true state of the matter historically, and the most appropriate and fruitful way of describing the character of this Church. It still governs the nations; its Popes rule like Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; Peter and Paul have taken the place of Romulus and Remus; the bishops and archbishops, of the pro-consuls; the troops of priests and monks correspond to the legions; the Jesuits to the imperial body-guard."[1]
Ignatius' first intention was to convert the Turks in Palestine. So he went to Jerusalem, there to establish a society of apostolic men who, in the midst of the children of Mahomet, should open a way to new triumphs of the Church. This was without doubt a noble conception, one which the swords of Christian chivalry had not been able to realize by the efforts and enthusiasm of centuries. It was only after his endeavors to gain a foothold near Our Lord's Sepulchre had been frustrated, that Ignatius gave his new Society the more general character of defending the "Kingdom of Christ" among all classes, in all countries, and by all legitimate means. As the object of the Society was purely spiritual, not temporal or political, so also the means employed were to be of spiritual order, above all preaching and teaching.
- ↑ Harnack, What is Christianity? (New York, 1901), Lecture XIV, p. 252. – However, much of what has been written about the military character of the Society is due to a misconception. When Mr. Davidson, in his History of Education, says that "the Society of Jesus was a great military organization, a Catholic Salvation Army, with methods very much resembling those of its latest imitator," we must call this comparison absurd. For a greater difference than that between the methods of the Society and those of the Salvation Army is scarcely conceivable, not to say a word of the vast difference of their aims.
