equal in Europe
for wealth, size, and scholarship, took the lead. The uprising of the people
was like a river in flood—it swelled only for a short while. When the popu-
lar uprising settled down, Henry stationed his military camp about four
thousand paces outside Paris; he hoped to take his revenge on the city. The
city was close to despair when the daring of one young man quickly and ef-
fectively raised its confidence. His name was Jacques Clement, born in Bur-
gundy in the country town of Serbon. He was studying theology at the
college of his Dominican order. After learning from theologians with whom
he consulted that a tyrant could rightfully be killed, he obtained letters
from men in the city whom he had discovered to be open or secret sup-
porters of Henry. Concealing his own plans, Clement determined to kill
the king and left for the military camp on July 31, 1589. He was immedi-
ately admitted so he could inform the king about the secrets of the people
whose letters he was carrying. He was ordered to hand the letters over the
next day. On August 1, the sacred feast day of St. Peter in Chains,9 after cel-
ebrating Mass, he was summoned by the king, who was still waking up and
not yet fully clothed. After some brief conversation, Clement came close
to the king on the pretext of handing over the letters. Then, in a memor-
able act of outstanding self-confidence, Clement stabbed the king with the

8. For a vivid account of these events, see Garrett Mattingly’s The Armada (Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin, 1962), pp. 376–86.
9. The feast of St. Peter in Chains commemorates the imprisonment of St. Peter by
the high priest and Sadducees in Jerusalem and his escape with the help of an angel
(Acts 5:17–25).
214 Jesuits and Politics

dagger he held in his hand, inflicting a deep wound above the king’s blad-
der. [The dagger] had been treated with poisonous plants. Driven by pain,
the king struck his murderer in the eye and chest with the same dagger,
shouting that Clement was a king-killer.
The courtiers rushed in, alerted by the unusual stir. In their ferocious
savagery they inflicted many wounds on the prostrated and unconscious
[Clement]. Though he said nothing, his countenance indicated that he felt
rather joyful because he was escaping the other tortures that he rightly
feared, given the deed he had perpetrated. Simultaneously, he greatly re-
joiced, amid his blows and wounds, that his blood had won back the liberty
of his people and their common fatherland. By killing the king, he had
gained a great name for himself. A murder had been expiated by murder: by
his hands the [king’s] betrayal of the Duke of Guise was paid for in royal
blood. Thus did the twenty-four year old Clement—a simple young fellow
of no robust physique, but possessing great power that strengthened his
heart—die.
The next night, at two hours past midnight, the king, who died without
the last sacraments because of the high hopes for his health, muttered with
his last breath those words of David, “Behold, I was conceived in iniquities,
and in sins did my mother conceive me” [Ps. 51:5]. Had he conformed his
last acts to his earlier ones, he would have been happy and would have
shown himself to be a prince, such as he was thought to be when he was in
command of the troops and the war against traitors under his brother
Charles [IX]. Henry [III] held the title of King of Poland by the vote of the
leading men of that nation. But his earlier deeds gave way to his later ones,
and the disgraceful morality of his mature years wiped away his youthful
good deeds. Although Henry [III] was recalled to his homeland and was
proclaimed King of France when his brother died, he made such a mess of
everything that it seems that he was only raised to the peak of affairs in
order that he might rush into a great disaster. Thus does fortune, or greater
power, mock our human endeavors.
There is no consensus about the deed of the friar [who assassinated
Henry III]. Many praised him and judged him worthy of immortality;
other men of prudence and praiseworthy erudition condemned him and
denied the right of anybody on his own private authority to kill a king pro-
claimed by the peoples’ consent and anointed as customary with sacred oil,
even if that king had degenerated into a tyrant with shameful morals. They
supported this opinion with many arguments and examples. How great was
the depravity of King Saul of the Jews in ancient times, how profligate were
the conditions of his life and morality!10 Evil schemes stirred up his heart—

10. For the sins of Saul, see 1 Sam. 19:1–24 and 1 Sam. 22:11–19.
Juan Mariana 215

it tottered through intervals of doing penance for his crimes. On God’s ini-
tiative, Saul was stripped of his kingship and the right to rule was trans-
ferred to David with a mystical anointing. Although Saul was ruling
illegally and had slipped into madness and crimes, his rival David did not
dare injure him. When [Saul] was returned to power time and again, David
could have legally killed him, either to vindicate his own claim to power or
to protect his own life. David did not do this, even though [Saul], who had
not been provoked by any injuries, was plotting to kill David in all sorts of
ways. Meanwhile, Saul was busy tracking down everywhere the footsteps of
[David], an innocent man [1 Sam: 18–27]. . . .
You could add that a tyrant is like a ferocious and monstrous animal that
strikes out in all directions, destroys, rips apart, and burns everything, caus-
ing horrible slaughters with claws, teeth, and horns. Do you think this
should be concealed? Should there not be praise for anyone who risks his
own life to restore the safety of the people? Would you not judge that all
people should take up weapons against anyone who looms over the earth
like a cruel monster, forever untamable? If you saw your dear mother and
wife being attacked in your presence and failed to come to their aid when
you were able to do so, you would be called cruel and incur shame for your
cowardice and impiety. Are we to allow a tyrant to harass and ravage our
country, to which we are more indebted than to our parents, for his own
pleasure? Away with such iniquity and depravity! Even if our lives, reputa-
tions, and wealth are endangered, we will save our country from danger and
destruction!
These are the arguments employed to defend the two positions. The side
to take becomes clear when you have weighed the two arguments carefully.
Indeed, I see that both philosophers and theologians agree on this: the
prince who takes over a country by force of arms, with no other claim, can
be killed, be deprived of his life, and be crowned by anyone without the
consent of the citizens. Since he is a public enemy who oppresses the coun-
try with all of his evil ways, such a prince clothes himself correctly with the
name and character of a tyrant. He may be removed for any of these reasons
and driven from power with the same violence he used to gain it. Rightly,
then, did Ehud insinuate himself by gifts into favor with Eglon, King of the
Moabites; Ehud then killed Eglon by thrusting a sword into his stomach.11
Ehud freed his people from the harsh slavery to which they had been sub-
jected for the previous eighteen years.
If a prince holds power by the consent of the people or hereditary right,
his vices and lusts must be endured until he ignores the laws of honesty and
decency that bind him. Princes should not be changed too easily lest greater

11. Jg. 3:15–26.

216 Jesuits and Politics

evils occur and serious upheavals come about (as was noted at the start of
this discussion). But if such princes are ruining the country, preying upon
private and public funds and holding public laws and our holy religion in
contempt; if they make a virtue of pride, arrogance, and contempt for the
heavenly powers, these things should not be ignored. Still, we have to pay
attention to the reason for forcing that prince to abdicate lest we pile evil on
evil and punish crime with a crime.
If there is an opportunity for a public meeting, that is a quick and safe
way to deliberate and reach a consensus on what to do. The decision should
be fixed and ratified by a common agreement. This process should go for-
ward by these steps. First, the prince will be warned and called upon to re-
turn to a healthy outlook. If he behaves, satisfies the commonwealth, and
corrects the sins of his past life, I think the process should halt there. If he
rejects the medicine, . . . it is right to declare the prince a public enemy and
to kill him by the sword. Let any private person exercise this right who will
be willing to step up in this effort to help the commonwealth and has given
up hope of avoiding punishment and risks his own safety. . . .
If princes oppress the commonwealth and are intolerable because of their
vices and foulness, it is a good idea to remind them that they can be killed
not only lawfully but also with praise and glory, if they continue to live in
this evil way. Perhaps fear might deter kings from allowing themselves to
become completely corrupted by vices and flattery. It will certainly curtail
their madness.
The main point is this: the prince has to be persuaded that the authority
of the whole commonwealth is greater than one person’s. He should not
believe evil men who in their quest to please him assert the opposite. . . .

Claudio Acquaviva

Rules for the Confessors of Princes12

[Jesuit confessors at royal courts were clearly in a better position to effect gov-
ernment decisions than were Jesuits teaching in schools or preaching to peas-
ants. But they all shared the same purpose: to improve society by helping people
live devout and moral lives. During their first century Jesuits served frequently

12. This letter of Acquaviva was written in 1602. The Latin text, which is printed
in Institutum Societatis Iesu (Florence: Typographia a SS. Conceptione, 1893), vol.
3, pp. 281–84, is translated here by John Patrick Donnelly. The best study of the
role of Jesuit royal confessors in early modern Europe is Robert Bireley’s The Jesuits
and the Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts and Confessors (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2003).
Claudio Acquaviva 217

as confessors to the Holy Roman Emperors, the kings of France and of Portugal,
and to the dukes of Bavaria. Perhaps surprisingly, the Spanish kings did not
employ them as confessors. But the lack of Jesuit confessors at the Spanish royal
court did not discourage the enemies of the Jesuits from perceiving Jesuit confes-
sors as secret agents of the Spanish crown.
The role of royal confessors was challenging; confessors were often required to
attend royal councils and to give advice on the morality of different policies.
For instance, was a planned military operation just in the eyes of God? Per-
suading monarchs to dismiss their mistresses was often a frustrating task, as
was encouraging rulers to protect slaves and the native peoples in their colonies.
A royal confessor had to be a man of great intelligence, charm, and integrity.
He had to be constantly on guard against courtiers who tried to line up his
support for their own projects. When the policies pursued by a king failed or
were unpopular, the blame did not stop with him; the confessor, and the Jesuits
generally, often shared the blame.
Acquaviva insisted that royal confessors should restrict their advice to the
moral and religious dimensions of government policy. For Acquaviva, prudence
was the virtue royal confessors needed most. But they also needed humility since
their post could easily make them proud, arrogant, and unwilling to live
within the poverty and obedience of the religious life.]

1. It is established at the outset that whenever the Society cannot escape

such duties (because for various circumstances the greater glory of our Lord
God seems to demand this) the basis for choosing the person and his way of
carrying out his duty should be such that the prince is thereby helped, the
people are edified, and the Society does not suffer harm. It often occurs that
in addition to its other troubles, the Society suffers serious harm in many
places for the sake of one place. Wherefore we have decided in the Lord—
after commending this matter to the Divine Majesty in many Masses and
prayers and after timely consultation with the Fathers Assistant—that the
following regulations be decreed. If perchance some of the princes should
sometimes disapprove of these regulations, they should be told, with all
modesty and humility, that according to our laws Jesuits can accept this bur-
den [of confessor] under these and no other conditions. But we hope that
[the prince] will see that the interest and conservation of our religious order
is closely linked with his own interests and the best interests of his subjects.
2. First, this confessor should always live in our own house or college and
should conduct himself like a member [of the Order] and observe the com-
mon discipline like all the rest [of the Jesuits] as he was accustomed to do
prior [to his appointment]. He should receive no exemption or privilege
218 Jesuits and Politics

because he is a confessor. Still, be-

cause various matters related to the
prince may arise and rightly re-
quire secrecy, confessors should be
allowed to write and receive letters
and memos both to and from the
prince himself, his secretary, and
other persons retained for this duty
by the prince. But let not confes-
sors think that thereby they have a
general permission to write secretly
to Jesuits or non-Jesuit officials or
other people on this occasion.
They should observe the rule ex-
actly. If the Provincial [Superior]
should ever discover an abuse [of
King Sebastian I of Portugal being advised this privilege], he should also im-
by Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, S.J., the pose the command and order that
royal confessor. the rule be kept to the letter. Still
less are confessors allowed to ac-
cept, retain, dispense, or give away monies or accept gifts since by these and
similar actions—such as going out of the house without permission and
going off anywhere at his own discretion—confessors will destroy our
whole Order and its spirit in all individuals and contribute nothing to the
service of the prince and the right performance of this office.
3. A confessor will not to live in, or spend the night at, court in places
where the Society has a house. Even when the prince asks the confessor to
remain with him during a journey or a change in dwellings, the confessor
should obtain permission to do so from the Provincial Superior or the per-
son in charge. It will be more edifying if the confessor arranges to stay out-
side the court in some convent of friars or with some respectable priest. At
the same time, the confessor should take care that he always has a [Jesuit]
companion to console him and act as a witness to his actions.
4. A confessor should take care not to get involved in external matters or
politics and should be mindful of the things that the Fifth General Congre-
gation very severely prescribed in its Canons 12 and 13. Instead, he should
devote himself solely to those things that pertain to the prince’s conscience
or things related to it or to certain other pious works. He should carefully
avoid spending too much time at the court; he should not go there when he
is not summoned, unless he is compelled to go there by some pious neces-
sity or a grave matter that seems to demand handling. It is very important
Claudio Acquaviva 219

that the prince himself prevent his confessor from conducting other busi-
ness. This way the confessor will perform his office with greater freedom
and integrity, and his penitent will be free and delivered from the many
troubles that are usually created by those who want to use the work of con-
fessors for their own private advantage.
5. Under no conditions should a confessor become involved in so-called
contracts by securing favors or offices or by seeking or obtaining [the
prince’s] goodwill or justice for anybody. When undertaken by a confessor,
especially a member of a religious order, such actions usually result in scan-
dal, even in legitimate cases.
6. The confessor should be aware that the more he enjoys the prince’s
favor, the more he is able to exercise some authority through him. There-
fore a confessor should never undertake in word, and certainly never in
writing, any of the prince’s business or negotiations that should be en-
trusted to the royal ministers. But when the confessor’s Superior judges that
the confessor must become involved in some religious matter, the confessor
should take care that the prince himself writes and gives orders about the
matter. The confessor must be especially careful not to be used as a middle-
man to admonish or criticize, in the prince’s name, the royal ministers and
courtiers. The confessor should explicitly decline such a role if the prince
should sometimes want to impose it upon him.
7. Again and again the confessor should strive to ensure that people do
not come to think that he is very influential or that the prince is ruled by
his judgment. Besides being hateful and unwelcome to everybody—and
not at all respectful for the prince himself—such perceptions also bring in-
credible harm to the Society. Our sorry human condition continually gives
rise to accusations, both just and unjust, and experience has taught us that
hatred is always turned against the confessor. Although we cannot always
control what happens in the world, the confessor should still do what he
can to avoid such a reputation and should moderate the use of the power
discussed just above.
8. The prince ought to listen calmly and patiently to whatever the con-
fessor, following the bidding of his conscience, decides to suggest to him
each day according to circumstances. Since [a confessor] will inevitably
meet with the prince, a public person, when dealing with a particular mat-
ter, the Father is allowed to put forward, with religious liberty, the course of
action he judges in the Lord to be for the greater service of God and of the
prince himself. A confessor should make suggestions regarding not only
those matters he knows about from his penitent but also regarding those
other matters about which there is much gossip. Such matters require a
remedy in order to hinder the oppressions and minimize the scandals often
220 Jesuits and Politics

brought about by the prince’s ministers without his knowledge or consent.

The prince himself must conscientiously consider the harm wrought by
such matters and must use his foresight to prevent them from happening.
9. If it sometimes happens, as it can easily, that some difficulty should arise
concerning the confessor’s opinion, the prince should consult with two or
three other theologians on the matter. In such a case the confessor should ac-
quiesce and lay his own conviction aside if the theologians decide against his
understanding. Likewise, the prince would be equally wrong if he does not
agree, for his part, to do what the theologians have decided he should do.
10. In the [Jesuit] house a confessor should be mindful of religious mod-
esty, obedience toward superiors, and his equality with the other [Jesuits]
regarding his room, clothing, and all other matters of discipline. Because
they are sometimes able to secure royal favors and other benefits for the So-
ciety, confessors are often inclined to treat people abruptly, to act in a
haughty manner, and to present themselves as somehow better than other
men. If such treatment greatly upsets a well-ordered religious community,
it is unbelievable how much hostility it also creates in other people.
11. To sum everything up, a confessor should remember that he is just
that—only a confessor. He should remember: everything that is alien to
this office should be equally alien to himself. Thus the Society should not
permit him to become involved in such things, nor should the confessor be
upset if his superiors restrict him to this work. On the contrary, he should
thank God that in this way he is made more available for attending to the
one spiritual task entrusted to him. He should ask God constantly to grant
him the light to give good advice. He should consult with his superiors in
doubtful cases so that the direction of the Lord’s Spirit, and not human
prudence, will usefully illuminate his own judgment.
12. Let the confessor always insist that the prince direct his goodwill and
inclination toward the Society and not toward his own person, for to do
otherwise would be harmful to both the confessor and [our] religious order.
Let the confessor keep his penitent’s heart so directed that whenever our
Order will judge it advantageous for God’s service that [the confessor him-
self ] be changed or that his work be used elsewhere, the prince may find
easy to accept this change. It has happened in the past that some confessors
have failed in this (either willingly or perhaps thoughtlessly) and have han-
dled matters in such a way that they have made themselves enemies of reli-
gion and failed to lead to Christ the laymen with whom they are dealing.
13. The confessor should be extremely careful lest his role in the business
of the court make him spiritually lax. Through prayer, the Spiritual Exer-
cises, and frequent examinations of his own conscience a confessor should
become an instrument so joined to our Lord God that by relying on His
Robert Bellarmine 221

grace and help he does not neglect his own spiritual dimension but is illu-
minated and directed in his activities by the Spirit. It will also be worth-
while for a confessor to engage in ministries toward his neighbors in the
same way as other priests.
14. So that everything may progress peacefully and without any offense
to princes we have judged it necessary that when a prince asks [a Jesuit] to
serve as an official and stable confessor (it is not right for this to happen
time and again, but it often does) he should tell the prince that though he
is prepared to serve in this capacity, our laws prevent Jesuits from undertak-
ing such a task without first consulting and receiving the agreement of the
Provincial Superior. A potential confessor must ask his Superior for permis-
sion. But before granting that power the Provincial Superior (if he judges
this good in the Lord, either through himself or though somebody else, or
if it would seem wise, through that Father himself ) should first show to
those asking [the confessor’s services] this Instruction of ours [i.e., Acqua-
viva’s 1602 Instruction printed here], provided that the Provincial thinks
the confessor is suited to this task and possesses the gifts and virtue that are
needed for performing it well. This way, princes will clearly understand
what the Society is asking of the priest whom they are choosing as their
confessor. Then, let the confessor modestly—but clearly and openly—sig-
nify to the prince that from our heart we permit him to use as he wishes
this Father’s work for his spiritual consolation. But let the prince also un-
derstand that the Father’s superiors may freely reassign him at such time as
seems appropriate, just as they may reassign all other [Jesuits].

Robert Bellarmine

The Office of a Christian Prince13

[St. Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) was the most important Jesuit theolo-
gian during the first century of the Jesuits; he was also a very popular spiritual
writer. (Chapter 4 contains his arguments against Luther’s teaching that
scripture was the only criterion for Christian belief and practice, and Chapter
5 reprints a selection from Bellarmine’s Ascent of the Mind to God.)
Though The Office of a Christian Prince, written in 1618 and first pub-
lished the next year in Rome, was one of the six books Bellarmine wrote late
in his life while making his annual retreat, it was very different from the
other five, which were primarily spiritual works. (See page 180 for more in-

13. The three chapters printed here were translated by John Patrick Donnelly from
Roberti Cardinalis Bellarmini Opera Omnia (Naples: Apud Josephum Giuliano,
1862), vol. 6, pp. 530–33, 542–43.
222 Jesuits and Politics

formation on his popular spiritual writings.) He yielded to the request of the

Polish Jesuits that he write a book instructing Ladislaus (1595–1648), the
young crown prince of Poland, on how to be a good king. King Ladislaus IV
ruled the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1632 to 1648 and fought
a successful war against the Russians (1632–34). He also concluded favorable
treaties with the Turks (1634) and Sweden (1635). Whether Bellarmine’s
book influenced Ladislaus’ policies is unclear.
Books on how to be a good prince or ruler were extremely popular during
the Renaissance; even the leading humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, wrote a book
on the education of a Christian prince for the future emperor Charles V. The
most famous (and infamous) of all such books was The Prince by Niccolò
Machiavelli (1469–1527). Written in 1513, The Prince purported to teach a
Medici ruler how to hold and expand his power in Florence by means both fair
and foul. Many Jesuits besides Mariana and Bellarmine wrote books of advice
for rulers; several of these books were directed against Machiavelli.14
Bellarmine’s writings were always well organized. His work on the duties of
a Christian prince is divided into three books. The selections printed here are
all taken from Book 1, which has twenty-two chapters. Chapters 1 through 6
and 17 through 22 deal with the prince’s duties toward God and toward the
different groups of people with which rulers often had to deal. Chapters 7
through 16 explore the different virtues the prince should exercise toward his
own subjects: charity, prudence, justice, courage, temperance, wisdom, generos-
ity, clemency, and mercy. Book 2 presents such Old Testament Jewish leaders as
Moses and David as role models for kings. Book 3 does the same with Catholic
kings who were saints, such as Louis IX of France and Stephan I of Hungary.
Book 1, Chapter 6, which is printed here, is concerned with the prince’s duty
toward his royal confessor. It makes an interesting contrast with Acquaviva’s
rules for royal confessors; while Acquaviva was laying down rules for a confes-
sor only, Bellarmine was exploring both the prince’s duties toward the confessor
and the confessor’s duties toward his royal penitent. In Chapter 20, Bellarmine
alerts princes to their duty to restrain abuses that were rampant among soldiers
and court officials. Chapter 21 explores the prince’s relations with other mon-
archs, especially the traditional rules for waging a just war.]

Book 1, Chapter 6. On the Duty of a Christian Prince toward his

Confessor.
Not without reason do we place the priest-confessor of the prince among
those people whom the prince should consider as his superiors. For the

14. For Jesuit attacks on Machiavelli, see Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince.
Robert Bellarmine 223

priest, in hearing the confessions of the powerful (regardless of whether

they are princes or private persons), acts as a judge in the place of God and
has the power of binding or loosening in the sphere of conscience. There is
an obvious sign of the confessor’s power: the fact that in passing judgment
he sits with his head covered while the penitent (even if he is a king or em-
peror), on bended knee with head uncovered and with a contrite and
humbled heart, seeks absolution as one guilty of having injured His Divine
Majesty. Indeed, the prince’s eternal salvation depends, to a remarkable de-
gree, on his confessor. One reads of many horrifying examples of confessors
who, along with their princes, are condemned and carried off to the pun-
ishments of hell. The great task of princes is above all to rule according to
their conscience. The prince needs a confessor who is very experienced,
very prudent, and very brave. Most important, a royal confessor must de-
sire nothing, have no ambitions, and want absolutely nothing except the
eternal salvation of his prince and the prince’s people.
We need to discuss different aspects of this office. The confessor plays
two roles, that of judge and that of doctor, and the prince has two other
roles, a private one and a public one. In acting as judge in the place of God,
the confessor cannot, and ought not to, absolve from sins unless he sees
that his penitent is truly repentant. For if, perchance, the prince does not
want to rid himself of that which is keeping him in the filth of sin, then he
is pretending to repent but not doing so when he confesses his sin. But if
the confessor does not dare to refuse absolution to such an important man,
let him hear the Holy Spirit crying out, “Do not seek to become a judge lest
you be unable to remove iniquity, lest you be partial to a powerful man”
[Sir. 7:6]. This same thing will come into play with many other sins. Thus
the confessor is not able to absolve a penitent unless he makes a full confes-
sion. But a prince does not make a full confession if he confesses only the
sins that relate to him as a private person (such as sins of gluttony, dissipa-
tion, envy, and similar sins) but skips over the sins he has committed as
prince. For though there is no lack of princes who are very pious and just as
regards their private person, they often know nothing about the sins of
their most important ministers who administer the country by oppressing
the poor, perverting the judicial system, and scandalizing the common
people. The ignorance of a prince does not excuse him before God unless,
perchance, it is invincible ignorance. For he should give serious thought to
whom he employs as administrators and investigate how they are behaving
and how they administer the country.
Therefore, the confessor who acts as judge in God’s place ought not be
satisfied by the confession that a prince makes as a private person, espe-
cially if he knows from public opinion or from another source how badly
his administrators are behaving in administrating the country. But if the
224 Jesuits and Politics

confessor himself is afraid of offending those administrators, let him listen

to the Holy Spirit, who says, “Do not seek to become a judge lest you be
unable to remove iniquity, lest you be partial to a powerful man.”
Lastly, the confessor cannot absolve his penitent, however powerful, un-
less the prince is really prepared to make satisfaction—not only satisfaction
to God through imposed fasting, alms, prayers, and the other works of pen-
itence, but also in satisfying those to whom he might owe something, in
protecting them from hunger, in repairing injuries, in paying his debts, in
paying salaries on time. For a prince often owes many things to his subjects
that they dare not demand from him lest they incur the prince’s wrath.
Here the justice of the judge who takes the place of God ought to put the
confessor on guard lest perhaps he hears when he exits this life: “Why did
you wish to be a judge when you were too weak to stop iniquity and you
were timid in the face of a powerful person?” So much for the confessor in
so far as he is a judge.
Let us add something as regards the same confessor as doctor. Nobody
should be a doctor of souls unless he himself enjoys excellent health, lest
maybe somebody say to him, “Doctor, heal yourself” [Lk. 4:23]. Therefore
those who go about seeking to hear the confessions of princes deserve, by
that very fact, to be rejected like people who are afflicted with a grave sick-
ness. Worse still, they themselves do not recognize their own sickness.
Therefore the wise prince, one who is concerned about his own eternal sal-
vation, looks first of all for a priest who has never sought the office of con-
fessor. Then [the prince seeks a confessor] who, by his public reputation
and in private information, is said to be truly godly—that is, one who is re-
ally free from the sicknesses of vices. Besides, he should be skilled in spiri-
tual medicine. Not only will the confessor have read what the theologians
write about the sacrament of penance and what they call cases of con-
science, but he will also know the practice and use of this knowledge. In ad-
dition, so that he is not often at the royal court, he will not become
involved in the business of the courtiers lest from being a doctor of souls he
himself becomes a courtier and court official. Lastly, he should employ a re-
strained freedom, joined to humility and holiness, when he has to admon-
ish the prince. He should not fear being fired from his office as
confessor—rather, if this happens he should rejoice over his being freed
from a very dangerous burden. If it happens that he sees he is wasting his
time on a certain prince because the prince will not go along with his right-
ful warnings, then he should humbly request permission to depart. Even if
this request is not granted, he should leave on his own: suffering the wrath
of a mortal prince is less painful than suffering the wrath of God.
So that the confessor can do his job, it is proper for the prince to grant
his confessor access and freedom in order that he may faithfully warn and,
Robert Bellarmine 225

given his office, command what is necessary for [the prince’s] salvation.
The confessor should not be restrained by fear or respect. It also seems nec-
essary that the prince should warn the confessor that the confessor is not
permitted to become involved in governmental matters or negotiations
about jobs or discussions on how to run the royal household unless the
prince himself asks for his advice. Far less should the confessor request gov-
ernment jobs or magistracies for anybody. This way he will be far less hate-
ful to other people and less proud. He will please everybody and cause
nobody trouble. Lastly, if the confessor belongs to a religious order, the
prince should guard against undermining his obedience to bishops or his
observance of the rules of his order. He should not offer his confessor any
opportunity to dominate his fellow Religious or to seek the position of a
bishop. This is not good for either the prince, or for the religious order, or
for the confessor. Rather it harms everybody and especially the prince, who
greatly needs a very good and devout confessor.
Book 1, Chapter 20. The Duty of a Prince toward his Soldiers and his
Court Officials.
There remain the soldiers who are counted among the prince’s subjects.
They serve as soldiers in wartime or guard fortresses or [city] gates or the
person of the prince in peacetime. St.John the Baptist15 spoke so much
about these men that there is scarcely anything that we have to add. I will
echo, and explain where it seems necessary, the statement of that most wise
Precursor. St. John the Baptist had only recently come out of the desert
where he had taken refuge for many years. Crowds from everywhere rushed
together to see and hear him as if he were a new kind of human being.
From his infancy he had not had dealings with people for many years and
had not studied writing from any teacher; still, he had been taught by the
Holy Spirit and drew upon the testimony of the Scriptures. He passed
down various passages to individual groups of people for their instruction.
Thus “the soldiers also came to him asking, ‘What must we also do?’ And
he said to them, ‘Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be con-
tent with your wages’ ” [Lk. 3:14]. This is his succinct yet full teaching
about what was proper for a person who was eager to carry out his life so
that “he could not defile his life even by a little greed,” as the Church sings
in praise of him. St. John did not warn the soldiers to fight hard in battle or

15. John the Baptist was the precursor of the Christ and, after Mary, the most
prominent saint throughout the Middle Ages and up to Bellarmine’s time. Christ at
the Last Judgment was a popular subject among medieval and Renaissance painters:
in such paintings Mary usually appeared to the right of Christ, and John the Baptist
to his left.
226 Jesuits and Politics

show themselves obedient to their general or anything of that sort. Partly

the love of praise and partly the fear of punishment were enough to moti-
vate them to these things. Indeed, in a military camp the punishment for
stubborn disobedience was death. Therefore he dealt only with those ac-
tions that by an abuse of military obedience either were not punished or
were very lightly punished. But before God they were very grave sins.
Therefore in the first place John the Baptist attacks violent robbery. He
says, “Rob no one by violence.” For it used to be common among soldiers
to employ force on those they were dealing with or their neighbors, even
though these were friends and not enemies, or to make them carry burdens
or hand over the food they had prepared for themselves or to provide the
soldiers with beds or bedrooms that each citizen had for his own use, or to
force the people to wait on them as if they were servants. These things and
much more are included in the words “Rob no one by violence”—that is,
do not force anybody to do things or put up with things that nobody is
legally held to do or endure. These injuries are very common among sol-
diers, as I myself could bear witness. For once, when I was passing through
a region where war was being waged, I asked both peasants and also city
folk which side they were on. They answered, “On neither. They are all our
enemies. Those who are called our friends are often a greater danger to us
than those who are called our enemies.”
Next, St. John condemns false accusations made by soldiers saying, “Do
not make false accusations.” This is another vice that soldiers generally fall
into. It often happens that they level false accusations against anybody they
encounter—they are spies, or enemies, or deserters. And without any basis
in justice, the soldiers robbed or wounded such people or took them cap-
tive. Unhappy are those who have nobody to testify to their innocence;
they are forced to either buy their way out of trouble by a large sum of
money or to endure cruel sufferings. Would that such things were not com-
monplace in Christian military camps! Good princes ought to devote their
full strength to driving these things from our midst. In the end, the blessed
Precursor of our Lord teaches all soldiers to be content with their wages and
not pillage the property of others. We do not know whether the soldiers
who heard what St. John said carried it out. We do know this: that in our
times not only is this salutary teaching observed rarely, and by few [sol-
diers], but also no small trouble is inflicted on the citizens of the cities
where the soldiers need to have winter quarters or stay for a time. But per-
haps city folk are forced to provide the things the soldiers lack because the
soldiers are not paid their salaries on time.
This can happen because the soldiers do not receive their salaries on
time, but in the interval justice is disregarded. God, who sees and weighs
everything on an accurately balanced scale, will severely punish those who
Robert Bellarmine 227

do evil. Princes therefore ought to work so that the salaries owed the sol-
diers are paid on time. Then, if the soldiers do not follow the commands of
St. John, it should be brought to the princes’ attention in such a way that
the soldiers learn to be content with their pay and not inflict harm on the
city folk with whom they are living.
These things that have been said about soldiers can be applied to all the
court officials: they too should be content with their salaries. If they receive
anything beyond their salary they should recognize the generosity of the
prince and not take it as retribution owed them. Besides that, they should
set an example of modesty, kindness, and justice to all other people who
serve private inheritors and reside in private homes. It frequently happens
that while the prince is modest and kindly, his court officials are arrogant
and harsh. The prince insists on justice and does no injury to anybody, but
his officials are not content with their own salaries; they lust after gifts and
practically sell access to the prince or to other things that are part of their
office. But vices of this sort, which can affect the prince’s good reputation,
can be easily headed off if the prince earnestly and frequently recommends
household discipline to the chief steward of the palace and orders him to
take care, either personally or through others, that nothing happen in the
palace that might result in injury to God or to the prince’s reputation.
It is also very important that the prince earnestly warn his relatives and
court officials not to turn people who are involved in criminal or civil law-
suits over to public judges. They should not get involved in the distribution
of government offices or magistracies. For this results in applying a certain
pressure in law cases as long as the judges dare not ignore the recommenda-
tions of the prince’s court; meanwhile, courtiers get rich from the goods of
poor people. It also frequently happens that public offices are pretty much
up for sale to greedy people. Ambitious men love this, to the great harm of
justice for the people.
There remains one crime that is common to soldiers and court officials:
that they easily flatter their prince. They praise to the skies anything he says
or does, as if it were a statement of the highest wisdom or a most splendid
deed. Like a sweet poison, this flattery slips easily into [the prince’s] mind,
unless he has a mind truly humble and fully submissive to God. It is be-
yond telling how numerous and serious are the troubles that arise when the
poison of flattery takes over the prince’s mind. For the person who gives ear
to flatterers first reeks with pride and walks, as the Scriptures say, into great
and marvelous things that are above him and thinks that everything is easy
for him [Ps. 131:1]. He then scorns the advice of the wise or spurns them as
timid, or if they happen to steer him away from deeds that are more dan-
gerous than advantageous, he thinks they are envious of his glory. Against
people of this sort we have the wonderful example of Canute the Great,
228 Jesuits and Politics

king of England and Denmark. I am going to insert here a passage that

Polydore Vergil wrote for the instruction of great princes:

Therefore King Canute sometimes used to walk along the ocean shore
to refresh his mind. There a solder who was serving him called out to
him in the wind as he took his leisure, “O King of Kings, by far the
most powerful of all, you command the lands and seas far and wide.”
Then the king was quiet; his mind suddenly alert to contemplating
God’s power so that he might refute the pompous assertions of his
lords and soldiers by an argument. He took off his cloak and wrapped
it in a ball and sat on it as near the water as possible when a strong tide
was pushing in from above. He said, “I command you, O wave, not to
touch my feet.” When he said this, his men were wondering why he
was doing this. The rising tide soaked everything. Then he stepped
back a bit and said, “See, my lords, you call me the King of Kings who
can command land and sea. But I was not able by my command to
stop this little wave or slow it down. No mortal man is worthy of such
a title. There is one King, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, with
whom He reigns. All things are ruled by a nod [of His head]. Let us
worship Him, let us call Him King, let us profess that He rules over
the heavens, the earth and the sea.” After this he went to Winchester
and with his own hands placed the crown he used to wear on the head
of the statue of Christ crucified that hung in the church of the
Apostles Peter and Paul. After this he never used this sort of splendid
ornament on his head.16

From this [story] godly princes can learn not only to disregard flatterers
but also to teach them. [They can also learn] to keep adulation from puff-
ing them up with pride and to make progress in humility and to rejoice in
the true glory of their only Lord.
Book 1, Chapter 21. The Duty of a Prince toward his Equals.
We have written with our usual brevity about the duty of a prince toward
his superiors and toward his inferiors. It now follows for us to reflect on
how princes should deal with their equals. By “equals” we refer to those
men who are not superior to or subject to one another, such as are all those
who are called independent princes. . . .

16. Polydore Vergil’s English History (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation,
1968, originally printed for the Camden Society, 1846) vol. 1, p. 277. Polydore
Vergil (1470?–1555?) was an Italian humanist summoned to the court of Henry VII
to write an elegant Latin history of the English kings. The story of Canute is espe-
cially famous. Canute (994?–1035) was king of England (1016–35), Denmark
(1018–35), and Norway (1028–35). He fought and won wars against English op-
ponents and Sweden. He was a skilled, popular, and devout ruler.
Robert Bellarmine 229

First, a powerful prince should not, for any reason or on any pretext, op-
press a weaker prince, even if he can do so easily. . . . So that we may warn
princes a bit more carefully about such an important matter, they should
take it for granted that it is not in any way permitted to oppress by war a
neighboring prince or any other person unless the conditions for a just war
are present. The four conditions [for a just war] usually listed are: legitimate
authority, a just cause, a good intention, and reasonable conduct.17 Legiti-
mate authority belongs to an independent prince. . . . Private citizens, if
they are injured by another citizen, must have a common judge to whom
they have recourse. But princes who are really independent do not have
[that option]. The cause of a just war is an injury received from another
prince or also from an independent republic that does not have a higher
[ruler]. . . .
But we have to give very close attention to this: the injury that is being
redressed by war should not be dubious or minor but certain and serious.
Otherwise there is danger that a war may cause more harm instead of the
good that was hoped for from the war. Hence it is not easy for a powerful
prince to make a judgment about the cause of a just war against a weaker
prince because a desire to increase his principality may drive him to think
he has a just cause for going to war when this is not really the case. In this
matter he should not trust too much in his own local professors but should
seek the advice of foreigners, those who are respected and highly skilled,
men not looking for money; lightweights and men with a superficial
knowledge of the common consensus should be ignored. For here there is
question of a grave sin that involves many other sins.
A good intention, which is the third condition, is extremely necessary for
a just war. When the purpose of war is peace and the tranquility of the
state, it is not enough to start a war (except in the interest of the common
good) simply because legitimate authority and just cause are not lack-
ing. . . . Not only does the absence of this third condition make the war un-
just, it makes it a bad war even if it is just. In this respect, the third
condition differs greatly from the two previous ones. If they are not present,
the war is not only bad but also unjust since it would clearly be contrary to
justice. But when a war is undertaken for a just cause and by the authority
of a prince but without a good intention, it is against charity but not
against justice.
This factor also deserves careful consideration here: when a war is going
to be started as a means for peace, the means are still very important and

17. Most Christian theologians have traditionally condemned war as evil but have
allowed Christian rulers to engage in war on certain conditions that allow them to
fight a legitimate or “just” war. Bellarmine here explains those conditions.
230 Jesuits and Politics

dangerous. It should not be started immediately; rather other, easier and

better, means should be tried first, as that Moses pointed out in Deuteron-
omy, “When you approach a city to attack it, offer terms of peace to it” [Dt.
20:10]. . . .
There remains the last condition: how [the war is waged]. War should be
fought in such a way that only those who justly deserve to be punished
should be punished. First those who are not from the number of the ene-
mies should be set aside—for instance those who are not citizens of the
enemy state. Those soldiers who have mistreated, pillaged, persecuted, or
captured people through whose land they were marching or those who
when barracked among people often repaid their kind hospitality with evil
deeds, should not be treated mercifully. Such soldiers cannot be excused be-
cause their salaries are not paid them on time, for soldiers have no right to
the goods of people who have done them no harm. Neither should civilians
and friendly peasants be made to pay up because the prince has not paid his
soldiers their salaries. Next, young children, women, old men, and others
who cannot bear arms are out of bounds. Still, these people who cannot
fight can be captured and stripped if they belong to the hostile state. But
they certainly cannot be rightly killed, unless somebody of this sort is killed
by an unintentional accident, for instance when a soldier accidentally
shoots an arrow into an enemy formation and by chance kills a boy or weak
old man. God Himself ordered this of the Hebrews when they were waging
war, that they were to spare children and women. Natural reason teaches
the same thing. What purpose is served by killing many people who cannot
fight, unless it be to show off one’s beastly cruelty? Those passages in Scrip-
ture in which God Himself commands that neither children nor women
nor cattle are to be spared should not be mentioned. God’s command
should be obeyed completely since nobody can ask Him, “Why are you
doing this?” Finally, according to the law of the Church the following kinds
of people are not to be harmed: priests, monks, converts, pilgrims, mer-
chants, and peasants who are coming or going or living by agriculture and
the animals used in plowing or in transporting seed to the fields—for they
have a right to enjoy a proper security.
These are then the conditions of a just war. Without [these conditions]
no prince should harass any other prince. Still less should a powerful prince
harass a weaker one. Otherwise he should fear the judgments of God, who
often brings it about that the weaker prince easily defeats the stronger one.
 CHAPTER 8

JESUITS IN THE EYES

OF THEIR ENEMIES

Introduction

Few groups in history have inspired such enthusiastic praise or such bitter
hatred as the Jesuits. Webster’s dictionary gives two meanings for Jesuit:
first, a member of the Society of Jesus; second, “one given to intrigue or
equivocation, a crafty person.” Jesuit and Jesuitical carry the same hostile
connotations in most Western languages. During the 14th and 15th cen-
turies, members of the Dominican and Franciscan orders were the favorite
targets of the anticlericalism that was widespread in Europe. The Protestant
reformers built upon this anticlericalism; their attacks on Catholic doctrine
and practice tended to stress the sins of the clergy—the sloth, greed, igno-
rance, and promiscuity of priests and friars as well as the wealth, pride, and
power of bishops and popes. Most of these accusations, however, did not fit
the Jesuits very well. By contemporary standards, most Jesuits were well ed-
ucated. The few who were promiscuous were expelled from the order. Few
were greedy as individuals (though raising funds for their colleges did lead
the Jesuits to cultivate favor with the rich and powerful). Jesuit priests were
seldom accused of being lazy; on the contrary, they were accused of work-
ing all too hard for an evil cause. Both Protestants and Catholics, laypeople
and clergy, often accused the Jesuits with excessive pride—and this charge
usually stuck.
Luther and Calvin opposed all religious orders in principle. Protestants
tended to see the Jesuits as the shock troops of the Counter-Reformation
who preached and wrote books against Protestant teachings (as was illus-
trated in Chapter 4). An elite body within the order, called the Professed
Fathers, took a special vow to go on missions if so ordered by the pope.
(This group included less than 5 percent of the order under Loyola; the
Professed Fathers’ numbers grew after his death.) This vow was widely in-
terpreted as a vow of blind obedience to the pope on all matters by all Je-
suits. Many Protestants during the Reformation regarded the pope as the

231
232 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

Antichrist—as Satan’s lieutenant on earth. To such Protestants the Jesuits

were the most dangerous agents of the papal Antichrist.1
Catholic opposition to the Jesuits was also widespread. Many friars, es-
pecially many Dominicans, saw the Jesuits as upstart rivals. The Domini-
cans, the Order of Preachers, had long been the religious order that stressed
scholarship and learning among its members. Now the Jesuits were not
only enjoying great success as preachers but were also opening colleges all
across Catholic Europe to train lay students, a ministry neglected by the
Dominicans. This chapter traces opposition to the Jesuits by two of the
most prominent Spanish Dominicans in the mid-16th century: the great
theologian Melchor Cano (1509–60) and Juan Martìnez Silíceo, the arch-
bishop of Toledo and primate of Spain.2 It also records the hostility directed
against the Jesuits by the ordinary people of Zaragoza.
As noted earlier the Jesuits, unlike other religious orders, did not recite or
sing the Divine Office in common. Many monks and friars believed com-
mon recitation was central to the lifestyle of a religious order, and that,
therefore, the Jesuits were not a legitimate religious order. Others criticized
the extreme centralization of power in the hands of the Jesuit general, who
was elected for life and appointed all other important superiors. Other or-
ders were much more democratic and decentralized. Many Catholics re-
garded the Jesuits as proud, arrogant, and power-hungry.
The Jesuits’ loyalty to the pope and the fact that Loyola and many of his
first companions were Spaniards caused many non-Spanish Catholics to
identify the Jesuits with the expansion of papal influence and the imperi-
alistic ambitions of Philip II of Spain. This attitude was especially strong
in France, the nation against which Spain fought seven wars in the 16th
century. But it was also common in the Netherlands, which was fighting
for independence from Spanish control after 1560, and in England, where

1. Two interesting, bitter, and yet humorous examples of Protestant anti-Jesuit lit-
erature were written in Jacobean England. The most popular play of the era was
Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess (1624), which opens with a dialogue between
Error personified and Loyola, who is pictured as a disciple of Machiavelli: Thomas
Middleton, A Game at Chess, edited by T. H. Howard-Hill (Manchester: Manches-
ter University Press, 1993). John Donne, the leading preacher and poet of the age,
wrote Ignatius His Conclave, edited by T. S. Healy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969),
which traces Loyola’s descent into hell, his confrontation with Satan, and his ap-
pointment as Satan’s top lieutenant.
2. Juan Martìnez Silíceo, O.P., studied at the University of Paris, where he pub-
lished a book on mathematics in 1541. He then returned to Spain and taught at the
University of Salamanca. He was made archbishop of Toledo in 1546.
Introduction 233

Henry VIII had rejected the papacy and where Elizabeth I fought against
Spain for some twenty years.3 To most Englishmen, the English Jesuits
were traitors. To many French, the Jesuits were undermining the special
status and liberties enjoyed by the French church within Catholicism; and
besides, the Jesuits were allied with the Spanish enemy. In France the ene-
mies of the Jesuits held key positions at the University of Paris and in the
Parlement of Paris. This chapter prints a selection from Juan Polanco’s ac-
count of anti-Jesuit hostility among French university professors and the
hostility of the bishop of Paris. It also includes part of the learned and
lengthy attack on the Jesuits by Étienne Pasquier, a leading member of the
Parlement of Paris. The popular hostile stereotype of the Jesuit is well cap-
tured by Jean Lacouture: “Devious in manner, modest in demeanor, but
sly and vain in appearance, he went his way, from the confessional to bed-
chamber, stage left, stage right—a stiletto concealed between the pages of
his prayer book or between soutane and velvet hairshirt, all ad majorem
Dei gloriam [for the greater glory of God].”4
This chapter closes with two attacks on the Jesuits published in 1601 by
Christopher Bagshaw (1552–1625?) and William Watson (1559?–1603).
These English Catholic secular priests felt that the Jesuits slandered and
looked down upon diocesan priests. They accused the Jesuits of meddling
in politics, of favoring the Spanish in England’s war against Spain (which
dragged on from 1588 to 1604), and of having too much influence with
Archpriest George Blackwell (1545–1612), who had charge of English
Catholics in the absence of Catholic bishops in England.

3. The best short introduction to anti-Jesuit writings in early modern Europe is

Peter Burke’s essay “The Black Legend of the Jesuits: An Essay in the History of
Social Stereotypes,” in Christianity and Community in the West: Essays in Honor of
John Bossy, edited by Simon Ditchfield (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001),
pp. 165–82. Burke stresses English attacks on the Jesuits. French attacks are re-
viewed in Jean Lacouture’s Jesuits: A Multibiography, translated by Jeremy Leggatt
(Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1995), pp. 348–77. Similar attitudes abounded
in 19th-century Europe—see Rósín Healy, The Jesuit Specter in Imperial Germany
(Leiden: Brill, 2003) and Geoffrey Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth: Conspiracy and Politics
in Nineteenth-Century France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). Americans shared
this hostility: on May 6, 1816, former president John Adams wrote to former pres-
ident Thomas Jefferson, “If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation
on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola’s.” The Adams–Jefferson Letters: The
Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams,
Lester Cappon, editor (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959) vol.
2, p. 474.
4. Lacouture, Jesuits: A Multibiography, pp. 350–51.
234 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

Juan Polanco

Selections from Chronicon

[Chapter 2 of this book (on Jesuit education) includes selections from Polanco’s
Chronicon dealing with the pioneer Jesuit college at Messina; Chapter 6 con-
tains selections from the Chronicon illustrating special pastoral ministries. The
passages from the Chronicon offered in this chapter describe the opposition
faced by the Jesuits in Spain. This opposition came from Melchor Cano, a Do-
minican; Archbishop Silíceo of Toledo; and the common folk living in
Zaragoza. These selections are followed by passages illustrating French opposi-
tion to Jesuits from the Parlement of Paris, the University of Paris, and the
bishop of Paris. These latter passages are arranged chronologically.5]

Opposition to the early Jesuits in Spain

The Year 1548: 260. Melchor Cano attacks the Jesuits.
. . . There was a certain friar of the Order of Preachers in the illustrious
College of Saint Stephen; he was famous for his learning, as erudite in his
writings as he was famous for his preaching. He lectured in the chair (which
they call that of the first hour). He persuaded himself that the end times
were already at the door and that the Anti-Christ had been born. For vari-
ous human reasons he was hostile to Father Ignatius, whom he had known
at Rome. The conviction that both Ignatius and his companions were the
precursors of the Anti-Christ began to become seated in his heart, and that
very solidly. He wanted the signs of the Anti-Christ and his ministers to fit
our men exactly. Hence he began to brandish these spears against the Soci-
ety and its Institute and its members both in private conversations and in
his Lenten sermons so much that almost all his hearers recognized that he
was speaking about our men. Because of his reputation he so influenced the
people that they pointed out with their finger our men who were walking
the street and urged one another to beware of their tricks since they feared
[our men] as servants and supporters of the Anti-Christ. Respected men,

5. As in Chapters 2 and 6, each section is listed by year and number as found in the
volumes of the Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu edition of Polanco’s Chronicon.
The translations are Year by Year with the Early Jesuits, 1537–1556: Selections from
the Chronicon of Juan de Polanco, S.J., edited and translated by John Patrick Don-
nelly, S.J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004), pp. 80–1, 107, 134, 184–5,
235–8, 291–3, 343–4, 386–7, 390–2. These passages are used with the permission
of the Institute of Jesuit Sources.
Juan Polanco 235

many of whom Doctor [Miguel] Torres6 consulted, did not approve of the
zeal or prudence of this sort of preacher. [Torres] had greeted the preacher
himself politely before he attacked our men. Nonetheless he [Cano], both
by himself and by another preacher of his Order whom he had perhaps won
over to his viewpoint, wanted to drive out our men, who had not yet set
foot in Salamanca. When finally Doctor Torres dealt with him face to face
and kindly asked him to restore the wounded reputation of the Society,
which the Apostolic See had approved, he did not make him any more fair
minded toward Ours; rather on the contrary, [Cano] began to make this
and that objection, and he asserted that the people should be forewarned so
that they would not allow themselves to be deceived, and he said that noth-
ing displeased him more than the fact that Doctor Torres was one of
Ours—a man he said he thought well of. He asked a certain famous
preacher of his Order, who is called Juan of Segovia, to join him in attack-
ing the Society. After [Cano] had spoken at length to this purpose, [Juan]
like a prudent man smiled and answered with a single word that it was not
appropriate for him to condemn that Institute before the Church had con-
demned it.
261. Opposition to the Jesuits at Alcalá
. . . Some people who from the outset had not thought well of our In-
stitute, so that they might be seen as having been good at divination,
boasted that the Society would soon be destroyed. Moreover, the Arch-
bishop of Toledo [Silíceo], who showed himself less than fair toward
Ours, threatened that he was going to come to Alcalá and examine both
our lives and our ceremonies and Institute. . . . Moved by these [anti-Je-
suit accusations], as we have said, the Rector [of the University of Alcalá]
called in Francisco de Villanueva [the Jesuit superior]; he satisfied the
Rector by explaining everything in detail and asked him to convoke a
meeting of the theology faculty and look into all the causes of this rumor
and of the whole disturbance and make notes on those points about
which they [the faculty] wanted to be satisfied. [Villanueva] would be
most grateful if the truth were sought out with the greatest rigor and that,
if it pleased the Rector, this examination should be entrusted to those
who had showed themselves the most opposed [to the Society]. This last
part pleased the Rector, and he turned the affair over to the three doctors
who had in public shown themselves more jealous of the Society than the
others. Villanueva went to them and satisfied all their doubts both con-
cerning the Spiritual Exercises (about which they had harbored many

6. Torres (1509–93) was the superior at the Jesuit college in Salamanca in 1548.
Loyola had great confidence in him and appointed him provincial superior of
southern Spain (1554–55) and of Portugal (1555–61).
236 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

falsehoods in their hearts) and the rest of the things pertaining to our In-
stitute and our way of proceeding.

The Year 1549: 461. Cano returns to the attack.

One of the most prominent and noble ladies of that city, who regarded
Ours with a great deal of charity, was just on the point of giving her
daughter to a certain count with a dowry of 50,000 ducats when the
daughter denied that she wanted to marry anybody. This so exasperated
the mother that when she suspected that [her daughter’s decision] had
come from listening to the teaching of Ours, she began to think evil of and
even speak out against Ours. That same religious of the Order of Saint
Dominic [Melchor Cano], who on our first arrival warned people to avoid
Ours like servants of the Anti-Christ, when he was about to leave Sala-
manca for the congregation of his Order, in his last lecture he warned his
listeners over and over to be on guard against new teaching, not only in
writings but also in behavior. Therefore God wanted Ours always to have
some people who would put them to the trial lest Ours have their heads
puffed up by prosperity and success and so that they might profit from
contradictions.

The Year 1550: 218. The origins of the name Jesuit.

At this time a certain Carmelite preacher, while explaining in the church
of Saint Severinus the expression of Paul “brothers in Christ Jesus,” at this
point began to attack our Society because at Paris and Rome they had
usurped for themselves the name Jesuits, as if they alone were brothers in
Christ Jesus. He urged the people not to make much of this title since
sometimes a book has a catchy title but has nothing good inside. Therefore
just like that preacher at Salamanca [Melchor Cano], he urged his listeners,
among whom were many professors, to beware. Our friends thought it
worthwhile for Father Battista to meet with him, but he thought it better to
defeat such words with patience.
. . . Nonetheless some members of the Order of Preachers, with a zeal
that was perhaps not evil but was uninformed, kept attacking Ours, and it
is certain that they tried to encourage the ministers of justice to visit our
house to check on what books Ours owned. There was also a man who
when preaching viciously attacked certain clerics who were considered holy.
His statement was taken as applying exclusively to Ours. They achieved
little, and some support from papal authority was sent from Rome against
such troublemakers, and as we said above, letters patent from the General
himself of the Order of Preachers imposed silence on detractors belonging
to his Order.
Juan Polanco 237

The Year 1551: 354. More friction with Archbishop Silíceo.

The same day Father Villanueva set out for Toledo with the plan that, if
he was unable to please the Archbishop with good manners and arguments,
he would go on to the Royal Council lest he allow force to be used against
the Society contrary to the grants of the Holy See. Before going to Toledo,
during his dealings with the court at Madrid, he presented the Apostolic
Letters to the Council and asked it for a provision so that he could inform
the Archbishop about the Apostolic Letters. But because such matters were
not usually dealt with so quickly by the Royal Council, on the advice of the
apostolic nuncio7 and with a letter from him to the Archbishop and other
people he went on to Toledo. The Archbishop did not hide his hostility
toward the Society and put forward several arguments, namely that the So-
ciety had built our house at Alcalá without his permission, that it was called
the Society of Jesus, that [Ours] were engaged in the ministry of preaching
and hearing Confessions without his own permission, that the Spiritual Ex-
ercises, which he himself did not regard as evangelical, made people fools so
that noblemen did not act like noblemen, and so forth. When Villanueva
tried to answer each charge at length, he resorted to threats since his atti-
tude rested not on reasons but on emotions. If anybody brought up the
Apostolic Letters to him, he asserted that he would throw the person into
prison. He said, “Here we don’t need a Supreme Pontiff,” and other things
which would be better left unsaid. Finally he said he would be coming to
Alcalá—his usual response when he intended to do nothing.
The Year 1552: 501. Still more troubles with Archbishop Silíceo of Toledo.
We noted above how zealously in the name of the Supreme Pontiff his
legate Cardinal Poggio dealt with the Archbishop of Toledo so that he
would suspend his edict and prohibition about exercising its ministries
that he had promulgated against the Society. Father Ignatius had also or-
dered that information be gathered and sent to Rome about the things
which he had devised against the Society. Father Francisco Villanueva
spent almost three months in this business, which forced him to make var-
ious trips, and he did not stop commending the Archbishop to the Lord in
his own prayers and in those of the brethren. Earlier he alone was involved
in this business; then Doctor [Miguel] Torres joined him, as we have said,
but when he returned to Salamanca, Villanueva was left alone at the task
in the end. At the start the reason for the edict could not be ascertained.
Earlier a general edict of the Archbishop had gone out that nobody should

7. The apostolic or papal nuncios were the pope’s diplomatic representatives,

roughly equivalent to ambassadors, at the various royal courts of Europe.
238 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

administer the sacraments unless he had been examined by [the Arch-

bishop’s] visitors; hence [Villanueva] subjected himself and Ours to this
edict lest he offend the Archbishop, and requested from his visitor, called
Master Palacios, faculties for Ours. Nonetheless, an edict was issued
against the Society by name and forbidding us to hear Confessions,
preach, offer mass, and revoking all faculties given by his visitors.
503. Silíceo’s opposition to Jesuits of Jewish ancestry.
The reason for the anger of the Archbishop [of Toledo] was then real-
ized: namely that the Society had admitted some men [of Jewish ancestry]
whom he himself had excluded from the church in Toledo by his edict.
Thus the Archbishop had given this reason to Prince Philip and had writ-
ten so that [Philip] himself would see to it that the Society would not
admit men of the sort which he had excluded from his church. He then
would favor the Society with his whole power. He also spoke well of the
Society with other people, but he would not allow those of whom we
spoke [to enter the Society]. It was understood that Cardinal Poggio had
promised the Archbishop two things, first that none of that sort of person
would be admitted to the college of Alcalá whom he himself had excluded
in his edict from the church of Toledo and second that the Society would
act toward him in the same way as the other Religious Orders. The Cardi-
nal then promised these two things to the Archbishop, leaving Ours in
total ignorance. Because some scholarly and noble men to whom some
part of the Archbishop’s edict applied wanted to enter the Society, and if
they were sent elsewhere, other people would easily note it. The Cardinal
replied that when this storm was blown over, Ours could make free use of
their privileges and the purpose of their institute, seeing that his promise
could not be binding on us without our consent.
516. Silíceo relents.
I will not omit that when the Archbishop of Toledo revoked that edict of
his and laid down the opposite in favor of the Society he added these words:
“Because they have submitted to our jurisdiction.” Although in revoking
his previous statement he seemed to have added this out of concern for his
honor, still it seemed good to Ours that for our part these words should not
be passed over in silence without some protest. Thus Father Pedro Tablares
went to the royal court and protested before the notary of the Apostolic
Nuncio that Ours were in no way submitting themselves to the power of
the Archbishop. Indeed, this was done in the presence of the Legate himself
and appeal was made from that phraseology. I add also that the Archbishop
had been persuaded that all of Ours were new Christians [men of Jewish
ancestry] and he said as much to Prince Philip. But when he realized that
this was not the case, the main reason which had armed him against the So-
ciety came to a halt. He also was convinced and objected against Ours that
Juan Polanco 239

we had withdrawn ourselves from episcopal jurisdiction and that we

wanted to enter the church of Toledo against his will. Then Father Araoz8
showed him the letters patent of Father Ignatius in which he specified that
with the consent and permission of the bishops we would undertake to hear
Confessions and preach in their dioceses. The Archbishop received and
read these letters and noted the signature of Father Ignatius and said that it
was a welcome surprise for him to see this, for he would not have believed
it without seeing it. He was so pleased by what was prescribed in those let-
ters that he immediately ordered the Governor of Alcalá to proceed no fur-
ther in a suit against the college of the Society which he had planned on
since he was just about to receive a sentence to tear down the walls sur-
rounding our garden, and as we recounted above, he offered to supply the
needs of the Society. . . .
The Year 1555: 1062. Those at Zaragoza who receive the sacraments from
Jesuits incur excommunication.
Here is the tenor of the decree which the aforesaid Vicar General [Lope
Marco] affixed to our doors: “Because some clergy, [acting] on their own
authority and dismissing the fear of God, have said Mass, preached and ad-
ministered the sacraments in a profane house, he was warning in advance
all rectors and vicars to publicize this in their churches lest anybody go to
any of the aforesaid ministries in the aforesaid house. If anybody acted oth-
erwise, he would incur excommunication.”
1068. The other religious orders at Zaragoza combine against the Jesuits.
When this decree was put into effect regarding Ours, all the rectors and
vicars met together several times so they could work as one body against
our college because Ours at Zaragoza were an annoyance to them. From
this the people began to grow extremely obstreperous. It was said by many
that our adversaries were stirring up the people, using means both public
and secret.
1072. A gang of boys at Zaragoza stone the Jesuit house.
That same day some throngs of boys with a banner on which some dev-
ils and perhaps some of Ours were painted came armed with stones against
our house and began throwing stones at it. But immediately some of the
Viceroy’s ministers raced there and grabbed two or three of those boys, who
confessed that they had been encouraged to this by some clergy and also by
some unknown monks. The royal treasurer and city proceeded against
them. Immediately the monks and the pastors marched through the whole
city for three days with a bell, marching along the public streets against our
house and the crowd threw stones to scare us. They carried a crucifix facing

8. Antonio Araoz was Loyola’s nephew and the Jesuit superior in Spain.
240 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

backwards and covered by a black cloth and chanted in public from the
Psalm [Ps. 109:1], “Be not silent, O God of my praise,” which contains so
many curses. This business stirred up an amazing hostility, and the crowd
was so excited against Ours that everything was full of shouting and some
horrible things were said against Ours.
1073. Aragonese versus Castilians, common folk versus noblemen at Zaragoza.
On orders from the Archbishop [Hernando de Aragon] all those belong-
ing to religious orders in the city (except for the [Order] of Saint Jerome)
gathered together against Ours and no limit was set to the complaints,
threats and false accusations. The people were otherwise pretty free and
were stirred up by the Archbishop, churchmen and the Religious Orders.
Most of our few men working in Zaragoza were Castilians, against whom
the Aragonese usually harbored a prejudice. There was fear not only that
the lives of Ours might be in danger but also that the nobles, who were fa-
vorable to Ours, might face a riot from the people. When the boys first at-
tacked our house with stones, many noblemen were playing soccer on a
nearby field or were watching the players. Half naked they rushed to our
defense, although some went to the Viceroy, who himself came with great
nobility. There were grounds to fear a major riot.
1074. Efforts for a compromise reach an impasse.
Before things went that far our adversaries sought concord, but they
would not allow us to build anything or preach or administer the sacra-
ments or say Mass in public. Had they allowed the last items, as regards
Masses and Confessions, perhaps Ours would have agreed.
1075. The Archbishop ignores higher authorities.
Princess Juana9 tried zealously to favor justice for Ours and wrote the
Archbishop and his vicar, the abbot, and she ordered that they rescind
whatever they had done against our privileges. The Supreme Council of
Aragon in its decree ordered that our [papal] bulls be observed. But the
Archbishop would not yield to anyone, nor was he willing to obey either
the Apostolic Letters or the brief which the apostolic nuncio sent him re-
garding these negotiations.
1079. The Jesuits leave Zaragoza.
Generally [the city authorities] were quite pleased with our departure.
Lest they seem to be expelling Ours when Ours were leaving of their own
accord, one of the officials and one senator accompanied them when they
left the city. But so great was the mob of those who lined the city streets
to watch Ours that they seemed to be coming to some public spectacles.

9. Princess Juana was the sister of Philip II; during Philip’s absences from Spain she
served as regent. She pressured Loyola into allowing her to take secret vows as a Je-
suit. She was the last female Jesuit.
Juan Polanco 241

They had done this at other times when Ours were going somewhere
from their house. The people attacked Ours with loud shouts and even
injuries, for it seemed that churchmen and religious had persuaded the
common folk that Ours were the cause of this uproar and the interdict,
especially when they saw Ours depicted as surrounded by devils, as we
said above.

Opposition to the early Jesuits in France

The Year 1553: 646. Troubles with members of the Parlement of Paris.
When on the day [February 2] of the Purification of Mary10 [Paschase
Broët11] visited many of the senators and asked them to favor our cause,
some of them offered their help, but he offended some to a remarkable de-
gree. There was one of them who said that the devil had dreamed up this
Society and was its founder. Father Paschase responded to him that he be-
lieved that the Holy Spirit was its founder, not the devil, who is not usually
worried about getting done all the good works which the Society devoted
itself to throughout the whole world, even to the Indies. There was another
[senator] who said that we were superstitious, proud and arrogant with
such anger that good Father Paschase did not have any way to respond since
the senator would not listen. Instead of responding, [Broët] armed himself
with patience. But in the end [the senator’s] anger passed away and the two
went off as friends. In saying goodbye Father asked him to recommend our
Society as the Lord inspired him to speak. The General Procurator of the
King, normally a pious Catholic, honestly confessed that he could not
bring himself to support a confirmation of our privilege. He went over sev-
eral reasons which seemed to affect the good of the state which delayed ex-
pediting our cause. He clung to this position despite the pleas of the Bishop
of Claremont.
647. The troubles continue.
When Father Paschase went to the first president and asked him to expe-
dite our business, he asked that if the Parlement decided something against
our Society, [the matter] should be referred to the King. But the president
began to shout that there were enough religious orders and that, if we
wanted to be religious, we should enter [the Order] of Saint Francis or the

10. Forty days after the birth of a firstborn male, Jewish women had to undergo a
purification ceremony at the temple in Jerusalem (see Lev. 12:2–8). For Mary’s pu-
rification, see Lk. 2: 22–39. The Christian feast day of the Purification was forty
days after Christmas.
11. Broët was the Jesuit superior in Paris. He was also one of Loyola’s first compan-
ions from their student days in Paris.
242 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

Carthusians or some other order.12 When Father Paschase said that purpose
of our Institute was different, he answered with great anger, “You don’t per-
form miracles, do you, or do you think you are better than the other [or-
ders]?” . . . Many people objected that we had usurped the name of the
Society of Jesus. They said, “Do we, who don’t belong to your Institute, be-
long to the Society of the Devil?” I should add, however that the same per-
son who said that the devil was the founder of the Society was not afraid to
say in the hearing of Father Paschase that the devil had been the leader of
the Council of Trent.13 But all those people denigrated us only with words.
There was one man who thought that Ours should be punished with whips
and be expelled from the University of Paris.
648. The Bishop and University of Paris attack the Jesuits.
Eventually the Parlement reached a decision, entered a new path and
lifted the whole burden from its own shoulders—it transferred judgment
on this whole controversy to the Bishop of Paris [Eustace du Bellay] and the
Faculty of Theology. It seems quite clear that the Parlement did this to pre-
vent the Society from gaining any advantage, since its members could easily
learn the attitude of the Bishop and the doctors of theology. Father
Paschase took the sentence of the Parlement along with our Apostolic Let-
ters and privileges and the royal grant to the Bishop and the faculty of the-
ology. When he first came to the Bishop, the Bishop sang the same old song
as the others, that there were already quite enough and more than enough
Religious Orders without Ours. When Father Paschase said that the
Supreme Pontiff had approved it and the Most Christian King [of France]
had also done so for his realm, [the Bishop] answered that the Supreme
Pontiff could give approval for areas subject to his own temporal jurisdic-
tion but could not give approval for our Religious Order in the Kingdom of
France. The King could not approve a religious order since this was a spiri-
tual question. So much for their first meeting. He added that he would
never allow that the Order of our Society be admitted, which was in his
power. On a second visit [Broët] found him more subdued, but [Broët]

12. The Order of St. Francis is the Franciscans, the largest religious order of Loy-
ola’s time. The Carthusians were an austere monastic order founded by St. Bruno in
1084.
13. The Council of Trent was the ecumenical council convoked by the popes to
deal with the theological challenges of Protestantism and to reform the Catholic
Church. It met periodically from 1545 to 1563. Since the council seemed to be
dominated by bishops from lands under Charles V and later Philip II, the French
kings Francis I and Henry II forbade French bishops to attend most of the sessions.
The Parlement of Paris refused to approve the council’s reform decrees, notably that
of ratifying the papal approval of the Jesuits.
Juan Polanco 243

took care that some of our friends with considerable prestige (among them
the Bishop of Claremont) should talk to the Bishop. Father Ignatius at
Rome also had Cardinal Maffeo write to Cardinal du Bellay.14 [Maffeo]
kindly performed this act of charity and gave a splendid testimonial, as is
clear from his letter.
653. Still more opposition in Paris.
These negotiations with the University were drawn out almost seven
months, and meanwhile the Dean of the theologians tried to argue that the
Society should seek only permission for setting up a college and that Ours
could be admitted to the theology curriculum and receive the doctoral de-
gree. But from Father Paschase, he knew that Ours were more concerned
about preaching good and sound doctrine than in taking degrees of this
sort. Some said that the Society was indeed behaving well now, but would
later degenerate like the other Religious Orders. To these [charges] Father
Paschase in his humility responded that through God’s grace [the Society]
could also persevere and that, although the question of whether it would
degenerate in the course of time was in doubt, it would be good if the
church used its ministry as long as it was doing well. He added that those
to whom they wanted to subject Ours could themselves fall off just as eas-
ily as we could. Nonetheless they declared their opinion that our privileges
should not be approved since the church, that is, an [ecumenical] council,
had not approved them. The Dean said explicitly that a pope could not
give a privilege against the hierarchical order and to the prejudice of bish-
ops and pastors. When Father Paschase presented [contrary] arguments,
they said that what had been laid down by the sacred councils should be
observed.
The Year 1554: 690. More troubles with the Bishop of Paris.
When the [Queen’s] advisor Lord Dumont carried out his business with
the Bishop about promoting [men] to sacred orders, the Bishop told him
explicitly that he would act in a way that he would not seem to be approv-
ing of our Society if he admitted one of Ours to sacred orders. He added
that the theologians had discovered more than forty errors in our apostolic
documents, hence he concluded that our Society was a disgrace. It was not
surprising that the apostolic letter had so little importance for him because
when Father Paschase showed him the approbation of two popes he replied
that the Supreme Pontiffs had done many things that were not good, im-
plying that the approbation of our Society was among them. . . .

14. Cardinal Bernadino Maffeo, who worked at the Roman curia, was a good
friend of the Jesuits. Cardinal Eustace du Bellay, the bishop of Paris, had a long his-
tory of hostility toward the Jesuits.
244 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

703. The theology faculty at the University of Paris issues the following
decree:
“This new Society claiming for itself alone the unusual title of the name
of Jesus admits anybody quite without restraint or discrimination, however
criminal, illegitimate and shameful they be. It has no difference from secu-
lar priests in its outward garb, in tonsure, in saying privately the canonical
hours or in singing them publicly in church, nor in observing cloister, si-
lence, in its choice of foods and days, in fasting and in its various laws and
ceremonies which distinguish and preserve the status of Religious. [The
popes] have given it many and varied privileges, indults and liberties, espe-
cially regarding the administration of the sacraments of penance and the
Eucharist, and that without regard for places and persons. [These privi-
leges] in the office of preaching, lecturing and teaching are prejudicial to
bishops and the hierarchical order. They are also prejudicial to other Reli-
gious Orders and even to temporal princes and lords. They are contrary to
the privileges of universities and finally are a heavy burden on the people.
[This Society] seems to violate the uprightness of the monastic life and
weaken the zealous, pious, and very necessary exercise of virtues, abstinence
and austerity; indeed it provides an opportunity to freely desert the other
Religious Orders and detracts from proper obedience and subjection to
bishops; it unjustly deprives both civil and ecclesiastical lords of their
rights; it brings on trouble for both the [civil and ecclesiastical] community
and jealousies and various schisms. Therefore in all these things and others
which have been carefully examined and thought through, this Society
seems to endanger the matter of faith, to disturb the peace of the Church,
to overthrow the monastic and religious life, and to result in more pulling
down than in building up. Issued by the command of the Dean, the Lords
and the Main Masters of the Faculty of Sacred Theology at Paris.”

The Year 1555: 871. Wild rumors at Paris against the Jesuits.
Of the four professors who accompanied the Cardinal of Lorraine to
Rome, one was Master Benoit of the Order of Saint Dominic, who had
written all the arguments against the Society in the aforesaid decree. An-
other professor was [Claude] Despence, who showed himself much op-
posed to our Institute. As was seen, these returned from Rome with a far
different attitude. Meanwhile some rumormongers boasted that the Society
had lost its lawsuit against the theologians, yet in truth the Society had no
plans to initiate a legal controversy. Some people said that our Institute was
some sly contrivance and crafty deceit of the devil. The rumor was spread
that the founder of our Institute had been a certain Jew who had instituted
this form of religious life in expiation for his shameful crimes.
Étienne Pasquier 245

880. The Bishop and others at Paris attack the Society.

Such contradictions gave Ours more encouragement so that they hoped
that if anywhere, the Society would have a glorious future at Paris since
solid foundations were being laid through so much persecution. But the
Bishop [of Paris Eustace du Bellay], whom Apostolic Letters had assigned
as the Society’s protector and as sort of bronze wall against calumnies,15
stated that after he was informed of the censure of the Sorbonne he was
convinced that the Society should be abolished. When he had Ours
brought before a court of justice, and after they were indicted, his officials
heaped on Ours countless insults and abuse. They added threats; they
called [Ours] hypocrites, schismatics, members of conventicles, founders
of new sects; they said that ecclesiastical censures, prison, and the secular
power also would be employed against Ours if they in the future observed
a form of religious life in accord with our Institute. They forbade Ours to
say Mass, hear Confessions, or administer any sacrament. Ours appealed
to the Pope, thus thwarting the hope of those who were trying to hale us
before the Archbishop [of Lyons and Primate of France]. Thus did those
who were preparing crosses for Ours began to find themselves crucified
and troubled.

Étienne Pasquier

Le Catéchisme des Jésuites16

[In 1602 Pasquier (1529–1615) published the most learned attack on the
early Jesuits. “But the only true begetter of Jesuitphobia, the man who raised
the phenomenon to a new level of the literary genre (and export product) was

15. The fact that the pope’s officials, who drew up the Apostolic Letters for him,
appointed du Bellay, a long-standing enemy of the Jesuits, as protector of the Jesuits
has two possible explanations. Either they were ignorant about du Bellay or they
may have been following orders from the new pope (Paul IV, 1555–59) who, as
Cardinal Giampietro Carafa, also had a long history of hostility toward the Jesuits.
16. Étienne Pasquier’s masterwork was his Le Catéchisme des Jésuites (Paris: Chez
Guillaume Grenier, 1602). Claude Sutto published a modern critical edition with a
long scholarly introduction (Sherbrooke: Les Édition de l’Université de Sherbrooke,
1982), pp. 11–121. The translation here (completed by John Patrick Donnelly with
the help of Joseph Mueller) is based on pp. 425–30 of Sutto’s edition. Pasquier’s
book was rapidly translated and published in several languages. The English transla-
tion of 1602 is entitled The Jesuites Catechisme. Or Examination of their doctrine. . . .
A modern photo reprint of that translation is available in the English Recusant Lit-
erature series, (Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1975), vol. 264.
246 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

Étienne Pasquier.” 17 Pasquier was, for many years, a leading member of the
Parlement of Paris, whose early opposition to the Jesuits was described in sev-
eral passages from Polanco earlier in this chapter. Pasquier had a long history
of opposing the Jesuits. In 1565 he defended the University of Paris’ opposition
to Jesuit efforts to gain university affiliation for Jesuit schools and argued that
Jesuits should be entirely barred from teaching. Though these efforts failed, he
was successful in blocking Jesuit integration into the University of Paris. He
also published a short attack on the order in 1594.]

Book 3
Chapter 24. That the sect of the Jesuits is no less dangerous for our
Church than is the Lutheran sect.
This statement may seem paradoxical at first glace, but it is true. The
arrangement of the hierarchical order of our Church conforms to, and cor-
responds with, the human body in a certain way. In it, the head exercises
kingship over all the other members, among which there are certain noble
parts such as the heart, liver, and lungs, without which neither the head nor
the whole body would subsist. Were one to take away from the head, di-
minishing it to distribute to the other parts, or do the opposite and take
away from the noble parts to give to the head, removing the proportion and
correspondence that ought to exist among all the members, one would ruin
the whole body. The same applies to our hierarchy. The head of the Church
is our Holy Father the Pope; the noble parts under him are the archbishops,
bishops, pastors, and priests. I will add the kings and universities. As for the
rest of the people, they represent the other members of the human body.
Martin Luther was the first to offend the head so as to introduce a form
of aristocracy into our Church and make all the bishops in and beyond
their dioceses equal to the Holy See of Rome.18 From this there emerged
first the sect of the Lutherans and then that of the Calvinists. Several years
later there arose Ignatius of Loyola, who defended the authority of the Holy
See by a totally opposite proposition, but by wearing this out so much that
he did not do less damage to our Church than they did. For pretending to
uphold our Holy Father under better tokens than everybody else and at-
tributing to [the Pope] unprecedented authorities to the prejudice of the

17. Lacouture, Jesuits: A Multibiography, p. 352. Lacouture discusses Pasquier’s hos-

tility toward the Jesuits on pp. 352–54.
18. Pasquier argues that Luther, by attacking the popes as agents of Satan, under-
mined their power and made all bishops equal, thereby replacing the monarchy of
the popes with an aristocracy of the bishops.
Étienne Pasquier 247

bishops, he and his men obtained, successively, from one pope after an-
other, such privileges, indults, and grants to the prejudice of prelates, mon-
asteries, and universities that by allowing them to live in the midst of us,
you are erasing the true face of our Church, universal and Catholic.19 Re-
member what the Jesuit showed to you the other day, and you will find
what I am saying to you is very true.20 The difference, then, that existed be-
tween Luther and Ignatius was that the former troubled our Church by tak-
ing up arms against its head, and the latter by striking against the other
noble parts. It is a vice to attach oneself to extremes; virtue is a rule in the
middle between the two. For me, I believe that the true Catholic, Apostolic,
and Roman Church is that which was in use starting from, and ever since,
the passion of our savior and redeemer Jesus Christ. This is the one ap-
proved by all ancient Doctors of the Church, among whom the least had
more Christian teaching and sentiment in his soul than Luther and his fol-
lowers and than Ignatius and all his confidants. It is the Church in which all
good and faithful Christians ought to live and die.
I will gladly add that I would rather falter with them than run the risk and
hazard of my soul by joining up with these new people. But this would be to
speak wrongly on a matter of such great worth. I will not say, therefore, that
I would prefer them. But I will indeed say boldly that I would fear to falter.
For to say that the Jesuit is the true sword to beat back the blows of the
Lutheran or Calvinist—not only do I not think that; on the contrary, it is
the main way to confirm them in their erroneous opinions. I know that
when one of my friends was attending a sermon—out of curiosity and not
devotion—a minister cried out to his audience, “My brother Christians,
God has looked on us with a merciful eye. Although Martin Luther was
strong enough to fight the papacy with flags flying, it is the case that Ignatius
of Loyola has given us a great advantage, for he has undermined [the papacy]
while pretending to support it. What better way is there to subvert a state
than by internal factions and divisions? And what else do the Jesuits produce
in the Roman Church? Since this [Jesuit] sect is its principal support, we

19. The popes of the 16th century issued various documents granting privileges to
the Jesuits that put them under the authority of their own superiors, unlike dioce-
san priests who were under the authority of local bishops. Papal documents also
gave Jesuit schools authority to grant academic degrees, something that Pasquier
thought undermined the rights of older universities. Earlier popes had granted sim-
ilar privileges to other religious orders.
20. The Jesuits very often defended their activity by showing their opponents
copies of papal documents granting them certain rights and privileges. Pasquier
would deny that the popes had the right to issue such documents since they cur-
tailed the liberties of the French Catholic Church.
248 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

have captured the city. And unquestionably the head must be infinitely sick,
if for the sake of sustaining itself, it ruins all the other noble parts by favor-
ing this novel sect. But what is the cause of this disorder? The vow about
going on an imaginary mission by which the Pope makes himself a sponsor
of their quarreling. My friends, let us then praise God and say what Demea
said of old to her brother Mitius in the comic poet [Terence], ‘Whether he
consumes, is ruined, and dies, it’s not my problem.’ ”21 These six or seven
Latin words uttered against the Holy See are truly blasphemous. But this is
the unbridled license used in various ways by those who mount the pulpits
to preach, attributing all the shortcomings of their rage to the Holy Spirit.
Although this harmful conduct did not move this minister in the least, it
should acutely move the heart of any good Catholic who wants to live and
die in the Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church. We all have an interest in
ensuring that these gentleman ministers do not triumph in this and that
their triumphs not be founded on our Jesuits. Consider whether they have a
basis for saying this. For among the other points in the censure of our the-
ologians in the year 1554,22 it was said that the Jesuits would be seed-beds of
schisms and divisions in our Christian Church and that they were brought
in for its ruin and desolation rather than for building it up. If I have done
wrong in saying that the Jesuit sect is no less dangerous to the true Church
than the Lutheran ones, I have done this not without judgment, having as a
guide in this the judgment of that venerable faculty of theology of Paris.
Chapter 25. Of the notorious enterprise of the Jesuit General against the
Holy See of Rome and of that new sect [the Jesuits] which in time may be
so dangerous to [the papacy].
When the venerable faculty of theology of Paris censured the sect of the
Jesuits in 1554, they took into consideration only the inferior orders, both
spiritual and temporal. But they did not investigate how this concerned the
Holy See. It was also impossible for them, for they had not yet been given
all the bulls or Constitutions [of the Jesuits]. Now that God by his holy
grace has enlightened us over time, I do not hesitate to say that the image of
Lucifer, who wished to make himself equal to God his creator, is repre-
sented in the person of the General of the Jesuits. So this man, who is the
creature of the Pope, gives himself not only equal, but even greater power,
and authority over his own men than the Pope has over the universal

21. “Consumat, perdat, pereat, nihil ad me attinet,” Terence, Adelphi, I, ii, 134.
Terence (c. 185–c. 159 B.C.) was, after Plautus, the most important writer of Latin
comedies.
22. For the university’s condemnation of the Jesuits see p. 244 of this chapter.
Étienne Pasquier 249

Church. In Rome [the Jesuits] broadcast that they obey the Pope absolutely,
not only about going on a mission but also in all other commands. And on
this pretext they have obtained, and are obtaining day after day, an infinite
number of extraordinary privileges to the detriment, and (dare I say) to the
shame of archbishops, bishops, religious orders, universities, and the whole
ancient Catholic Church. Nonetheless, the truth is that, having two objects
to revere, they give incomparably more honor to their own General than to
the Holy See.
Ignatius of Loyola, a Spaniard and a descendant of a great and noble
family, changed his life without changing his nature. . . . For it was he
whom [his first companions] promised to go and meet on a certain day at
Venice; he who gathered them later at Vicenza to deliberate whether they
should return to Rome to set up their new sect; he who took charge of it as
its head. This was the reason why, making sure that they would proceed to
the election of a General of their Order, he could never fail to occupy this
position; he ensured, before they left, that the General would exercise this
office his whole life and would have total power over his men. . . .
Since then, the Order being approved at Rome and Ignatius elected Gen-
eral on this basis of absolute power, he who had been nourished as a youth
in a military milieu, without [training] based on literature, introduced into
the family of the Jesuits a tyrannical government, desiring that all his wishes
and those of his successors as General would be absolutely held as good,
just, and valid. For although they have pretended, since then, to make a
similar vow of obedience to the Holy See and were on this basis authorized
in Rome, it is the case that in all ways they give greater obedience to their
General than to the Pope. I say not to their General only but to all the other
superiors, such as their Provincials and Rectors; even in their vow to go on
a mission their General has more power over them than the Pope does. All
of this is as I have discussed it with you in more detail, speaking as much
about the vow to go on a mission as about blind obedience. Therefore I
conclude—and in concluding I will not be opposed by a soul who is not
strongly prejudiced—that the command the Pope and the General hold
over the Jesuits is sovereign in all matters, but is incomparably more precise
in what concerns their General.
This makes me believe that if the Holy See ever suffered a breach, there
would be no sect so damaging to [the papacy] as the [sect] of the Jesuits,
seeing that their General is in Rome. We cry out against the Lutherans, and
with a good reason, all the more so because they were the first in our cen-
tury to disturb the peace of our Church. But for all that I do not think
them a greater threat against the Holy See than the Jesuits. Some pedant or
stupid schoolboy will say that I am a heretic for having sustained this view.
250 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

I don’t give that any credit. Hear my argument. None of those who we in
France now call those of the “pretended Reformed” or “new Religion” [i.e.,
Calvinists] have any settled or permanent head over them. If they were to
have one, they would be contradicting their own claim to have removed the
primacy from the Pope by bringing in another [primacy] over themselves.
They live in an oligarchy, or better, an aristocracy. . . .
But I fear everything from the Jesuits, not only in France but also in
Rome because their policy aims exclusively at establishing a tyranny over
everybody, which they will achieve step by step if no one straightens this sit-
uation out. They have a General who is not elected for a set term but for his
lifetime, just like the Pope. . . .
Their General serves for life; all the other officials of his Order are tempo-
rary. Under him are the Provincials, according to the division of provinces.
Under them are the Rectors who have specific authority over their houses
and schools and hence over the [professed] fathers and over the spiritual and
temporal coadjutors and over the approved scholastics. As to the principals
of the schools, they are mainly commissioned to watch over the lay students.
These assignments are usually for three years; however, they may be length-
ened or shortened at the pleasure of the General. He decides about temporal
things without any counsel other than his own. He exercises an infinite
number of prerogatives, which are not given even to our bishops.

English Catholic Attacks on the Jesuits

[The next two attacks on the Jesuits were written by English Catholic diocesan or
secular priests. The first attack is excerpted from A Sparing Discovery of our En-
glish Jesuits, and of Father Parsons’s Proceedings under the Pretext of Promot-
ing the Catholic Faith in England, published in London in 1601 by Christopher
Bagshaw. The second attack is taken from William Watson’s prefatory letter to John
Mush’s A Dialogue betwixt a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman. The title
page of that book gives the place and date of publication as Reims, 1601.23

23. The excepts from both Bagshaw and Watson are taken from the photo reprints
of these two books in the English Recusant Literature series (Menston, UK: Scolar
Press, 1970), vol. 39. The spelling, punctuation, and some of the wording have
been modernized to make these two excerpts more readable. The excerpts from
Bagshaw’s book are from pp. 1–8. Unfortunately Watson’s prefatory letter to the
Mush book has no pagination. For further information about the books of
Bagshaw, Mush, Watson, and other English anti-Jesuit tracts of the last years of Eliz-
abeth I as well as the Jesuits’ replies, see Peter Milward, Religious Controversy of the
Elizabethan Age: A Survey of Printed Sources (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1977), pp. 116–24.
Christopher Bagshaw 251

Both these works were part of a quarrel among English Catholics known as
the Appellant Controversy, or Archpriest Controversy. The underground, and
bishopless, Catholic Church in England needed a leader to unify English
Catholics and to serve as a sort of substitute bishop. In 1598 Pope Clement VII
appointed the secular priest George Blackwell as archpriest to serve as the leader
of the English Catholic clergy.24 Unfortunately many secular priests considered
Blackwell as too much under the influence of the Jesuits and attacked both
Blackwell and the Jesuits on a range of issues, many of which are raised here by
Bagshaw and Watson. These authors argue that the Jesuits hold secular priests in
contempt and slander them. To Bagshaw and Watson the Jesuits meddle in poli-
tics and stir up sedition, wars, and assassinations; are worldly priests who seek
out positions of influence at royal courts, where they serve as spies for the Jesuit
hierarchy; and cultivate an excessive reverence for the Spaniard Ignatius of Loy-
ola. Both authors accuse the Jesuits of political hypocrisy: they supported Spanish
imperialism and urged Philip II to attack England on several occasions (most
notably the Spanish Armada of 1588); they dared to accuse and insult secular
priests for meddling in politics. Finally, Bagshaw and Watson accuse the Jesuits
with supporting Archpriest Blackwell, whom many secular priests distrusted.]

Christopher Bagshaw

A Sparing Discoverie of Our English Jesuits (1601)

We do not make this mention of religious men, as if we disliked those most
holy and Religious Orders; we are truly persuaded that they were devised and
founded by the Spirit of God. Some of them especially [devoted themselves] to
contemplation and some to join therewith their prayers and travel for assisting
us who are secular priests in the great work committed to us, but not to deal
with us as our new masters the Jesuits do, to oppose themselves as a faction
against us or to calumniate and slander us falsely, or to allure the people’s
hearts from us hypocritically, or to insult or tyrannize over us most proudly
and disdainfully. For this is plainly pharisaical25 and can no longer be well en-
dured. It has already taken deeper root in a short time among us than many
men think, and it will grow to be pernicious to the Catholic Church if they are
not plucked up like pestilential weeds with greater foresight and diligence.

24. For information on Archpriest George Blackwell, see J. H. Pollen, The Institu-
tion of the Archpriest Blackwell (New York: Longmans, Green, 1916).
25. In the four Gospels, Jesus frequently accuses the Pharisee rabbis of being hypo-
critical. Bagshaw sees the Jesuits as acting in the same way.
252 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

Some of their followers have presumed by their directions to affirm in writ-

ing that the Jesuits are more free from error, more familiar with God, more
individually illuminated in all their fitting rewards and more especially are
endowed with the spirit of guiding souls than are secular priests in the har-
vest of God. And thereupon a warning is given to all Catholics to take dili-
gent heed and beware of all priests in general that are not themselves Jesuits
or are related to them and are in all their proceedings advised and guided
by them.
And concerning women, some of them are admitted by our archpriest
and the Jesuits into their secret councils, and both there and elsewhere
among their groups they censure us in the depth of their great judgment
very wisely. [These women] rail upon us of their charity very devoutly, and
they condemn us before they hear us out. Their seducing guides do fawn
upon them, flatter and praise them and that makes the poor souls to be so
fond of them and to dote as they do and run riot after them.
We confess and thank God for it very heartily that as yet many sound
and grave Catholics, both men and women, are not bewitched with the
Sirens’ songs of these new enchanters. . . . 26
In this our rough draft to reveal in some sort unto you the contagion and
practices of our English Jesuitism and Jesuits, we do first treat about them
and such as they are more generally, and then we will be a little bold to claw
Father Parsons27 where he does not itch, as the man that has been and still
continues the chief firebrand that has and does inflame so many hearts of
both men and women with pride, disdain, and malice against us, [who are]
their ancient, most loving, and faithful spiritual Fathers, who notwith-
standing their unkindness toward us, do love them still sincerely and pray-
ing for them continually are ready every day to offer our lives for the honor
of the Catholic Church and for the confirmation of their faith. Now for the
first point, so that you may more truly discern what sort of fellows the Je-
suits are who have thus bewitched many of you: we do refer you (the better

26. In Homer’s Odyssey, the songs of the Sirens lure sailors to destruction. See Book
12, lines 39–52 and 158–198.
27. Robert Parsons, also Persons (1546–1610), was a leading English Jesuit during
his last thirty years. He worked underground in England (1580–81) but returned
to the Continent to train priests for the English mission. His frequent dealings
with Philip II made him a traitor in the eyes of English Protestants and many
Catholics. He wrote several controversial and devotional books. He was a friend
and supporter of George Blackwell as archpriest until Blackwell was captured, im-
prisoned, and forced to take the Oath of Supremacy, which denied all papal au-
thority in England and asserted that the English monarch was supreme head of the
Church in England.
Christopher Bagshaw 253

to ease our pains herein) to certain treatises which have been published to
the world by various good Catholics, as they have professed themselves to
be, against [the Jesuits] and their enterprises in other countries. . . .
The Order of that Society being approved by the Pope is to be honored
by all good Catholics, and the men themselves are to be reverenced—we
mean those who live according to their calling and first institution, which
few of them do. For in recent years many of that Order behave as if religion
were nothing but a mere political device, conceived, framed and upheld
only by human wisdom and sleights of wit. And they were the men that by
Machiavelli’s rules are raised up to maintain [the Jesuit Order] by equivoca-
tions, detractions, dissimulations, ambition, contention for superiority,
stirring up strife, setting kingdoms against kingdoms, raising up rebellions,
murdering Princes, and we know not how many stratagems of Satan com-
ing out of hell and tending to confusion.
The old saying was, “Let the shoemaker meddle with his slipper, the
smith with his anvil, and the priests with their prayers.” But the Jesuits like
frank gamesters are into everything. He is not worth a straw among them
who is not able to manage a kingdom. Matters of state, titles of princes, ge-
nealogies of kings, rights of succession, disposing of scepters and such af-
fairs are their chief studies. Some fear that they are more knowledgeable
[about the works of Pietro] Aretino, Lucian and Machiavelli than their bre-
viaries. . . . 28 Assuredly they do not behave themselves like men of other
Religious Orders. He that tells them to live in a cloister [would be wasting
their time]; such a base kind of life is far unworthy of their excellence.
There are few royal courts in Europe where some of their masterships do
not reside with the purpose of receiving and passing to their General at
Rome all that happens in those parts of the world. They dispatch this infor-
mation to and fro by secret codes. They have either a Jesuit or someone al-
together Jesuited in most of those royal Councils who for the good of the
Society must without scruple deliver to them all known details about the
secrets of their sovereigns.
It is true that all the other Religious Orders have a special esteem for
their own founders, but the Jesuits have carried this whim beyond all lim-
its. Since the inventor of their Order was a Spaniard and a soldier, all of his

28. Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) was an Italian writer known for his poisonous pen,
which earned him the title of Scourge of Princes. He also wrote pornography. Lucian
(c. 120–c. 190) was a Greek who wrote philosophical dialogues spiced with cynical
humor. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) is best known for The Prince, in which he
seems to encourage princes to practice deceit and ruthlessness to increase their
power. The Jesuits were often seen as Machiavellian. Breviaries were the prayer
books with which priests were required to pray daily.
254 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

disciples regardless of the country of their birth are in their hearts and prac-
tices altogether Spanish, breathing little but cruelties, confusions and trou-
bles. They have in their writings, their sermons and by all their endeavors
labored to persuade all Catholics that the king of Spain and our faith are so
linked together that it becomes a point of necessity in the Catholic faith to
put all Europe into his hands, or otherwise the Catholic religion will be ut-
terly extinguished and perish. This is a ridiculous, nay, a wicked conceit,
and like [the Jesuits] themselves it builds the faith of Saint Peter and his
successors upon the King of Spain’s monarchy, as if unless he does not have
all, the Church must come to nothing.
But these courtly rabbis do think they may easily carry us poor secular
priests after their shadows and make us admire whatsoever they tell us.
How they labored in France (even the French Jesuits themselves) to have
lifted the Spaniard onto the throne of that kingdom, with the consequent
overthrow of their own native country, as you are not ignorant. This rang
loudly through all Christendom to their perpetual shame. If they were only
stained with these prodigious and more than heathenish practices and if the
contagion of them had not infected the Jesuits who came among us here in
England, it would much less have grieved all discreet English Catholics and
especially us secular priests. But to our infinite danger it is far otherwise.
For some of them strove mightily in Spain to persuade King [Philip II] to
invade this our country (a plan containing in it the very ocean of all des-
perate calamities) giving the king many reasons why he was bound to un-
dertake that enterprise [the Spanish Armada of 1588] and assuring him of
great assistance here, if once his forces were landed. Since that time hardly
anybody is ignorant about how they urged him to a second and to a third
attempt.

William Watson29

“Preface to the Reader” in John Mush’s A Dialogue

betwixt a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman
Among many letters and treatises that have come into my hands concern-
ing the matters in question between the secular priests and the Jesuits, one

29. Watson was arrested several times by the English government; he escaped three
times from prison, only to be arrested as part of a plot to overthrow James I. He was
executed December 9, 1603. His hatred of the Jesuits was a constant theme
throughout most of his life and writings. A short account of his life, taken from the
English Dictionary of National Biography, is reprinted in a collective biography of
great British spies: Secret Lives, edited by M. R. D. Foot (Oxford University Press,
2002), pp. 25–30.
William Watson 255

with the most importance, significance, and substance (in my opinion) is

the discourse of the following dialogue. It much more merits my poor rec-
ommendation by adding to it a general preface because it is a sort of an ab-
stract, compendium or brief for all the most important matters that are in
controversy between us and the said Spanish or Jesuitical faction. For
(omitting other particulars) you have here exquisitely handled the great
contention about the superiority arrogated to the Jesuits over the secular
priests. You have here discussed the question about schism and the un-
learned and very malicious libels of Father [Thomas] Lister [1559–1628],
the Jesuit secretly refuted.30 You have here decided the case of obedience
and disobedience and in what sort of ignorant disrespect the common sort
of Catholics holds the secular priests, for they do not know this of them-
selves but from a forgery filled with Jesuitical lying lips which have given it
a glaze of stainless dye in a senseless conceit of infallible truth to rest in the
bare words of a wretch unworthy of naming because he has mightily preju-
diced the honor of the priesthood. You have here set down the causes be-
hind the Jesuits’ double diligence in defending the Archpriest, together
with their many dishonest, uncharitable, irreligious, unpriestly practices for
[gaining] a supremacy. You have here insinuated to you the unspeakable
pride, ambition, envy, malice, extortion, cruelty, and above all the intolera-
ble backbiting tongues of the Jesuits against the people they hate—more
than ever did Ovid, Horace,31 or any other malignant detractor, scold, or
cynical slanderer. In short, you have here explained the grounds of all the
Jesuitical calumnies, defamations, and injuries. . . .
For what Catholic before the Jesuits got a footing in England would not
have trembled at the heart to have called an anointed Catholic priest (how-
ever he had previously lived) a knave, a villain, a spy, a soothsayer, an idol-
ater, a schismatic, a libertine, an apostate, an atheist, with the other most
odious terms that the devil or malice is able to invent? And yet nothing is
more common now than this everywhere among this lewd brood of the Je-
suitical faction. Our common [Protestant] enemies even out of their own
humanity and for civility’s sake show a more reverent esteem and respect
are to be given priests (at least for their learning, scholarship, moral virtues,
and other good abilities noted in most of those whom that faction held in

30. Lister, who entered the Jesuits in Rome and earned a doctorate in theology in
France, was sent by his superiors back to his native England in 1596. In the after-
math of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605—a failed attempt to blow up Parliament—he
was exiled by King James I but returned to England in 1610. He wrote an unpub-
lished tract that attacked the secular priests and defended Archpriest Blackwell.
31. Together with Virgil (70–19 B.C.), Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 17) and Horace
(65–8 B.C.) were the leading Latin poets in the age of Emperor Augustus (27
B.C.–A.D. 14).
256 Jesuits in the Eyes of Their Enemies

disgrace) than any of these new pestiferous Puritan Jesuitical sectarians will
ever acknowledge. . . .
As for their other slanders: that the matter in contention was already de-
cided in Rome and that they would therefore make the world believe the
secular priests were seditious, turbulent, and factious persons, and also that
the said priests are the only politicians and meddlers, politicizing more dan-
gerously than they (the said Jesuits) do Hispanize or make Spanish, etc. the
one and the other, are both most false, mere calumnies, forgeries and slan-
ders without any truth in the report or documentation about them abroad.
Very sensibly, prudently and learnedly are they here confuted, and their
shameful dealings, treacheries and impieties are secretly discovered thereby
together with the foisting of that poor simple fellow Master [George]
Blackwell into an office and authority about whose meaning he knew little
(God knows) or what treasonable practices he was expected to carry out.32
Finally, here arise things to be carefully considered (as a point in my mind
of as great import, moment and consequence as anything we have touched
upon so far) the panegyrics of the Jesuits’ praises, the causes that move
them to send forth their spirits to course over sea and land with bugle blasts
of the bloody menaces of the goddess of war to all that dare to contradict a
Jesuit. There is also that extreme folly, madness, lunacy, or what I do not
know how to call it in various Catholic laymen, yea, and in the more un-
learned and less experienced sort of priests who will believe every word of
an oracle that falls from a Jesuit’s lips. It goes so far that one person once
said that if such a priest, a follower and supporter of the Jesuit faction,
should bid him to hang himself, he would do it. They cannot be persuaded
otherwise [from believing] that all the whole Church and commonwealth
of Christendom depend upon their impotent aspirations. . . .

32. Watson and Bagwell, leaders of the secular priests known as the Appellants, de-
spised Archpriest Blackwell because they saw him as a simpleton and tool of the Je-
suits.
 INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

Acepsemas, 161 Barreto, João Nunes (Jesuit patriarch

Acquaviva, Claudio (superior general of Ethiopia), 21–6
of the Jesuits), xvii, xviii, 110, 160, Beira, Juan de, 129
193–98, 196, 208–10, 216–22 Bellarmine, St. Robert (Jesuit cardi-
Adams, John, 233n3 nal and theologian), xvi–xviii, 12,
Alexander the Great, 110 158, 175, 179–87, 182, 208; de
Alvarez, Baltasar, 174 Controversiis Christianae Fidei (Con-
Alvarez, Francisco, 23 troversies of the Christian Faith),
Ambrose, St. (Church Father), 146, 143–55
147, 153 Bellay, Eustace du (bishop of Paris),
Anabaptists, 155 242, 243, 245
Anjiro (Japanese convert), 66 Bellini, Isidore, 50
Anthony, St., 161 Benedict, St. (founder of Benedictine
Aphraates, 161 Order), 159
Aquinas, St. Thomas (medieval Do- Benedictines, 157
minican theologian), 41, 42, 123, Benoit, Jean, 244
124, 144, 157 Bermudes, João, 30
Aragon, Hernando de (archbishop of Bernard, St. (medieval preacher),
Zaragoza), 240 159
Araoz, Antonio, 2, 32, 33, 239 Berze, Gaspar, 85
Aretino, Pietro (Renaissance satirist), Bible as the sole norm of doctrine,
253 143–55
Arians, early heretics, 171 Blackwell, George (archpriest over
Aristotle, 42, 124 English Catholics), 233, 251, 252,
Artiguaye, Miguel, 115–17 255, 256
assassination of kings, 208, 210–16 Bonaventure, St. (medieval Francis-
Attila the Hun (leader of Mongol can theologian), 180
warriors), 154n31 Borgia, St. Francis, 32, 47
Augustine, St., 144, 146, 149, 150, Boroa, Diego de, 119
153, 157, 162, 164, 169 Brébeuf, St. Jean de, 65, 121–30
Augustus (Roman emperor), 58, 169, Brenz, Johann (Lutheran theologian),
255 145, 155
Broët, Paschase, 241, 242
Bagshaw, Christopher (English dioce- Buddha, Gautama, 96–8
san priest), 233, 250–51, 256; A Buddhism, 93, 95–100
Sparing Discoverie of Our English Je- bullfighting, opposition to, 205, 206
suits (anti-Jesuit literature), 251–54 Bunny, Edmund (English Protestant
Barma, Juan Bautista de, 205, 207 writer), 175

259
260 Index

Calvin, John (Protestant reformer of Criminali, Antonio, 78, 79

Geneva), xi, xvi, 131, 144, 148, Cyrus the Great, 150
155, 162, 231
Campion, St. Edmund, 132, 138–43, Delrio, Martin, 199
141 Decem Rationes, by Edmund Cam-
Canisius, St. Peter, 2, 49, 50, 132, pion, 139
133, 137, 209 Despence, Claude, 244
Cano, Melchior (Dominican theolo- Diocletian (Roman emperor), 56
gian), 232, 234–36 Divine Office, recitation of, 232
Canute (king of England), 228 Doménech, Jerónimo, 192
Cardona, Didaco de, 47, 49 Dominic, St., 5
Carneyro, Melchior, 22 Dominicans, 157, 198, 231, 232,
Casini, Giovanni Filippo, 53 234, 236, 244
caste system in India, 104–11 Donne, John (Anglican preacher and
Catherine of Siena, St. (late medieval poet), 175, 232
mystic), 127 drama in Jesuit colleges, 55–63
censorship, 134–36
Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor), 2, Ebionites, 153
7, 16, 17, 19–21, 34, 48, 132, 209, Elizabeth I (queen of England), 142,
222, 242 233
Charles IX (king of France), 214 Emerson, Ralph, 138
Chastel, Jean, failure to assassinate Epictetus, 94, 96
Henry IV, 211n3 Erasmus, Desiderius, 39, 156, 157
Chemnitz, Martin (Lutheran theolo- Euclid, 50, 91
gian), 151, 155 Eusebius (early church historian),
Chronicon (selections), by Polanco, 152–54
189–93, 205–7, 234–45
Chrysostom, St. John (Church Fernandez, Juan, 83, 84
Father), 146, 151, 152, 161n8, Ferdinand I (Holy Roman Emperor),
162 xvi, 17, 34, 132–38, 209
Claudius (Ethiopian emperor), 22, Filippo, Giovanni, 192
30 Francis of Assisi, St. (founder of Fran-
Clavius, Christopher, 88, 91 ciscans), 5, 159
Clement, Jacques (assassin of Henry Franciscans, 157, 188, 231, 241
III), 212–14 Francis I (king of France), 17, 242
Coelho, Francisco, 77 Freux, André des, 49, 50
Columbus, Christopher, xi Fumo Can (early Chinese convert),
Confucius, 92 91, 93, 94
Constantine (Roman emperor), 161
Contreras, Juan Augustín, 118 Gesù, the (mother church of Jesuit
Controversiis Christianae Fidei, de, Order), 9
(Controversies of the Christian Faith) Gonçalves, Luís Câmara de, 2, 3, 218
by Bellarmine, 143–55 Gregory the Great (saint and pope),
Contzen, Adam, 211 146, 147
Coudret, Annibal de, 49, 50, 52, 53 Gregory XI, 127
Crashaw, Richard, 175 Gregory XV, 102
Index 261

Guarani Indians, 111–20, 209 Lao-Tzu (founder of Taoism), 98

Guérer, Jean, 211 lay brothers, 163n18
Guise family of French dukes, the, Leo I (saint and pope), 153, 172
212, 213, 244 Leo X (pope), 145
Lippomano, Andrea (Venetian bene-
Henry II (king of France), 17, 132, 242 factor of Jesuits), 34
Henry III (king of France), 212–14 Lister, Thomas, 255
Henry IV (king of France), 211, 212 Lombard, Peter (medieval theolo-
Henry VIII (king of England), 232 gian), 42
Herbert, George, 175 Lopez, Ignatius, 47
Hinduism, 101–8 Louis XIV (king of France), 56
Homer, 252n26 Loyola, St. Ignatius of, xii–xviii, 1–
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 158 10, 3, 22, 23, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38,
Horace, 255 46–8, 51, 52, 54, 64, 65, 80–8, 82,
hostility toward Jesuits, 231–56: in 130–38, 157, 163, 165, 166, 188,
England, 250–56; in France, 241– 191, 209, 231, 232, 246–48, 249,
50; in Spain 234–41; in the United 251, 253; Autobiography of, 2–8;
States, 233 correspondence of, 2, 16–31, 132–
Huron Indians, 65, 121–27 37; on education, Jesuit colleges, 32,
37–45; Jesuit Constitutions, xvi, 1,
Ignatius of Loyola. See Loyola, St. 5, 8, 10, 37–46, 64, 167; hatred of
Ignatius of Protestantism, 132–38; life of, xii-
Inquisition, xiii, 135, 198 xiv, 2–8; missionary strategy of, 21–
Irenaeus, St. (early Church Father), 31; politics of, 16–21, 131–37; Spir-
146, 153 itual Exercises, xiii, 1, 8–16, 131,
157, 158, 165, 180
James I (king of England), 254 Lucian, 253
Jefferson, Thomas, 233n3 Luther, Martin, xi, xii, xvi, 131, 144,
Jerome, St. (early Church Father and 145, 148, 149, 162, 231, 246, 247
biblical scholar), 146, 153, 169
Jewish ancestry, Jesuits of, 238, 244 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 131, 222, 232,
John III (king of Portugal), 21, 23, 253
30, 33, 65, 74 Maffeo, Bernadino (cardinal), 243
John Climachus, St., 180 Manichees, 155
John of Avila, St. (Spanish friend of Mansilas, Francisco de, 67
early Jesuits), 164 Maracaná, Roque (Guarani Indian
Juana (princess of Spain), 240 chief ), 114–17
just war, theory of, 228–30 Marco, Lope (Vicar General at
Zaragosa), 239
Koran, the, 154 Marquette, Jacques, 121
Mariana, Juan de, xviii, 208–16; On
La Puente, Luis de, xvii, 156, 158, a King and the Education of a King,
174–79 210–16
Ladislaus IV (king of Poland), 208 Maximus the Confessor, St. (early
Landini, Silvestro, 189, 190 Church Father), 153, 154
Lannoy, Nicholas, 133 Medina, Bartolomé de, 197
262 Index

meditations, meditation technique, Passeri, Giovnni Battista, 50

8–15, 157, 166–79 Paul III (pope), xiv, 1, 7, 22, 48, 49,
Melanchthon, Philip, 39, 148 65
Messina, Jesuit college at, 32, 33, 46– Paul IV (pope), 245
54 Pelagius (early heretic), 162
Middleton, Thomas (English Ja- Persons, Robert, 138, 175, 250, 252
cobean dramatist), 232 Philip II (king of Spain), 210, 232,
Minas (emperor of Ethiopia), 22 238, 240, 242, 252, 254
Micer Paolo, 67 Philip III (king of Spain), xviii, 208,
missionary work overseas: Canada, 211
121–30; China, 64, 66, 83–5, 88– Philip IV (king of Spain), 111, 112,
101; Ethiopia, 21–31; India, 64, 121, 209
66–79, 97, 101–11; Japan, 80–7; Pindar, 180
South America, 65, 111–21 Plantin, Christopher (Belgian pub-
Mohammed, 154 lisher), 166, 180
Montoya, Antonio Ruis de, 65, 111– Plato, 96, 180
21, 209 Plotinus, 180
Muslims, 16–21, 155; see also Turks Poggio, Giovanni (cardinal), 237,
238
Nadal, Jerome, xvii, 2, 16, 49–51, Polanco, Juan (Loyola’s secretary),
156–58, 163, 166–74; On the Night xvi, xvi, 16, 32–4, 46, 47, 188–93,
of the Lord’s Birth: The Nativity of 197, 232, 234–46; Chronicon (selec-
Christ, 168 tions), 189–93, 205–7, 234–45
Nicene Creed, 171, 172 politics, Jesuit involvement in, xvii,
Nobili, Roberto de, 64, 105; The Re- xviii, 16–21, 132–38, 140, 208–30
port on the Customs of the Indian Na- Polo, Marco, 89
tion, 101–11 preaching, 194–96
Prester John (legendary king of
Oath of Supremacy, 252 Ethiopia), 23–6, 28
Oecolampadius, Johann (Swiss prostitution, helping prostitutes,
Protestant theologian), 148 190–93
Origen (early Church Father), 146, 154 Protestantism, Jesuit opposition to,
Osiander, Andreas (Lutheran theolo- xvi, xvii, 131–55
gian), 148 Pythagoras, 93, 96
Otello, Girolamo, 52, 53
Ovid, 255 Quirinius, 169
Oviedo, André de, 22
Ratio Studiorum, 193–97
Palmio, Benedetto, 49, 50, 52 Ravaillac, François, 211
Parlement of Paris, 211, 233, 234, reductions, 112, 118, 119
241, 242, 246 Regis, St. Jean François, 194
Paris Method, xiii Ribadeneira, Pedro, 2, 131, 162,
Parsons, Robert. See Persons, Robert 211
Pasquier, Étienne, 233, 245–46, Ricci, Matteo, 64, 86, 88–101, 95;
245n15; Le Catéchisme des Jésuites, The True Meaning of the Lord of
245–50 Heaven, 95–101
Index 263

Rodrigues, Simão (Simon) de, 65, theology faculty at the University of

73–6, 81, 82, 87, 129, 208 Paris, 244
Rodriguez, Alfonso, xvii, 156, 158– Thomas à Kempis, 156
66 Torres, Cosme de, 83, 84
royal confessors, xviii–ix, 209, 222– Torres, Miguel de, 235, 237
25; “Rules for the Confessors of Trent, Council of, xi, 151, 242
Princes” (Claudio Acquaviva), 216– Trigault, Nicholas, 89–94
25 Turks, xiii–xiv, 16–21, 23n25, 132,
Ruffinus, Tyrrannius (fourth-century 222
Christian writer), 153, 154 tyrannicide, 210–16
Ruggieri, Michele, 88
rural missions to peasants, 193–98 University of Paris, xiii, 33, 70, 71,
131, 242–44, 248
Scibani, Carlo, 211 Urtasun, Martín, 113, 114
Sebastian (king of Portugal), 208, 218
Segneri, Paolo, 194 Valens (Roman emperor), 161
Seneca, 56 Vasco da Gama, xii, 67
seminaries for training priests, 136– Vega, Eleonora de, 49, 191
38 Vega, Fernando de, 52
Silíceo, Juan Martìnez (archbishop of Vega, Juan de (Spanish Viceroy of
Toledo), 232–35, 237, 238 Sicily), 32, 48, 49, 51–3, 191, 193,
Simons, Joseph, 55–63 208
soldiers, their duties to their king, vendettas, 189–90
225–28 Vergil, Polydore, 228
Soto, Pedro de (Dominican theolo- Villanueva, Francisco de, 235, 237
gian), 145 Vinck, Antoine, 50, 52
Southwell, Robert, 175 Virgil, 60, 96, 255
Spee von Langenfeld, Friedrich Vives, Juan Luis (leading Spanish hu-
(Friedrich Spee), xvii, 198–205 manist), 53
Spiritual Exercises, by Loyola, xiii, 1, war, see just war, theory of
8–16, 131, 156–58, 160, 167, 180, Watson, William, 233, 250–51, 254;
193 “Preface to the Reader” (anti-Jesuit
Spiritual Exercises, xv, 8, 10–16, 32, literature) 254–56
111, 158, 197, 220, 236, 237 Whitaker, William (English Protes-
Stephan I (saint and king of Hungry), tant theologian), 144
222 Wierix brothers, 166, 168
Suárez, Francisco, 174 witch persecution, xvii, 188, 198–
Suleiman the Magnificent (Ottoman 205
Sultan), 17, 20
Xavier, St. Francis, xiii, 64–88, 82,
Tablares, Pedro, 238 87, 97n37, 128, 129, 130, 163, 166
Tanner, Adam, 199 Xu Guanqi (Chinese Christian
Taoism, 98 scholar), 91n28
Terence, 42, 53, 248
Teresa of Avila, St. (Spanish mystic), Zwingli, Huldreich (Protestant re-
130 former at Zurich), xi, 148