The Jesuits, 1534-1921. Thomas J. Campbell
twenty-seven guilty men were denounced as "false sons, disturbers of the common peace, and revolutionists (architecti rerum novarum) whose punishment had been asked for by many provinces. The congregation, therefore, while grievously bewailing the loss of its spiritual sons, was nevertheless compelled in the interests of domestic union, religious obedience, and the perpetuation of the Society, to employ a severe remedy in the premises." After recounting their charges against the Society, and their claim to be "the whole Society," although they were only a few "degenerate sons" the decree denounces them and their accomplices as having incurred the censures and penalties contained in the Apostolic Bulls, and orders them to be expelled from the Society. "If for one reason or another, they cannot be immediately dismissed they were declared incapable of any office or dignity and denied all active or passive voice." It also orders that "those suspected of being parties to such machinations shall make a solemn oath to support the Constitution as approved by the Popes, and to do nothing against it. If they refuse to take the oath, or having taken it, fail to keep it, they are to be expelled, even if old and professed."
Aquaviva had thus triumphed all along the line. He had not only saved the Institute, but had received the power of expelling every one of the insurgents if they refused the oath of submission. Acosta, the leading rebel, was one of the chief sufferers; although he was the representative of Philip II, he was struck, like his associates, by the condemnation. The one who was punished, most, however, was Toletus, who like Acosta had a Jewish strain, which may explain the moroseness which the delegates remarked whenever they met him, and also his complaints that "the proceedings of the Congregation could not have been worse … that it had treated Philip like a valet."
Toletus, however, continued to fight. On January 12 he advised Aquaviva to propose the discussion of a change of assistants and a sexennial congregation. A commission was immediately formed to wait on the Pope, but it failed to see him; whereupon Toletus appeared on January 14 and informed the General that the two points should be regarded as settled without discussion. Accordingly, four days later, new assistants were elected, but the law of the six-year convocations became a dead letter. On January 8 Toletus had presented a document to the Pontiff urging nine different changes in the Constitutions, adding that Philip II had asked for them, though in reality the king had only asked that they should be discussed. Doubtless Toletus had misunderstood. Fortunately, the Pope would not admit all of the changes, but suggested to the congregation four harmless ones – first, that except for the master of novices, the term of office should be three years; second, that at the end of their term the provincials should give an account of their administration; third that the papal reservations should be observed; and fourth, that the assistants should have a deciding vote. The three first were readily accepted, and the fourth respectfully rejected. The remaining business was then expedited, and the congregation adjourned on January 19, 1594.
The conspirators, however, had not yet been beaten. They proposed to the Pope to appoint Aquaviva Archbishop of Capua. Of course, Aquaviva refused, and then it was cunningly suggested that it would be an excellent thing if the General, in the interests of unity and peace, should visit the Spanish provinces. Philip III, who was now on the throne, had been approached, and he wrote to the Pope to that effect. Clement rather favored the proposition, but Henry IV of France, Sigismund of Poland, the Archdukes Ferdinand and Matthias and other German princes protested. Then the Pope took the matter under consideration, but before he reached any conclusion he died, and the plot was thus thwarted.
The one who planned this visit to Spain was the plotter Mendoza. His purpose was simply to humiliate the General by confronting him with the king, the greatest nobles of the realm and the Inquisition, and then to force from him all sorts of permissions which were in direct violation of the methods of Jesuit life. The story, as it appears in Astrain, is simply amazing. Mendoza had actually procured from the Pope, through the magnates of Spain, permission to receive and spend money as he wished, to be free from all superiors, and to go and live wherever he chose. When Aquaviva protested to the Pope that such permissions were subversive of all religious discipline, His Holiness suggested a way out of the difficulty, which took every one by surprise – Mendoza was made Bishop of Cuzco in Peru. This interference of rich and powerful outsiders in the family life of the Society, as well as the shameful way in which some of the members sought the favor of men of great influence in the State may explain how, after the angry fulminations of the congregation against the Spanish plotters, it took several years to get even a few of them out of the Society.
The dispute, known as the "De Auxiliis," which raged with great theological fury for many years, had for its object the reconciliation of Divine grace with human freedom. "The Dominicans maintained that the difficulty was solved by their theory of physical premotion and predetermination, whereas the Jesuits found the explanation of it in the Scientia media whereby God knows in the objective reality of things what a man would do in any circumstances in which he might be placed. The Dominicans declared that this was conceding too much to free will, and that it tended towards Pelagianism, while the Jesuits complained that the Dominicans did not sufficiently safeguard human liberty and hence seemed to lean towards the doctrines of Calvin" (Astrain). It was not until 1588, that Luis de Molina, whose name is chiefly connected with the doctrine of the Scientia media, got into the fight. Domingo Ibánez, the Dominican professor at Salamanca, was his chief antagonist. The debates continued for five years, and by that time there were public disturbances in several Spanish cities. Clement VIII then took the matter in his own hands, and forbade any further discussion till the Holy See had decided one way or the other. The opinions of universities and theologians were asked for, but by 1602 no conclusion had been arrived at, and between that year and 1605, sixty-eight sessions had been held with no result. Thus it went on till 1607, when the Pope decided that both parties might hold their own opinions, but that each should refrain from censuring the other. In 1611, by order of the Pope, the Inquisition issued a decree forbidding the publication of any book concerning efficacious grace until further action by the Holy See. The prohibition remained in force during the greater part of the seventeenth century. The principal theologians who appeared on the Jesuit side of this controversy were Toletus, Bellarmine, Lessius, Molina, Padilla, Valencia, Arubal, Bastida and Salas.
While these constitutional and theological wars were at their height a discussion of quite another kind was going on in the immediate surroundings of the General. It was to determine what amount of prayer and penitential exercises should be the normal practice of the Society. Maggio and Alarcón, two of the assistants, were for long contemplations and great austerities, while Hoffæus and Emmanuel Rodrigues advocated more sobriety in those two matters. Aquaviva decided for a middle course, declaring that the Society was not established especially for prayer and mortification, but, on the other hand, that it could not endure without a moderate use of these two means of Christian perfection. As this was coincident with the Spanish troubles, these five holy men were like the old Roman senators who were speculating on the improvement of the land which was still occupied by the Carthaginian armies. Meantime, another storm was sweeping over the Society in France.
When Henry IV entered Paris in triumph, his former enemies, the Sorbonne and the parliament, hastened to pay him homage; but something had to be done to make the public forget their previous attitude in his regard. The usual device was resorted to of denouncing the Jesuits. A complaint was manufactured against the College of Clermont, about the infringement of someone's property rights, and the rector was haled to court to answer the charge. The orator for the plaintiffs was Antoine Arnauld, the father of the famous Antoine and Angélique, who were to be, later on, conspicuous figures in the Jansenist heresy. Absolutely disregarding the point at issue, Arnauld launched out in a fierce diatribe against the Jesuits in general; "those trumpets of war," he called them, "those torches of sedition; those roaring tempests that are perpetually disturbing the calm heavens of France. They are Spaniards, enemies of the state, the authors of all the excesses of the League, whose Bacchanalian and Catalinian orgies were held in the Jesuit college and church. The Society is the workshop of Satan, and is filled with traitors and scoundrels, assassins of kings and public parricides. Who slew Henry III? The Jesuits. Ah, my King!" he cried, "when I contemplate thy bloody shirt, tears flow from my eyes and choke my utterance." And yet every one knew that it was his own clients, the Sorbonne and the parliament, who were the centre of all "the orgies of the League"; that it was they who had glorified the assassin of Henry III as a hero, and made the anniversary of