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THE EARLY
FRANCISCANS & JESUITS
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS
BY
BOSTON COLLEGE L! r
CHLSTNUT HILL. Mfl
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK AND TORONTO: THE MAC.MILLAN CO.
1922
nO
TO
FRANCIS B. SOWTER
ARE DEDICATED
IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION
CONTENTS
Preface
I. St. Francis of Assisi .
II. The Early Franciscans in Italy
Bibliography .
Index
PAGE
vii
2 3
46
67
93
117
139
142
VI
PREFACE
vii
viii Preface
THE EARLY
ERRATA.
viii Preface
THE EARLY
FRANCISCANS & JESUITS
CHI
" Praised be Thou, O Lord, for those who give pardon for Thy
Love,
And endure infirmity and tribulation :
Blessed be those who endure in peace,
Who will be, Most High, crowned by Thee."
What's it all to me ?
Only a pure and simple mind
Straight to heaven its way doth find ;
Greets the King — while far behind
Ill
46
£
58 The Early Franciscans and Jesuits
other volumes, adding, " and you may pack the books
IV
IGNATIUS LOYOLA
67
Ignatius Loyola 69
Ignatius Loyola 71
Ignatius Loyola 73
Ignatius Loyola 75
Ignatius Loyola yy
the water icy cold ; the saint passed the time praying
God to have mercy on this madman who had no
mercy on his own soul. Absorbed in the thought of
his criminal purpose the adulterer neared the bridge,
where he was startled by a voice from the water which
was vehement in its earnestness. " Go," it said,
" and enjoy your odious pleasures at the peril of your
life and of your immortal soul. I, meanwhile, will do
penance for your sin. Here you will find me when you
return ; and here every evening till God, whom I
shall never cease imploring, shall bring your crimes
or my life to an end." At these words and still more
at the sight he beheld the man stood abashed and
confounded ; he abandoned his guilty purpose and
changed his whole course of life.
Ignatius Loyola 79
Ignatius Loyola 81
What were the aims and what has been the influence
of the Society which he founded ?
Ignatius Loyola 83
Ignatius Loyola 87
Ignatius Loyola 89
direction of Conscience. We have already seen with
what difficulty and after what painful struggles he had
himself arrived at what he supposed to be the Light.
It was natural that he should wish to guide others to
the same goal by a more direct path. At the same
time it was not to pure religion that he led them.
Unconscious as he was of it, his whole world view was
narrow and distorted, his views of morality warped and
unsound. Doctrine was more than practice, prudence
better than sympathy, power more valuable than
truth. Probabilism, equivocation, mental reserve,
directing the intention, undue allowance of extenuating
circumstances, justification of doubtful means were
dangerous weapons in the hands of a worthy confessor ;
in the case of an unscrupulous adviser, they were
certain to lead to wickedness and its palliation.
Thus arose what Mr. Symonds has called " the Jesuit
labyrinth of casuistry, with its windings, turnings,
secret chambers, blind alleys and issues of evasion " :
the system against which Pascal launched the bolts of
his indignant eloquence and inimitable raillery in his
Provincial Letters. Yet it is unfair to empty the vials of
our superiority on Jesuit casuistry, as though it stood by
itself in the history of the Church. Casuistry arises
from the complications of competing social claims and
partly, also from the too great deference of the indi-
vidual conscience to external authority, especially in
ages of imperfect enlightenment.
Ignatius Loyola 91
93
VI
117
swept far farther afield and have left intact much less
of the mediaeval system of the Church. On the other
hand, the Jesuits were, as they still are, the party of
remorseless reaction. They opposed liberty of thought
with every faculty at their disposal ; and fond as they
were of moral compromise, they were adamantine in
their maintenance of Papal authority and eagerly
anxious to strengthen and increase it. In the severe
but balanced judgment of Dean Church, they were
" an engine for maintaining at any cost the spiritual
supremacy of an unreformed theocracy, with all its
insolence, all its accumulated abuses and all its false-
hoods."
The Jesuit process of " scooping out the will " robbed
the Society of robust and independent minds, and when
such appeared, they soon left its narrow ranks to
become in some cases its severest critics.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
139
Bibliography 141
INDEX
Agnellus of Pisa, 50
Albert of Pisa, 52-3
Aquaviva, Claude, 90, 120-1,
136
Assisi, Basilica of, 24-5, 28
Joachim of Flora, 34
Jogues, Isaac, 1 10-13
John of Parma, 32-5
Manresa, 72-4
Marsh, Adam, 56-9
Montserrat, 72
William of Occam, 63
Wyclif, John, 56, 62-3
104
Xavier, Jerome, 105
Ecclesiastical Legislation.
AN ABBOT OF VEZELAY.
boards, 9s.
London : S. P. C. K.
BOSTON COLLEGE