THE GREAT SECRET SOCIETY: ITS STATUTES AND ITS CONSTITUTIONS.
THE time had now come when, having gained a firm footing in Rome, and possessing influence with the Vatican, Loyola considered that he might hopefully lay the statutes of his Order before the Pope for confirmation. This he did, and the supreme Pontiff, after closely examining the document, exclaimed in wonder and admiration, “The finger of God is here!” Yet he and his cardinals hesitated to ratify it publicly.
Was it desirable in the present state of things, they argued, to foment discord by arousing jealousy among the older orders? For six months the opposition continued. Meanwhile Loyola clung tenaciously to his point, appealing for a written Papal sanction which all the world might read.
Assembling his comrades one day about this time he made known to them his final scheme in these words: “Ought we not to conclude that we are called to win to God, not only a single nation, a single country, but all nations, all the kingdoms of the world? What great thing shall we achieve if our company does not become an Order capable of being multiplied in every place, and to last to the end of time?”
Slowly the princes of the Church perceived that in rejecting an institution which promised fervent devotion and implicit obedience they were neglecting a support which the Papacy then sorely needed, and which for novelty of construction and adaptation to its end, far surpassed any known system. The statutes were formally approved and accepted; and on September 27th, 1540, a special Bull ratifying the Society of Jesus issued from the Vatican. Loyola had again triumphed!
The statute book of the new Order commenced thus:
“Whoever will, as a member of our Society, upon which we have bestowed the name of Jesus, fight under the banner of the Cross, and serve God alone and His representative on earth, the Pope of Rome, after having in the most solemn manner taken the vow of chastity, must always recollect that he now belongs to a Society which has been instituted simply and solely in order to perfect in the souls of men the teaching and dissemination of Christianity, as also to promulgate the true faith by means of the public preaching of God’s Word, by holy exercises and macerations, by works of love, and especially by the education of the young and the instruction of those who have hitherto had no correct knowledge of Christianity; and lastly by hearing the confessions of believers, and giving them holy consolation.”
Now, as the fusion of countless wills into a solid unity was to be the keystone of the arch supporting the giant fabric of Jesuitism, we are not surprised to find that the vow of obedience was given the foremost place among the statutes.
“Members of the Society shall implicitly obey the General in every particular and on all occasions, without delay and without offering any excuse whatever, reverently considering him as the representative of Christ, the commander-in-chief of the heavenly hosts.” Unquestioning blind obedience, to be “engraven on their hearts in capital letters as long as they live,” the Jesuit novice was so completely to deprive himself of the right of private judgment that he would lie in the hands of his Superior (to use Loyola’s own expression) “as a carcase, as plastic wax, as an old man’s walking stick.”
The vow of obedience, it may be observed, was not peculiar to the new Society, inasmuch as it was assumed by every variety of monastic order. Loyola himself held up to the admiration and imitation of his disciples the Abbot John, “who enquired not whether that which he was ordered to do was useful or not, but continued daily throughout a year and with great labor to water the dead stump of a tree.”
Next in order to the vow of obedience came the vow of perpetual poverty. “No men,” says the discerning framer of the statutes, “have a more agreeable life as regards their neighbors than those who are furthest removed from the poison of avarice, and stand closest to poverty.” But, to the prohibition that the Jesuit shall receive neither land nor property for himself, or even for the Order, Loyola added the saving clause: “It will still be free to them to accept lands and estates, with the income derived therefrom, for the maintenance of colleges, on the understanding that they are to be used for the good of the students.” By this ingenious device the Order of extreme poverty was enabled to possess, and still possesses, enormous wealth!
No less important was it that the Jesuits were not to be in any degree a monkish order, living a contemplative life in cloisters. Though their headquarters for convenience would be the profess-houses, they were to mix with the world, working among men for the benefit of the Pope, and fighting against heretics.
Every other form of conventual life was more or less one of seclusion. Jesuitism, on the contrary, was a scheme devised for occupying a position among the world’s busiest movements. It would therefore draw around it not those who were sick of life, but the strong energetic spirits who were eager to play a part on the world’s stage.
Again, the Society was to devote itself to the great work of education, secular as well as spiritual. In its colleges and institutions, where instruction would be offered either free or at the lowest possible charge, lay the lever, by means of which would be raised a lasting barrier to the spread of Protestant heresy. By such teaching not only would the rising generation become devoted adherents of the Roman Catholic faith, but the Reformers would find powerful opponents. Schools were to be planted against schools, pulpits raised against pulpits, voices opposed to voices, until heresy should be exterminated.
Finally―and here was the headstone of the corner—the General elected for life was endowed with ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY. By every member of the Society, the General of the Jesuits was to be looked upon as the embodied Jesus, to whom he was sworn in the knighthood of faith, zeal, and obedience. One mind and one will were to sway the whole Society.
Such was the framework of the marvelous organization to which Pope Paul Farnese set his signature and gave his apostolic benediction—that same Pope who opened the Council of Trent; who sent under his grandson’s command twelve thousand of his own troops into Germany to assist in the war against the Protestants; and who lifted up his hand to bless whoever would shed Protestant blood.
Undoubtedly it was the novel and wide interpretation and consequences of the vow of obedience, that made Jesuitism from the very beginning of its history, far superior in internal strength to every other order of monks.
This doctrine of obedience, or, as it may more truthfully be called, the immolation of the will, is elaborately explained in a notable letter addressed by Loyola to the Jesuits of Portugal some three years before his death. “It is my wish to see all in this Society distinguishing themselves by an abdication of will and judgment. . . . Whoever would immolate himself without reserve to God must offer to Him not his will merely, but his intelligence and understanding also. . . so that he not only wills what the Superior wills, but thinks as he thinks. . . . Fix it in your mind that whatever the Superior commands is the order and will of God Himself; and as when you are required to believe according to the Catholic faith, you bend your whole will and mind to do so, in like manner bringing yourselves to perform the order―let it be what it may―of the Superior, a certain blind impulse of an eager will shall bear you forward without giving space for enquiry. . . This applies not merely to the conduct of individuals towards their immediate Superiors, but to that also of Superiors toward Provincials, Provincials toward the General, and to that of the General toward the Lord’s Vicar on earth.”
Before resuming our story of the founder’s earliest movements in Rome, it will be interesting to enquire into the famous constitutions of the Society, in order to form some adequate idea of its inner working. To do this we must lift the curtain and portray the Jesuit Institute in its mighty phalanx of twenty thousand working agents, as it revealed itself to the world a century ago.
Immediately the Papal Bull had given formal existence to the Order, Loyola, assisted by Laynez, the ablest of his colleagues, set himself the task of framing the constitutions.
Of course he claimed for them direct inspiration from heaven. “I cannot discover,” says M. de la Chalotais, “that the constitutions of the Jesuits have ever been seen or examined by any tribunal whatsoever, or by any sovereign. They have taken all sorts of precautions to keep them ‘secret.’” These instructions were not published; infinite care was taken to print them only in their own colleges, and if it happened that they had been printed elsewhere, the whole edition was at once secured.
In the year 1761, when the Procurator-General of Louis XV. gave in his report to the Parliament of Bretagne, this was the outline of the organization, of which the printed constitutions filled fifty folio volumes! The Jesuit monarchy covered the globe. At its head the General ruled over all, but was himself ruled over by none! First came six grand divisions termed princedoms, the heads of which acted as cabinet council to the General, their territories extending from the Indus to the Mediterranean. These divisions were again divided into thirty-seven provinces under chiefs who were called Provincials. The provinces were subdivided into establishments of three kinds: profess-houses, each presided over by a Provost; colleges, each under the direction of a Superior; and mission houses where Jesuits might reside unnoticed as secular clergy, the better to promote their ends and interests.
In order to govern the world of Jesuitism an almost superhuman intelligence was necessary to its absolute monarch, the General. And it was thus acquired. Every year a list of the houses and members of the Society, with the name, talents, virtues, and failings of each, was laid before the General. In addition to this, every Provincial must send him a monthly report of the state of his province, and, be it noted, give minute particulars of its political as well as ecclesiastical condition. Every superior, every head of a house, must report once every three months, and if the information had reference to persons outside the Society, the communication must be made in cipher. Thus the General of the Jesuits became omniscient and omnipresent. For could he not see by a thousand eyes? Did he not hear by a thousand ears? And since the secret thoughts of each of his host, by aid of the confessional, had been laid open and minutely chronicled, was he not able at a moment’s notice to select the fittest agent to execute his wishes?
It is important to realize, as we lightly scan the past history of the great secret Society, that its scheme of self-government holds good to the present day. The principles, plans, and resources of Jesuitism are as fixed, as unalterable, and as deeply laid now as they ever were.
As Dr. Wylie remarks: “All ranks, from the nobleman to the day-laborer; all trades, from the banker to the shoemaker; all professions, from the Church dignitary or professor to the barefoot monk; all grades of literary men, from the mathematician and historian to the village schoolmaster and the reporter on the country newspaper, are enrolled in the secret Society,” though society at large may be little cognizant of the fact and loth to believe it. “Selecting one, the General sends him to the Cabinet; for another he opens the door of Parliament; a third he enrolls in a political club; while a fourth he places in the pulpit of a church whose creed he professes in order that he may betray it.” While he orders one brilliantly gifted to mingle amongst literary men, he sends another to act his part in the Evangelical Conference; and when dismissing a missionary to heathen tribes, he is not less careful to introduce one of his emissaries to the English hearth and home.
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PRAYER.
OUR hearts are like stringed instruments, which require frequent tuning. Out of tune, let the instrument be never so mellow, the hand never so masterly, the sound is but jarring discord. Prayer it is which tunes the heart for praise.