Chapter 17

(W. W. R.*)

1Patriarch of Jerusalem (1669-1707), who presided over the synod.

JESI(anc.Aesis), a town and episcopal see of the Marches, Italy, in the province of Ancona, from which it is 17 m. W. by S. by rail, 318 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 23,285. The place took its ancient name from the river Aesis (mod. Esino), upon the left bank of which it lies. It still retains its picturesque medieval town walls. The Palazzo del Comune is a fine, simple, early Renaissance building (1487-1503) by Francesco di Giorgio Martini; the walls are of brick and the window and door-frames of stone, with severely restrained ornamentation. The courtyard with its loggie was built by Andrea Sansovino in 1519. The library contains some good pictures by Lorenzo Lotto. The castle was built by Baccio Pontelli (1488), designer of the castle at Ostia (1483-1486). Jesi was the birthplace of the emperor Frederic II. (1194), and also of the musical composer, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). The river Aesis formed the boundary of Italy proper from about 250B.C.to the time of Sulla (c.82B.C.); and, in Augustus’ division of Italy, that between Umbria (the 6th region) and Picenum (the 5th). The town itself was a colony, of little importance, except, apparently, as a recruiting ground for the Roman army.

JESSE,in the Bible, the father of David (q.v.), and as such often regarded as the first in the genealogy of Jesus Christ (cf. Isa. xi. 1, 10). Hence the phrase “tree of Jesse” is applied to a design representing the descent of Jesus from the royal line of David, formerly a favourite ecclesiastical ornament. From a recumbent figure of Jesse springs a tree bearing in its branches the chief figures in the line of descent, and terminating in the figure of Jesus, or of the Virgin and Child. There are remains of such a tree in the church of St Mary at Abergavenny, carved in wood, and supposed to have once stood behind the high altar. Jesse candelabra were also made. At Laon and Amiens there are sculptured Jesses over the central west doorways of the cathedrals. The design was chiefly used in windows. The great east window at Wells and the window at the west end of the nave at Chartres are fine examples. There is a 16th-century Jesse window from Mechlin in St George’s, Hanover Square, London. The Jesse window in the choir of Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire, is remarkable in that the tree forms the central mullion, and many of the figures are represented as statuettes on the branches of the upper tracery; other figures are in the stained glass; the whole gives a beautiful example of the combination of glass and carved stonework in one design.

JESSE, EDWARD(1780-1868), English writer on natural history, was born on the 14th of January 1780, at Hutton Cranswick, Yorkshire, where his father was vicar of the parish. He became clerk in a government office in 1798, and for a time was secretary to Lord Dartmouth, when president of the Board of Control. In 1812 he was appointed commissioner of hackney coaches, and later he became deputy surveyor-general of the royal parks and palaces. On the abolition of this office he retired on a pension, and he died at Brighton on the 28th of March 1868.

The result of his interest in the habits and characteristics of animals was a series of pleasant and popular books on natural history, the principal of which areGleanings in Natural History(1832-1835);An Angler’s Rambles(1836);Anecdotes of Dogs(1846); andLectures on Natural History(1863). He also edited Izaak Walton’sCompleat Angler, Gilbert White’sSelborne, and L. Ritchie’sWindsor Castle, and wrote a number of handbooks to places of interest, including Windsor and Hampton Court.

JESSE, JOHN HENEAGE(1815-1874), English historian, son of Edward Jesse, was educated at Eton, and afterwardsbecame a clerk in the secretary’s department of the admiralty. He died in London on the 7th of July 1874. His poem on Mary Queen of Scots was published about 1831, and was followed by a collection of poems entitledTales of the Dead. He also wrote a drama,Richard III., and a fragmentary poem entitledLondon. None of these ventures achieved any success, but his numerous historical works are written with vivacity and interest, and, in their own style, are an important contribution to the history of England. They includeMemoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts(1840),Memoirs of the Court of England from the Revolution of 1688 to the Death of George II.(1843),George Selwyn and his Contemporaries(1843, new ed. 1882),Memoirs of the Pretenders and their Adherents(1845),Memoirs of Richard the Third and his Contemporaries(1861), andMemoirs of the Life and Reign of King George the Third(1867). The titles of these works are sufficiently indicative of their character. They are sketches of the principal personages and of the social details of various periods in the history of England rather than complete and comprehensive historical narratives. In addition to these works Jesse wroteLiterary and Historical Memorials of London(1847),London and its Celebrities(1850), and a new edition of this work asLondon: its Celebrated Characters and Remarkable Places(1871). HisMemoirs of Celebrated Etoniansappeared in 1875.

A collected edition containing most of his works in thirty volumes was published in London in 1901.

JESSEL, SIR GEORGE(1824-1883), English judge, was born in London on the 13th of February 1824. He was the son of Zadok Aaron Jessel, a Jewish coral merchant. George Jessel was educated at a school for Jews at Kew, and being prevented by then existing religious disabilities from proceeding to Oxford or Cambridge, went to University College, London. He entered as a student at Lincoln’s Inn in 1842, and a year later took his B.A. degree at the university of London, becoming M.A. and gold medallist in mathematics and natural philosophy in 1844. In 1846 he became a fellow of University College, and in 1847 he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn. His earnings during his first three years at the bar were 52, 346, and 795 guineas, from which it will be seen that his rise to a tolerably large practice was rapid. His work, however, was mainly conveyancing, and for long his income remained almost stationary. By degrees, however, he got more work, and was called within the bar in 1865, becoming a bencher of his Inn in the same year and practising in the Rolls Court. Jessel entered parliament as Liberal member for Dover in 1868, and although neither his intellect nor his oratory was of a class likely to commend itself to his fellow-members, he attracted Gladstone’s attention by two learned speeches on the Bankruptcy Bill which was before the house in 1869, with the result that in 1871 he was appointed solicitor-general. His reputation at this time stood high in the chancery courts; on the common law side he was unknown, and on the first occasion upon which he came into the court of Queen’s bench to move on behalf of the Crown, there was very nearly a collision between him and the bench. His forceful and direct method of bringing his arguments home to the bench was not modified in his subsequent practice before it. His great powers were fully recognized; his business in addition to that on behalf of the Crown became very large, and his income for three years before he was raised to the bench amounted to nearly £25,000 per annum. In 1873 Jessel succeeded Lord Romilly as master of the rolls. From 1873 to 1881 Jessel sat as a judge of first instance in the rolls court, being also a member of the court of appeal. In November 1874 the first Judicature Act came into effect, and in 1881 the Judicature Act of that year made the master of the rolls the ordinary president of the first court of appeal, relieving him of his duties as a judge of first instance. In the court of appeal Jessel presided almost to the day of his death. For some time before 1883 he suffered from diabetes with chronic disorder of the heart and liver, but struggled against it; on the 16th of March 1883 he sat in court for the last time, and on the 21st of March he died at his residence in London, the immediate cause of death being cardiac syncope.

As a judge of first instance Jessel was a revelation to those accustomed to the proverbial slowness of the chancery courts and of the master of the rolls who preceded him. He disposed of the business before him with rapidity combined with correctness of judgment, and he not only had no arrears himself, but was frequently able to help other judges to clear their lists. His knowledge of law and equity was wide and accurate, and his memory for cases and command of the principles laid down in them extraordinary. In the rolls court he never reserved a judgment, not even in the Epping Forest case (Commissioners of Sewersv.Glasse, L.R. 19 Eq.;The Times, 11th November 1874), in which the evidence and arguments lasted twenty-two days (150 witnesses being examined in court, while the documents went back to the days of King John), and in the court of appeal he did so only twice, and then in deference to the wishes of his colleagues. The second of these two occasions was the case ofRobartsv.The Corporation of London(49Law Times455;The Times, 10th March 1883), and those who may read Jessel’s judgment should remember that, reviewing as it does the law and custom on the subject, and the records of the city with regard to the appointment of a remembrancer from the 16th century, together with the facts of the case before the court, it occupied nearly an hour to deliver, but was nevertheless delivered without notes—this, too, on the 9th of March 1883, when the judge who uttered it was within a fortnight of his death. Never during the 19th century was the business of any court performed so rapidly, punctually, and satisfactorily as it was when Jessel presided. He was master of the rolls at a momentous period of legal history. The Judicature Acts, completing the fusion of law and equity, were passed while he was judge of first instance, and were still new to the courts when he died. His knowledge and power of assimilating knowledge of all subjects, his mastery of every branch of law with which he had to concern himself, as well as of equity, together with his willingness to give effect to the new system, caused it to be said when he died that the success of the Judicature Acts would have been impossible without him. His faults as a judge lay in his disposition to be intolerant of those who, not able to follow the rapidity of his judgment, endeavoured to persist in argument after he had made up his mind; but though he was peremptory with the most eminent counsel, young men had no cause to complain of his treatment of them.

Jessel sat on the royal commission for the amendment of the Medical Acts, taking an active part in the preparation of its report. He actively interested himself in the management of London University, of which he was a fellow from 1861, and of which he was elected vice-chancellor in 1880. He was one of the commissioners of patents, and trustee of the British Museum. He was also chairman of the committee of judges which drafted the new rules rendered necessary by the Judicature Acts. He was treasurer of Lincoln’s Inn in 1883, and vice-president of the council of legal education. He was also a fellow of the Royal Society. Jessel’s career marks an epoch on the bench, owing to the active part taken by him in rendering the Judicature Acts effective, and also because he was the last judge capable of sitting in the House of Commons, a privilege of which he did not avail himself. He was the first Jew who, as solicitor-general, took a share in the executive government of his country, the first Jew who was sworn a regular member of the privy council, and the first Jew who took a seat on the judicial bench of Great Britain; he was also, for many years after being called to the bar, so situated that any one might have driven him from it, because, being a Jew, he was not qualified to be a member of the bar. In person Jessel was a stoutish, square-built man of middle height, with dark hair, somewhat heavy features, a fresh ruddy complexion, and a large mouth. He married in 1856 Amelia, daughter of Joseph Moses, who survived him together with three daughters and two sons, the elder of whom, Charles James (b. 1860), was made a baronet shortly after the death of his distinguished father and in recognition of his services.

SeeThe Times, March 23, 1883; E. Manson,Builders of our Law(1904).

JESSORE,a town and district of British India, in the Presidency division of Bengal. The town is on the Bhairab river, with a railway station 75 m. N.E. of Calcutta. Pop. (1901), 8054.

TheDistrict of Jessorehas an area of 2925 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 1,813,155, showing a decrease of 4% in the decade. The district forms the central portion of the delta between the Hugli and the united Ganges and Brahmaputra. It is a vast alluvial plain intersected by rivers and watercourses, which in the southern portion spread out into large marshes. The northern part is verdant, with extensive groves of date-palms; villages are numerous and large; and the people are prosperous. In the central portion the population is sparse, the only part suitable for dwellings being the high land on the banks of rivers. The principal rivers are the Madhumati or Haringhata (which forms the eastern boundary of the district), with its tributaries the Nabaganga, Chitra, and Bhairab; the Kumar, Kabadak, Katki, Harihar, Bhadra and Atharabanka. Within the last century the rivers in the interior of Jessore have ceased to be true deltaic rivers; and, whereas the northern portion of the district formerly lay under water for several months every year, it is now reached only by unusual inundations. The tide reaches as far north as the latitude of Jessore town. Jessore is the centre of sugar manufacture from date palms. The exports are sugar, rice, pulse, timber, honey, shells, &c.; the imports are salt, English goods, and cloth. The district is crossed by the Eastern Bengal railway, but the chief means of communication are waterways.

British administration was completely established in the district in 1781, when the governor-general ordered the opening of a court at Murali near Jessore. Before that, however, the fiscal administration had been in the hands of the English, having been transferred to the East India company with that of the rest of Bengal in 1765. The changes in jurisdiction in Jessore have been very numerous. After many transfers and rectifications, the district was in 1863 finally constituted as it at present stands. The rajas of Jessore or Chanchra trace their origin to Bhabeswar Rai, a soldier in the army of Khan-i-Azam, an imperial general, who deprived Raja Pratapaditya, the popular hero of the Sundarbans, of several fiscal divisions, and conferred them on Bhabeswar. But Manohar Rai (1649-1705) is regarded as the principal founder of the family. The estate when he inherited it was of moderate size, but he acquired oneparganaafter another, until, at his death, the property was by far the largest in the neighbourhood.

JESTER,a provider of “jests” or amusements, a buffoon, especially a professional fool at a royal court or in a nobleman’s household (seeFool). The word “jest,” from which “jester” is formed, is used from the 16th century for the earlier “gest,” Lat.gesta, orres gestae, things done, fromgerere, to do, hence deeds, exploits, especially as told in history, and so used of the metrical and prose romances and chronicles of the middle ages. The word became applied to satirical writings and to any long-winded empty tale, and thence to a joke or piece of fun, the current meaning of the word.

JESUATI,a religious order founded by Giovanni Colombini of Siena in 1360. Colombini had been a prosperous merchant and a senator in his native city, but, coming under ecstatic religious influences, abandoned secular affairs and his wife and daughter (after making provision for them), and with a friend of like temperament, Francesco Miani, gave himself to a life of apostolic poverty, penitential discipline, hospital service and public preaching. The name Jesuati was given to Colombini and his disciples from the habit of calling loudly on the name of Jesus at the beginning and end of their ecstatic sermons. The senate banished Colombini from Siena for imparting foolish ideas to the young men of the city, and he continued his mission in Arezzo and other places, only to be honourably recalled home on the outbreak of a devastating pestilence. He went out to meet Urban V. on his return from Avignon to Rome in 1367, and craved his sanction for the new order and a distinctive habit. Before this was granted Colombini had to clear the movement of a suspicion that it was connected with the heretical sect of Fraticelli, and he died on the 31st of July 1367, soon after the papal approval had been given. The guidance of the new order, whose members (all lay brothers) gave themselves entirely to works of mercy, devolved upon Miani. Their rule of life, originally a compound of Benedictine and Franciscan elements, was later modified on Augustinian lines, but traces of the early penitential idea persisted,e.g.the wearing of sandals and a daily flagellation. Paul V. in 1606 arranged for a small proportion of clerical members, and later in the 17th century the Jesuati became so secularized that the members were known as the Aquavitae Fathers, and the order was dissolved by Clement IX. in 1668. The female branch of the order, the Jesuati sisters, founded by Caterina Colombini (d. 1387) in Siena, and thence widely dispersed, more consistently maintained the primitive strictness of the society and survived the male branch by 200 years, existing until 1872 in small communities in Italy.

JESUITS,the name generally given to the members of the Society of Jesus, a religious order in the Roman Catholic Church, founded in 1539. This Society may be defined, in its original conception and well-avowed object, as a body of highly trained religious men of various degrees, bound by the three personal vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, together with, in some cases, a special vow to the pope’s service, with the object of labouring for the spiritual good of themselves and their neighbours. They are declared to be mendicants and enjoy all the privileges of the other mendicant orders. They are governed and live by constitutions and rules, mostly drawn up by their founder, St Ignatius of Loyola, and approved by the popes. Their proper title is “Clerks Regulars of the Society of Jesus,” the wordSocietasbeing taken as synonymous with the original Spanish term,Compañia; perhaps the military termCohorsmight more fully have expressed the original idea of a band of spiritual soldiers living under martial law and discipline. The ordinary term “Jesuit” was given to the Society by its avowed opponents; it is first found in the writings of Calvin and in the registers of the Parlement of Paris as early as 1552.

Constitution and Character.—The formation of the Society was a masterpiece of genius on the part of a man (seeLoyola) who was quick to realize the necessity of the moment. Just before Ignatius was experiencing the call to conversion, Luther had begun his revolt against the Roman Church by burning the papal bull of excommunication on the 10th of December 1520. But while Luther’s most formidable opponent was thus being prepared in Spain, the actual formation of the Society was not to take place for eighteen years. Its conception seems to have developed very slowly in the mind of Ignatius. It introduced a new idea into the Church. Hitherto all regulars made a point of the choral office in choir. But as Ignatius conceived the Church to be in a state of war, what was desirable in days of peace ceased when the life of the cloister had to be exchanged for the discipline of the camp; so in the sketch of the new society which he laid before Paul III., Ignatius laid down the principle that the obligation of the breviary should be fulfilled privately and separately and not in choir. The other orders, too, were bound by the idea of a constitutional monarchy based on the democratic spirit. Not so with the Society. The founder placed the general for life in an almost uncontrolled position of authority, giving him the faculty of dispensing individuals from the decrees of the highest legislative body, the general congregations. Thus the principle of military obedience was exalted to a degree higher than that existing in the older orders, which preserved to their members certain constitutional rights.

The soldier-mind of Ignatius can be seen throughout the constitutions. Even in the spiritual labours which the Society shares with the other orders, its own ways of dealing with persons and things result from the system of training which succeeds in forming men to a type that is considered desirable. But it must not be thought that in practice the rule of the Society and the high degree of obedience demanded result in mere mechanism. By a system of check and counter check devised in the constitutions the power of local superiors is modified, so that in practice the working is smooth. Ignatius knew that while a high ideal was necessary for every society, his followers were flesh and blood, not machines. He made it clear from the first that the Society was everything and the individual nothing, except so far as he might prove a useful instrument for carrying out the Society’s objects. Ignatius said to hissecretary Polanco that “in those who offered themselves he looked less to purely natural goodness than to firmness of character and ability for business, for he was of opinion that those who were not fit for public business were not adapted for filling offices in the Society.” He further declared that even exceptional qualities and endowments in a candidate were valuable in his eyes only on the condition of their being brought into play, or held in abeyance, strictly at the command of a superior. Hence his teaching on obedience. His letter on this subject, addressed to the Jesuits of Coimbra in 1553, is still one of the standard formularies of the Society, ranking with those other products of his pen, theSpiritual Exercisesand theConstitutions. In this letter Ignatius clothes the general with the powers of a commander-in-chief in time of war, giving him the absolute disposal of all members of the Society in every place and for every purpose. He pushes the claim even further, requiring, besides entire outward submission to command, also the complete identification of the inferior’s will with that of the superior. He lays down that the 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 outward effect, is lax and imperfect; that going beyond the letter of command, even in things abstractly good and praiseworthy, is disobedience, and that the “sacrifice of the intellect” 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. ThisLetter on Obediencewas written for the guidance and formation of Ignatius’s own followers; it was an entirely domestic affair. But when it became known beyond the Society the teaching met with great opposition, especially from members of other orders whose institutes represented the normal days of peace rather than those of war. The letter was condemned by the Inquisitions of Spain and Portugal; and it tasked all the skill and learning of Bellarmine as its apologist, together with the whole influence of the Society, to avert what seemed to be a probable condemnation at Rome.The teaching of theLettermust be understood in the living spirit of the Society. Ignatius himself lays down the rule that an inferior is bound to make all necessary representations to his superior so as to guide him in imposing a precept of obedience. When a superior knows the views of his inferior and still commands, it is because he is aware of other sides of the question which appear of greater importance than those that the inferior has brought forward. Ignatius distinctly excepts the case where obedience in itself would be sinful: “In all thingsexcept sinI ought to do the will of my superior and not my own.” There may be cases where an inferior judges that what is commanded is sinful. What is to be done? Ignatius says: “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 submissions do not appease my conscience I must impart my doubts to two or three persons of discretion and abide by their decision.” From this it is clear that only indoubtfulcases concerning sin should an inferior try to submit his judgment to that of his superior, whoex officiois held to be not only one who would not order what is clearly sinful, but also a competent judge who knows and understands, better than the inferior, the nature and aspect of the command. As the Jesuit obedience is based on the law of God, it is clearly impossible that he should be bound to obey in what is directly opposed to the divine service. A Jesuit lives in obedience all his life, though the yoke is not galling nor always felt. He can accept no dignity or office which will make him independent of the Society; and even if ordered by the pope to accept the cardinalate or the episcopate, he is still bound, if not to obey, yet to listen to the advice of those whom the general deputes to counsel him in important matters.The Jesuits had to find their principal work in the world and in direct and immediate contact with mankind. To seek spiritual perfection in a retired life of contemplation and prayer did not seem to Ignatius to be the best way of reforming the evils which had brought about the revolt from Rome. He withdrew his followers from this sort of retirement, except as a mere temporary preparation for later activity; he made habitual intercourse with the world a prime duty; and to this end he rigidly suppressed all such external peculiarities of dress or rule as tended to put obstacles in the way of his followers acting freely as emissaries, agents or missionaries in the most various places and circumstances. Another change he introduced even more completely than did the founders of the Friars. The Jesuit has no home: the whole world is his parish. Mobility and cosmopolitanism are of the very essence of the Society. As Ignatius said, the ancient monastic communities were the infantry of the Church, whose duty was to stand firmly in one place on the battlefield; the Jesuits were to be her light horse, capable of going anywhere at a moment’s notice, but especially apt and designed for scouting and skirmishing. To carry out this view, it was one of his plans to send foreigners as superiors or officers to the Jesuit houses in each country, requiring of these envoys, however, invariably to use the language of their new place of residence and to study it both in speaking and writing till entire mastery of it had been acquired—thus by degrees making all the parts of his system mutually interchangeable, and so largely increasing the number of persons eligible to fill any given post without reference to locality. But subsequent experience has, in practice, modified this interchange, as far as local government goes, though the central government of the Society is always cosmopolitan.

The teaching of theLettermust be understood in the living spirit of the Society. Ignatius himself lays down the rule that an inferior is bound to make all necessary representations to his superior so as to guide him in imposing a precept of obedience. When a superior knows the views of his inferior and still commands, it is because he is aware of other sides of the question which appear of greater importance than those that the inferior has brought forward. Ignatius distinctly excepts the case where obedience in itself would be sinful: “In all thingsexcept sinI ought to do the will of my superior and not my own.” There may be cases where an inferior judges that what is commanded is sinful. What is to be done? Ignatius says: “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 submissions do not appease my conscience I must impart my doubts to two or three persons of discretion and abide by their decision.” From this it is clear that only indoubtfulcases concerning sin should an inferior try to submit his judgment to that of his superior, whoex officiois held to be not only one who would not order what is clearly sinful, but also a competent judge who knows and understands, better than the inferior, the nature and aspect of the command. As the Jesuit obedience is based on the law of God, it is clearly impossible that he should be bound to obey in what is directly opposed to the divine service. A Jesuit lives in obedience all his life, though the yoke is not galling nor always felt. He can accept no dignity or office which will make him independent of the Society; and even if ordered by the pope to accept the cardinalate or the episcopate, he is still bound, if not to obey, yet to listen to the advice of those whom the general deputes to counsel him in important matters.

The Jesuits had to find their principal work in the world and in direct and immediate contact with mankind. To seek spiritual perfection in a retired life of contemplation and prayer did not seem to Ignatius to be the best way of reforming the evils which had brought about the revolt from Rome. He withdrew his followers from this sort of retirement, except as a mere temporary preparation for later activity; he made habitual intercourse with the world a prime duty; and to this end he rigidly suppressed all such external peculiarities of dress or rule as tended to put obstacles in the way of his followers acting freely as emissaries, agents or missionaries in the most various places and circumstances. Another change he introduced even more completely than did the founders of the Friars. The Jesuit has no home: the whole world is his parish. Mobility and cosmopolitanism are of the very essence of the Society. As Ignatius said, the ancient monastic communities were the infantry of the Church, whose duty was to stand firmly in one place on the battlefield; the Jesuits were to be her light horse, capable of going anywhere at a moment’s notice, but especially apt and designed for scouting and skirmishing. To carry out this view, it was one of his plans to send foreigners as superiors or officers to the Jesuit houses in each country, requiring of these envoys, however, invariably to use the language of their new place of residence and to study it both in speaking and writing till entire mastery of it had been acquired—thus by degrees making all the parts of his system mutually interchangeable, and so largely increasing the number of persons eligible to fill any given post without reference to locality. But subsequent experience has, in practice, modified this interchange, as far as local government goes, though the central government of the Society is always cosmopolitan.

Next we must consider the machinery by which the Society is constituted and governed so as to make its spirit a living energy and not a mere abstract theory. The Society is distributed into six grades: novices, scholastics, temporal coadjutors (lay brothers), spiritual coadjutors, professed of the three vows, and professed of the four vows. No one can become a postulant for admission to the Society until fourteen years old, unless by special dispensation. The novice is 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. The novice has first to undergo a strict retreat, practically in solitary confinement, during which he receives from a director theSpiritual Exercisesand makes a general confession of his whole life; after which the first novitiate of two years’ duration begins. In this period of trial the real character of the man is discerned, his weak points are noted and his will is tested. Prayer and the practices of asceticism, as means to an end, are the chief occupations of the novice. He may leave or be dismissed at any time during the two years; but at the end of the period if he is approved and destined for the priesthood, he is advanced to the grade of scholastic and takes the following simple vows in the presence of certain witnesses, but not to any person:—

“Almighty Everlasting God, albeit everyway most unworthy in Thy holy sight, yet relying on Thine infinite kindness and mercy and impelled by the desire of serving Thee, before the Most Holy Virgin Mary and all Thy heavenly host, I, N., vow to Thy divine Majesty Poverty, Chastity and Perpetual Obedience to the Society of Jesus, and promise that I will enter the same Society to live in it perpetually, understanding all things according to the Constitutions of the Society. I humbly pray from Thine immense goodness and clemency, through the Blood of Jesus Christ, that Thou wilt deign to accept this sacrifice in the odour of sweetness; and as Thou hast granted me to desire and to offer this, so wilt Thou bestow abundant grace to fulfil it.”

The scholastic then follows the ordinary course of an undergraduate at a university. After passing five years in arts he has, while still keeping up his own studies, to devote five or six years more to teaching the junior classes in various Jesuit schools or colleges. About this period he takes his simple vows in the following terms:—

“I,N., promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the whole heavenly host, and to thee, Reverend Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and to thy successors (or to thee, Reverend FatherM.in place of the General of the Society of Jesus and his successors holding the place of God), Perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to it a peculiar care in the education of boys, according to the manner expressed in the Apostolic Letter and Constitutions of the said Society.”

The lay brothers leave out the clause concerning education. The scholastic does not begin the study of theology until he is twenty-eight or thirty, and then passes through a four or six years’ course. Only when he is thirty-four or thirty-six can he be ordained a priest and enter on the grade of a spiritual coadjutor. A lay brother, before he can become a temporal coadjutor for the discharge of domestic duties, must pass ten years before he is admitted to vows. Sometimes after ordination the priest, in the midst of his work, is again called away to a third year’s novitiate, called the tertianship, as a preparation for his solemn profession of the three vows. His former vows were simple and the Society was at liberty to dismiss him for any canonical reason. The formula of the famous Jesuit vow is as follows:—

“I,N., promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the whole heavenly host, and to all standing by; and to thee, Reverend Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and to thy successors (or to thee, Reverend FatherM.in place of the General of the Society of Jesus and his successors holding the place of God), Perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to it a peculiar care in the education of boys according tothe form of life contained in the Apostolic Letters of the Society of Jesus and in its Constitutions.”

Immediately after the vows the Jesuit adds the following simple vows: (1) that he will never act nor consent that the provisions in the constitutions concerning poverty should be changed; (2) that he will not directly nor indirectly procure election or promotion for himself to any prelacy or dignity in the Society; (3) that he will not accept or consent to his election to any dignity or prelacy outside the Society unless forced thereunto by obedience; (4) that if he knows of others doing these things he will denounce them to the superiors; (5) that if elected to a bishopric he will never refuse to hear such advice as the general may deign to send him and will follow it if he judges it is better than his own opinion. The professed is now eligible to certain offices in the Society, and he may remain as a professed father of the three vows for the rest of his life. The highest class, who constitute the real core of the Society, whence all its chief officers are taken, are the professed of the four vows. This grade can seldom be reached until the candidate is in his forty-fifth year, which involves a probation of thirty-one years in the case of those who have entered on the novitiate at the earliest legal age. The number of these select members is small in comparison with the whole Society; the exact proportion varies from time to time, the present tendency being to increase the number. The vows of this grade are the same as the last formula, with the addition of the following important clause:—

“Moreover I promise the special obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff concerning missions, as is contained in the same Apostolic Letter and Constitutions.”

These various members of the Society are distributed in its novitiate houses, its colleges, its professed houses and its mission residences. The question has been hotly debated whether, in addition to these six grades, there be not a seventh answering in some degree to the tertiaries of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, but secretly affiliated to the Society and acting as its emissaries in various lay positions. This class was styled in France “Jesuits of the short robe,” and there is some evidence in support of its actual existence under Louis XV. The Jesuits themselves 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 a class perfectly feasible if thought expedient. An admitted instance is the case of Francisco Borgia, who in 1548, while still duke of Gandia, was received into the Society. What has given colour to the idea is that certain persons have made vows of obedience to individual Jesuits; as Thomas Worthington, rector of the Douai seminary, to Father Robert Parsons; Ann Vaux to Fr. Henry Garnet, who told her that he was not indeed allowed to receive her vows, but that she might make them if she wished and then receive his direction. The archaeologist George Oliver of Exeter was, according to Foley’sRecords of the English Province, the last of the secular priests of England who vowed obedience to the Society before its suppression.

The general lives permanently at Rome and holds in his hands the right to appoint, not only to the office of provincial over each of the head districts into which the Society is mapped, but to the offices of each house in particular. There is no standard of electoral right in the Society except in the election of the general himself. By a minute and frequent system of official and private reports he is informed of the doings and progress of every member of the Society and of everything that concerns it throughout the world. Every Jesuit has not only the right but the duty in certain cases of communicating, directly and privately, with his general. While the general thus controls everything, he himself is not exempt from supervision on the part of the Society. A consultative council is imposed upon him by the general congregation, consisting of the assistants of the various nations, asocius, or adviser, to warn him of mistakes, and a confessor. These he cannot remove nor select; and he is bound, in certain circumstances, to listen to their advice, although he is not obliged to follow it. Once elected the general may not refuse the office, nor abdicate, nor accept any dignity or office outside of the Society; on the other hand, for certain definite reasons, he may be suspended or even deposed by the authority of the Society, which can thus preserve itself from destruction. No such instance has occurred, although steps were once taken in this direction in the case of a general who had set himself against the current feeling.

It is said that the general of the Jesuits is independent of the pope; and his popular name, “the black pope,” has gone to confirm this idea. But it is based on an entirely wrong conception of the two offices. The suppression of the Society by Clement XIV. in 1773 was an object-lesson in the supremacy of the pope. The Society became very numerous and, from time to time, received extraordinary privileges from popes, who were warranted by the necessities of the times in granting them. A great number of influential friends, also, gathered round the fathers who, naturally, sought in every way to retain what had been granted. Popes who thought it well to bring about certain changes, or to withdraw privileges that were found to have passed their intentions or to interfere unduly with the rights of other bodies, often met with loyal resistances against their proposed measures. Resistance up to a certain point is lawful and is not disobedience, for every society has the right of self-preservation. In cases where the popes insisted, in spite of the representations of the Jesuits, their commands were obeyed. Many of the popes were distinctly unfavourable to the Society, while others were as friendly, and often what one pope did against them the next pope withdrew. Whatever was done in times when strong divergence of opinion existed, and whatever may have been the actions of individuals who, even in so highly organized a body as the Society of Jesus, cannot always be successfully controlled by their superiors, yet the ultimate result on the part of the Society has always been obedience to the pope, who authorized, protected and privileged them, and on whom they ultimately depend for their very existence.

Thus constituted, with a skilful union of strictness and freedom, of complex organization with a minimum of friction in working, the Society was admirably devised for its purpose of introducing a new power into the Church and the world. Its immediate services to the Church were great. The Society did much, single-handed, to roll back the tide of Protestant advance when half of Europe, which had not already shaken off its allegiance to the papacy, was threatening to do so. The honours of the reaction belong to the Jesuits, and the reactionary spirit has become their tradition. They had the wisdom to see and to admit, in their correspondence with their superiors, that the real cause of the Reformation was the ignorance, neglect and vicious lives of so many priests. They recognized, as most earnest men did, that the difficulty was in the higher places, and that these could best be touched by indirect methods. At a time when primary or even secondary education had in most places become a mere effete and pedantic adherence to obsolete methods, they were bold enough to innovate, both in system and material. Putting fresh spirit and devotion into the work, they not merely taught and catechized in a new, fresh and attractive manner, besides establishing free schools of good quality, but provided new school books for their pupils which were an enormous advance on those they found in use; so that for nearly three centuries the Jesuits were accounted the best schoolmasters in Europe, as they were, till their forcible suppression in 1901, confessedly the best in France. The Jesuit teachers conciliated the goodwill of their pupils by mingled firmness and gentleness. Although the method of theRatio Studiorumhas ceased to be acceptable, yet it played in its time as serious a part in the intellectual development of Europe as did the method of Frederick the Great in modern warfare. Bacon succinctly gives his opinion of the Jesuit teaching in these words: “As for the pedagogical part, the shortest rule would be, Consult the schools of the Jesuits; for nothing better has been put in practice” (De Augmentis, vi. 4). In instruction they were excellent; but in education, or formation of character, deficient. Again, when most of the continental clergy had sunk, more or less, into the moral and intellectual slough which is pictured for us in the writings of Erasmus and theEpistolae obscurorum virorum(seeHutten, Ulrich von), the Jesuits won back respect for the clerical calling by their personal cultureand the unimpeachable purity of their lives. These qualities they have carefully maintained; and probably no large body of men in the world has been so free from the reproach of discreditable members or has kept up, on the whole, an equally high average of intelligence and conduct. As preachers, too, they delivered the pulpit from the bondage of an effete scholasticism and reached at once a clearness and simplicity of treatment such as the English pulpit scarcely begins to exhibit till after the days of Tillotson; while in literature and theology they count a far larger number of respectable writers than any other religious society can boast. It is in the mission field, however, that their achievements have been most remarkable. Whether toiling among the teeming millions in Hindustan and China, labouring amongst the Hurons and Iroquois of North America, governing and civilizing the natives of Brazil and Paraguay in the missions and “reductions,” or ministering, at the hourly risk of his life to his fellow-Catholics in England under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, the Jesuit appears alike devoted, indefatigable, cheerful and worthy of hearty admiration and respect.

Nevertheless, two startling and indisputable facts meet the student who pursues the history of the Society. The first is the universal suspicion and hostility it has incurred—not merely from the Protestants whose avowed foe it has been, not yet from the enemies of all clericalism and dogma, but from every Catholic state and nation in the world. Its chief enemies have been those of the household of the Roman Catholic faith. The second fact is the ultimate failure which seems to dog all its most promising schemes and efforts. These two results are to be observed alike in the provinces of morals and politics. The first cause of the opposition indeed redounds to the Jesuits’ credit, for it was largely due to their success. Their pulpits rang with a studied eloquence; their churches, sumptuous and attractive, were crowded; and in the confessional their advice was eagerly sought in all kinds of difficulties, for they were the fashionable professors of the art of direction. Full of enthusiasm and zeal, devoted wholly to their Society, they were able to bring in numbers of rich and influential persons to their ranks; for, with a clear understanding of the power of wealth, they became, of set purpose, the apostles of the rich and influential. The Jesuits felt that they were the new men, the men of the time; so with a perfect confidence in themselves they went out to set the Church to rights. It was no wonder that success, so well worked for and so well deserved, failed to win the approval or sympathy of those who found themselves supplanted. Old-fashioned men, to whom the apostles’ advice to “do all to the glory of God” seemed sufficient, mistrusted those who professed to go beyond all others and adopted as their motto the famousAd majorem Dei gloriam, “To the greater glory of God.” But, besides this, theesprit de corpswhich is necessary for every body of men was, it was held, carried to an excess and made the Jesuits intolerant of any one or anything if not of “ours.” The novelties too which they introduced into the conception of the religious life, naturally, were displeasing to the older orders, who felt like old aristocratic families towards a newly rich or purse-proud upstart. The Society, or rather its members, were too aggressive and self-assertive to be welcomed; and a certain characteristic, which soon began to manifest itself in an impatience of episcopal control, showed that the quality of “Jesuitry,” usually associated with the Society, was singularly lacking in their dealings with opponents. Their political attitude also alienated many. Many of the Jesuits could not separate religion from politics. To say this is only to assert that they were not clearer-minded than most men of their age. But unfortunately they invariably took the wrong side and allowed themselves to be made the tools of men who saw farther and more clearly than they did. They had their share, direct or indirect, in the embroiling of states, in concocting conspiracies and in kindling wars. They were also responsible by their theoretical teachings in theological schools, where cases were considered and treated in the abstract, for not a few assassinations of the enemies of the cause. Weak minds heard tyrannicide discussed and defended in the abstract; and it was no wonder that, when opportunity served, the train that had been heedlessly laid by speculative professors was fired by rash hands. What professors like Suarez taught in the calm atmosphere of the lecture hall, what writers like Mariana upheld and praised, practical men took as justification for deeds of blood. There is no evidence that any Jesuit took a direct part in political assassinations; however, indirectly, they may have been morally responsible. They were playing with edged tools and often got wounded through their own carelessness. Other grievances were raised by their perpetual meddling in politics,e.g.their large share in fanning the flames of political hatred against the Huguenots under the last two Valois kings; their perpetual plotting against England in the reign of Elizabeth; their share in the Thirty Years’ War and in the religious miseries of Bohemia; their decisive influence in causing the revocation of the edict of Nantes and the expulsion of the Protestants from France; the ruin of the Stuart cause under James II., and the establishment of the Protestant succession. In a number of cases where the evidence against them is defective, it is at least an unfortunate coincidence that there is always direct proof of some Jesuit having been in communication with the actual agents engaged. They were the stormy petrels of politics. Yet the Jesuits, as a body, should not be made responsible for the doings of men who, in their political intrigues, were going directly against the distinct law of the Society, which in strict terms, and under heavy penalties, forbade them to have anything to do with such matters. The politicians were comparatively few in number, though unfortunately they held high rank; and their disobedience to the rule besmirched the name of the society and destroyed the good work of the other Jesuits who were faithfully carrying out their own proper duties.

A far graver cause for uneasiness was given by the Jesuits’ activity in the region of doctrine and morals. Here the charges against them are precise, early, numerous and weighty. Their founder himself was arrested, more than once, by the Inquisition and required to give account of his belief and conduct. But St Ignatius, with all his powerful gifts of intellect, was entirely practical and ethical in his range, and had no turn whatever for speculation, nor desire to discuss, much less to question, any of the received dogmas of the Church. He gives it as a rule of orthodoxy to be ready to say that black is white if the Church says so. He was therefore acquitted on every occasion, and applied each time for a formally attested certificate of his orthodoxy, knowing well that, in default of such documents, the fact of his arrest as a suspected heretic would be more distinctly recollected by opponents than that of his honourable dismissal from custody. His followers, however, have not been so fortunate. On doctrinal questions indeed, though their teaching on grace, especially in the form given to it by Molina (q.v.), ran contrary to the accepted teaching on the subject by the Augustinians, Dominicans and other representative schools; yet by their pertinacity they gained for their views a recognized and established position. A special congregation of cardinals and theologians known asde auxiliiswas summoned by the pope to settle the dispute, for theodium theologicumhad risen to a desperate height between the representatives of the old and the new theology; but after many years they failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, and the pope, instead of settling the dispute, was only able to impose mutual silence on all opponents. Among those who held out stiffly against the Jesuits on the subject of grace were the Jansenists, who held that they were following the special teaching of St Augustine, knownpar excellenceas the doctor of grace. The Jesuits and the Jansenists soon became deadly enemies; and in the ensuing conflict both parties accused each other of flinging scruples to the wind. (SeeJansenism.)

But the accusations against the Jesuit system of moral theology and their action as guides of conduct have had a more serious effect on their reputation. It is undeniable that some of their moral writers were lax in their teaching; and conscience was strained to the snapping point. The Society was trying to make itself all things to all men. Propositions extracted fromJesuit moral theologians have again and again been condemned by the pope and declared untenable. Many of these can be found in Viva’sCondemned Propositions. As early as 1554 the Jesuits were censured by the Sorbonne, chiefly at the instance of Eustache de Bellay, bishop of Paris, as being dangerous in matters of faith. Melchor Cano, a Dominican, one of the ablest divines of the 16th century, never ceased to lift up his testimony against them, from their first beginnings till his own death in 1560; and, unmollified by the bribe of the bishopric of the Canaries, which their interest procured for him, he succeeded in banishing them from the university of Salamanca. Carlo Borromeo, to whose original advocacy they owed much, especially in the council of Trent, found himself attacked in his own cathedral pulpit and interfered with in his jurisdiction. He withdrew his protection and expelled them from his colleges and churches; and he was followed in 1604 in this policy by his cousin and successor Cardinal Federigo Borromeo. St Theresa learnt, in after years, to mistrust their methods, although she was grateful to them for much assistance in the first years of her work. The credit of the Society was seriously damaged by the publication, at Cracow, in 1612, of theMonita Secreta. This book, which is undoubtedly a forgery, professes to contain the authoritative secret instructions drawn up by the general Acquaviva and given by the superiors of the Society to its various officers and members. A bold caricature of Jesuit methods, the book has been ascribed to John Zaorowsky or to Cambilone and Schloss, all ex-Jesuits, and it is stated to have been discovered in manuscript by Christian of Brunswick in the Jesuit college at Prague. It consists of suggestions and methods for extending the influence of the Jesuits in various ways, for securing a footing in fresh places, for acquiring wealth, for creeping into households and leading silly rich widows captive and so forth, all marked with ambition, craft and unscrupulousness. It had a wide success and popularity, passing through several editions, and even to this day it is used by controversialists as unscrupulous as the original writers. It may, perhaps, represent the actions of some individuals who allowed their zeal to outrun their discretion, but surely no society which exists for good and is marked by so many worthy men could systematically have conducted its operations in such a manner. Later on a formidable assault was made on Jesuit moral theology in the famousProvincial Lettersof Blaise Pascal (q.v.), eighteen in number, issued under the pen-name of Louis de Montalte, from January 1656 to March 1657. Their wit, irony, eloquence and finished style have kept them alive as one of the great French classics—a destiny more fortunate than that of the kindred works by Antoine Arnauld,Théologie morale des Jésuites, consisting of extracts from writings of members of the Society, andMorale pratique des Jésuites, made up of narratives professing to set forth the manner in which they carried out their own maxims. But, like most controversial writers, the authors were not scrupulous in their quotations, and by giving passages divorced from their contexts often entirely misrepresented their opponents. The immediate reply on the part of the Jesuits,The Discourses of Cleander and Eudoxusby Père Daniel, could not compete with Pascal’s work in brilliancy, wit or style; moreover, it was unfortunate enough to be put upon the Index of prohibited books in 1701. The reply on behalf of the Society to Pascal’s charges of lax morality, apart from mere general denials, is broadly as follows:—

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