Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/677

JESUITS 647 understood by the old civil code of the Roman empire, centuries after the very memory of freedom had been lost, yet having fixed limits, alike traditional and prescribed, besides being exercised only within a limited area and for certain specified purposes. Loyola, true to his military training and instincts, clothes the general with the powers of a commander-in-chief of an army in time of war, giving him the absolute disposal of all members of the society in every place and for every purpose. Not only so, but he pushes the claim much further, requiring, besides entire outward submission to command, also the complete identi fication of the inferior s will with that of the superior. He lays down that this superior is to be obeyed simply as such, and as standing in the place of God, without reference to his personal wisdom, piety, or discretion ; that any obedience which falls short of making the superior s will one s own in inward affection as well as in palpable effect, is lax and imperfect ; that going beyond the letter of command, even in things abstractly good and praiseworthy, is dis obedience ; and that the " sacrifice of the intellect " a familiar Jesuit watchword is the third and highest grade of obedience, well-pleasing to God, when the inferior not only wills what the superior wills, but thinks what he thinks, submitting his judgment so far as it is possible for the will to influence and lead the judgment. So far- reaching and dangerous are these maxims that the Letter on Obedience was formally condemned, not long after Loyola s death, by the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal, and it tasked all the skill and learning of Bellarmine as its apologist, together with the whole influence of the company, to avert the ratification of the sentence at Rome. It has, however, been alleged in defence that this very strong language must be glossed and limited by two other maxims penned by Loyola : (1) "Preserve your freedom of mind, and do not relinquish it by the authority of any person, or in any circumstances whatever"; and (2) "In all things cxzept sin I ought to do the will of my superior, and not my own." But the value of these checks is seriously diminished when it is added that the former of them occurs in the introductory part of the Spiritual Exercises, a manual expressly designed and used for the purpose of breaking down the will of those who pass through its appointed ordeal under a director; while the latter is qualified in its turn, not only by the whole principle of probabilism, the special doctrine of the society, which can attenuate and even defend any kind of sin, but by the four following maxims, in close juxtaposition to itself in the very same document : " I ought to desire to be ruled by a superior who endeavours to subjugate my judgment or subdue my understanding" ; "When it seems to me that I am commanded by my superior to do a thing against which my conscience revolts as sinful, and my superior judges otherwise, it is my duty to yield my doubts to him, unless I am otherwise constrained by evident reasons"; " If submission do not appease my conscience, I must impart my doubts to two or three persons of discretion, and abide by their decision " ; "I ought not to be my own, but His who created me, and his too by whose means God governs me, yielding myself to be moulded in his hands like, so much wax I ought to be like a corpse, which has neither will nor understanding, or like a small crucifix, which is turned about at the will of him that holds it, or like a staff in the hands of an old man, who uses it as may best assist or please him." And one master-stroke of Loyola s policy svas to insure the permanence of this sub mission by barring access to all independent positions on the part of members of the society, through means of a special constitution that no Jesuit can accept a cardinal s hat, a bishopric other than missionary, an abbacy, or any similar dignity, save with permission of the general, not to be accorded unless and until the pope has commanded its acceptance under pain of sin. The next matter for consideration is the machinery "by which the society is constituted and governed, so as to enable this principle to become a living energy, and not a mere abstract theory. The society, then, is distributed into six grades : novices, scholastics, temporal coadjutors, spiritual coadjutors, professed of the three vows, and pro fessed of the four vows. The novice cannot become a postulant for admission to the society till fourteen years old, unless by special dispensation, and is at once classified according as his destination is the priesthood or lay brotherhood, while a third class of " indifferents " receives such as are reserved for further inquiry before a decision of this kind is made. They first undergo a strict retreat of a month in what is practically solitary confinement, during which they go through the Spiritual Exercise s, and make a general confession of their whole previous life ; after which the first noviciate, of two years duration, begins. This is spent partly in daily study, partly in hospital work, and partly in teaching the rudiments of religious doctrine to children and the poor. They may leave or be dismissed at any time during this noviciate, but if approved are advanced into the grade of scholastics, .corresponding in some degree to that of undergraduates at a university. The ordinary course for these is five years in arts, when, without discontinuing their own studies, they must pass five or six years more. in teaching junior classes, not reach ing the study of theology till the age of twenty-eight or thirty, when, after another year of noviciate, a further course of from four to six years is imposed, and not till this has been completed can the scholastic be ordained as a priest of the society, and enter on the grade of spiritual coadjutor, assuming that he is not confined to that of tem poral coadjutor, who discharges only such functions as are open to lay-brothers, and who must be ten years in the society before being admitted to the vows. The time can be shortened at the general s pleasure, but such is the normal arrangement. Even this rank confers no share in the government, nor eligibility for the offices of the society. That is reserved for the professed, themselves subdivided into those of the three vows and of the four vows. It is these last alone, forming only a small percentage of the entire body, who constitute the real core of the society, whence its officers are all taken, and their fourth vow is one of special allegiance to the pope, promising to go in obedience to him for missionary purposes whenso ever and whithersoever he may order, a pledge seriously qualified in practice, however, by the power given to the general of alone sending out or recalling any missionary. The constitutions enjoin, by a rule seldom dispensed with, that this final grade cannot be attained till the candidate has reached his forty-fifth year, which involves a probation of no fewer than thirty-one years for even such as have entered on the noviciate at the earliest legal age. These various members of the society are distributed in its noviciate houses, its colleges, its professed houses, and its mission residences. The question has long been hotly debated whether, in addition to these six avowed grades, there be not a seventh, answering in some degree to the Tertiaries of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, secretly affiliated to the society, and acting as its unsuspected emissaries in various lay positions. This class is styled in France " Jesuits of the short robe," and some evidence in support of its actual existence was alleged during the lawsuits against the company under Louis XV. The Jesuits them selves deny the existence of any such body, and are able to adduce the negative disproof that no provision for it is to be found in their constitutions. On the other hand, there are clauses therein which make the creation of such